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  • Death Panels? What’s the intent of the Democratic “health care denial bills?”

    The Truth About Death Counseling – By Charles Krauthammer

    …It’s surely not a death panel. But it is subtle pressure applied by society through your doctor. And when you include it in a health care reform whose major objective is to bend the cost curve downward, you have to be a fool or a knave to deny that it’s intended to gently point you in a certain direction, toward the corner of the sick room where stands a ghostly figure, scythe in hand, offering release.

    The Death Book for Veterans
    Ex-soldiers don’t need to be told they’re a burden to society.

    If President Obama wants to better understand why America’s discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

    Last year, bureaucrats at the VA’s National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, “Your Life, Your Choices.” ….

    Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

    “Your Life, Your Choices” presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political “push poll.” For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be “not worth living.”

    …When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

    …I was not surprised to learn that the VA panel of experts that sought to update “Your Life, Your Choices” between 2007-2008 did not include any representatives of faith groups or disability rights advocates. And as you might guess, only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as “Compassion and Choices”).

    This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. Worse, a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to “Your Life, Your Choices.” Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America’s 24 million veterans deserve better.

    As a footnote, I had an old friend from high school. We would have lunch together, telephoned, and emailed often, sometimes over business but usually about Alabama football and old friends. He had once been very successful, but ran into life’s problems and went from a luxury home to an apartment to being evicted from that, the latter which I just learned. When he ran out of money, he went to our local charity hospital for care. He had health issues from his weight, but primarliy suffered from depression, which I didn’t know, as people can act normally when they have to but will revert to a deep depression later. I wondered what was going on with my friend, as he had gotten bad about returning my calls or answering my emails. His son saw one my latest emails and called to let me know that his father, my friend, recently committed suicide. When people become old or sick and are on the edge, we don’t need the government to push them over with suggestions that they are a burden or have no worth to society.

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