This Just In ...
Kevin Fischer is a veteran broadcaster, the recipient of over 150 major journalism awards from the Milwaukee Press Club, the Wisconsin Associated Press, the Northwest Broadcast News Association, the Wisconsin Bar Association, and others. He has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for over three decades. A longtime aide to state Senate Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature, Kevin can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, "InterCHANGE," on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10, and heard filling in on Newstalk 1130 WISN. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their lovely baby daughter, Kyla Audrey, in Franklin.
Death panels: Sarah Palin was right
THE FOLLOWING MOST ASSUREDLY WILL FRUSTRATE AND ANGER LIBERALS BECAUSE IT DEALS WITH TWO AREAS THEY ARE ILL-EQUIPPED TO HANDLE:
1) THE TRUTH
2) DIRECT QUOTES
August 7, 2009.
Sarah Palin wrote the following:
“As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Oh my!
Sarah Palin uses the term, “death panel” for the first time and is royally shish-kabobbed.
August 12, 2009.
Once again, Sarah Palin, on her Facebook page:
“Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.
The President made light of these concerns. He said:
‘Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.’
The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled ‘Advance Care Planning Consultation.’ With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.
Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often ‘if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program.’ During those consultations, practitioners must explain ‘the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,’ and the government benefits available to pay for such services.
Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is ‘to reduce the growth in health care spending.’ Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care?”
Hmmm. Sounds like the former Alaska governor, unlike most Congressional Democrats, actually read the bill.
Shortly after Obamacare was signed into law and rammed down the collective throat of
"The Advisory Panel which has the ability to make more or less binding judgments on saying this particular expensive treatment actually doesn't do any good medically and so we are not going to pay for it. That is actually going to save quit a lot of money. We don't know how much yet. The CBO gives it very little credit but, but most, most of the health care economists I talk to think that's going be a really, uh a really major cost saving."
Krugman's admission sent the Left into an absolute tizzy trying to explain what Krugman really meant.
Even before President Obama threatened to destroy the foundation of America with government health care, death panels were a reality.
Nancy Valko, a registered nurse from St. Louis, is president of Missouri Nurses for Life and a spokesperson for the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses puts it far more eloquently than this writer. From the latest issue of Voices:
"We now have ethicists and even the mainstream media admitting that the rationing of health care is not only a present reality of health care economics but also a future means to provide basic care for all citizens. Government committees were proposed to set the rules for health-care services."
Valko continues....
"People are often surprised to learn that even back in the late 1960s, we had 'do-not-resuscitate' orders, and spoke to families about forgoing aggressive medical treatment when patients seemed to be on the terminal trajectory to death. But, unlike today, we did not then immediately ask the family members whether we could withdraw food, water, antibiotics, etc., to get the sick person’s death over with as soon as possible. Back then, we were often surprised and humbled when some patients recovered. Today, when doctors and nurses are too quick to give up hope, too many patients don’t even get a chance to recover."
Valko contends that things are different today, that “death panels” are already at work:
“We now have ethics committees developing ‘futility guidelines’ to overrule patients and/or their families even when they want treatment continued.
We have three states with legal assisted suicide and terminal sedation is supported by some ethicists as an already legal option for euthanasia in any state.
We have non-brain-dead organ-donation policies with some ethicists even arguing that we should drop the dead-donor rule.
We are now asked to sign living wills and other advance directives with check-offs to eliminate even basic medical care for conditions such as being unable to regularly recognize relatives.
We are willing to sacrifice living human beings at the earliest stages of development to fund research for cures for conditions like Parkinson’s rather than promote research on ethical and effective adult-stem-cell-therapies.
We are inspired by the Special Olympics, but support abortion for birth defects.
We now talk about a newborn child as yet another carbon footprint instead of as a blessing and sacred responsibility.”
Valko's thoughtful piece is here.
Death panels have been around for some time. Obamacare intends to cement they're around a lot longer.
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