[D]uring President Obama’s AARP town hall, a caller stated that she had “heard lots of rumors going around about this new plan…I have been told there is a policy there that everyone that Medicare age will be visited and told to decide how they wish to die.”And they have a clip of the usual suspects crowing about how, within the Health Care plan, the Government is going to force old people to die:
Guess what? Wonk Room actually looks at the language of the bill and (again guess what?) finds:
The bill aims to provide seniors with information about drafting a living will or the options surround end of life care, information Americans have been asking for. A recent report by ThirdWay found that “although 75% of Americans feel advance directives are a good idea, only 40% of Medicare patients say they have one.” Given the lack of clear information, “many patients sign documents that don’t offer clear instructions. Family members may have conflicting feelings about the care they wish to see a patient receive…For elderly patients, their end-of-life wishes regarding care are often unknown or ignored.” The new optional Medicare service seeks to reverse that trend and help patients make more informed end-of-life decisions.But to the GOP, that means some guv'mint agent is going to be telling Laura Ingraham's 83 year old father how he should be a good citizen and pass on some expensive life-saving procedure.
Just when you think they've reached the bottom of the "shameless" scale, the GOP proves yet again there's no end to their fear mongering.
2 comments:
This is all too like the "It'll be a crime to pay your own doctor" scare, in '93.
(Within that, ultimately doomed legislation, was boilerplate taken from Medicare, that made it illegal for providers to accept payment from patients IF they also took payment from Medicare/Hillarycare or whatever it would have been called.)
This time, there's a provision for a living will. In the wake of Terry Schiavo, we were all advised to have one, and this allows for it. But, of course, any excuse to create hysteria, and "government counselors will be trying to talk you into killing yourself."
Ooh, very good one. I guess the wingnuttery forgot about about the Schiavo mess after it didn't exactly go their way.
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