Palin Wins! Death Panels/End of Life Provision to Go

by Pamela Geller

Finance Committee to drop end-of-life provision heh. Palin power.

The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after it was derided by conservatives as "death panels" to encourage euthanasia.

They are dropping the death panel. But frankly they will drop it back in once the health care rout is passed. It's not enough NO OBAMACARE.

Obama's Ration Man: Rahm's brother Ezekial Emanuel (read the whole thing at Political Evidence)

President Obama’s chief adviser on healthcare is Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. In addition to Dr. Emanuel being a trained oncologist, an NIH Bioethicist and a fellow at the nonprofit bioethics research institute, The Hastings Center, he's also an avowed communitarian who advocates healthcare rationing.In February 2009, he was tapped by the administration to work on the formulation of a national healthcare strategy. Officially, Dr. Emanuel is a special advisor to the director of the White House
Office of Management and Budget for health policy. In February Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he is "working on (the) health care reform effort." He is "detailed" to the OMB spot and is still officially an employee of the NIH.

In Dr. Emanuel’s writings, he overtly advocates the rationing of healthcare based on age. In January 2009, just one month prior to taking his new position at the White House, Dr. Emanuel co-wrote an article entitled, “Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions”, in the British medical journal The Lancet. In this article he advocates a particular healthcare allocation system which he calls the “complete lives system.” He declared in The Lancet article that in healthcare, “scarcity is the mother of allocation." He explains, “This system (complete lives system) incorporates five principles: youngest-first, prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value. As such, it prioritizes younger people who have not yet lived a complete life and will be unlikely to do so without aid.”

In other words, Dr. Emanuel places a higher value on a young adult's life, than he would the life of a senior. He goes further. He flatly declares that “Consideration of the importance of complete lives also supports modifying the youngest-first principle by prioritizing adolescents and young adults over infants.” From his standpoint, society has already made an economic investment in the lives of young adults whereas no significant investment has yet been made in the lives of infants, so therefore it’s only “fair” that resources be allocated toward the young adults and away from the infants. He also applies this standard to those that he deems of “no societal worth” such as people with Down syndrome. Sadly, this mindset is eerily similar to that of German National Socialists (Nazis) for the Nazis rationalized their evil attacks against the disabled and vulnerable of their society by throwing out the false notion of "Das Leben nicht lebenswert" or "the life not worth living." This was coupled with claims that the disabled were a financial burden on society. The propaganda poster below illustrates the point well.

Government Controlled Healthcare, a Hand that Rocks, Cradles to Graves “Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.”- Vladimir Lenin

Sarah Palin: "Concerning the Death Panels"

Following is Governor Palin's expanded statement on FaceBook, concerning "death panels," and why she uses that terminology:

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 (Palin, 2009, ¶1).

The President made light of these concerns. He said: (Palin, 2009, ¶2)

“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” (Palin, 2009, ¶3)[1]

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] 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 (Palin, 2009, ¶4).

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." [3] 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. [4](Palin, 2009, ¶5)

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.” [5] 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? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.... If it’s all about alleviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?” [6] (Palin, 2009, ¶6)

As Lane also points out: (Palin, 2009, ¶7)

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist (Palin, 2009, ¶8).

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic. [7] (Palin, 2009, ¶9)

Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.” [8] (Palin, 2009, ¶10)

So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a “rumor” to be “disposed of”, as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes: (Palin, 2009, ¶11)

Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives.... It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen ... should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign. [9] (Palin, 2009, ¶12)

Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens....An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” [10] Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.” [11] (Palin, 2009, ¶13)

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform (Palin, 2009, ¶14).

[1] See http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/president-obama-addresses-sarah-palin-death-panels-wild-representations.html.
[2] See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
[3] See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1); Sec. 1233 (hhh)(3)(B)(1), above.
[4] See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1)(E), above.
[5] See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
[6] See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html].
[7] Id.
[8] See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002455.html].
[9] See http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/letter-congressman-henry-waxman-re-section-1233-hr-3200.
[10] See http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf
[11] See http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions.

Commentary

The observation to be made here is that Governor Palin once again, cites, references and backs up her statements with facts and evidence. She didn't just pull her thoughts out of thin air....or off a teleprompter.

Unlike Obama, she read the different variants of this bill. She knows what is in it.

Her use of the term "death panels" and thesis that this plan is evil is well-researched and based on documented evidence presented by numerous sources on both sides of the issue.

Those who continue to doubt the veracity of her statements on health care simply have not done any research on the subject matter.

References

Palin, S.L.H. (2009, August 12). "Concerning the Death Panels." FaceBook, Sarah Palin. Retrieved August 13, 2009 from: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=24718773587&__a=1

Like Shootin’ Moose In A Barrel, Sarah Palin Slaps Barack Obama Down Again Over Death Panels

Can you imagine being Barack Obama these days?

I mean here you are only seven and a half months into your one and only term as president and your whole world is crashing down around you. Your signature issue, turning America into some sort of communist utopia, by usurping the constitution through your "health care" plan, is circling the drain.

You have angry Americans who have never been politically active in their lives fired up against you and the rest of your party. You will basically go down in history as the person who destroyed the democrat party. An epic failure.

And then there is this woman who your minions have been trying to destroy for almost a year who has your number, big time!

First she let you and the party have just enough rope and then calmly wrote two words on her Facebook page, "death panels."

Then she just kicked backed and watched you, the democrats, the RINOs, the media, and well, everybody, go nuts trying to get out of this mess.

Now normal people understand that there won’t literally be death panels.

They also understand, however, that between the various medical boards who will decide what sort of standards and practices will be used, and what procedures will be appropriate for each group, combined with the bean counters, there will be defacto "death panels."

Every nation that has socialized medicine rations health care. That’s indisputable fact.

But you, Barack Obama, along with your party had to take the bait didn’t you!

Instead of regrouping, you’ve sent Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of the bunch out to call American citizens a "mob" and "Nazis," which is hilarious, because Nazis were socialists, kinda like modern day democrats!

You even sent out the union thugs from SEIU to attack unarmed dissenters!

But while you were doing all of this, those two little words from Sarah Palin, were turning the debate on it’s ear! Regular folks were hearing "death panels" and going to see what that was all about. They actually started reading the House bill H.R. 3200, all 1017 pages of it, for themselves.

That really got ‘em fired up!

But Mr Obama, you couldn’t let well enough alone. Since you obviously are allergic to the air in Washington, or think you are still campaigning for office, you went running off to Portsmouth, NH for a totally spontaneous and completely unrehearsed "townhall meeting."

Group photo of participants at Portsmouth, NH townhall event:

Sarah, is in your head for sure and it shows!

Since TOTUS tried to commit suicide on you a few weeks back, you have not been at your best. No one to keep you from saying really stupid stuff like when you told the totally neutral and unbiased Portsmouth crowd that AARP was on board with your devious plans.

AARP was pretty quick to come out and say "not really pal!"

But this was classic! Here you are trying to sell the country on your communist boondoggle:

"UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems"

___Barack Obama

I’m sure plenty of beverages were spewed all over America when they heard that one!

The very best though was when you took a swing and a miss at the ball Palin pitched to you. You actually had to bring up the death panels again! You ever think at some point people might just forget the bad stuff if you quit bringing it up?

You really are making this too easy!

At this point Sarah is just playing with you. I mean it’s like having a cat and a string.

Barack Obama and democrat party "leaders" pictured below:

So from her lakeside home in beautiful Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah has sent you a message via her Facebook page:

Concerning the "Death Panels"

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."

__Barack Obama

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? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 "addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.... If it’s all about alleviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to "bend the curve" on health-care costs?"

As Lane also points out:

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite "purely voluntary," as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, "purely voluntary" means "not unless the patient requests one." Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit "formulation" of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would "place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign," I don’t think he’s being realistic.

Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described "true believer" who "will almost certainly support" "whatever reform package finally emerges", agrees that "If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending."

So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a "rumor" to be "disposed of", as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes:

Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives.... It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen ... should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign.

Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens....An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia." Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which "produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated."

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.

Now Mr Obama, Barack, I know being a community organizer must give you a lot of insight or something cool like that, but while you were running around the country campaigning for president on the taxpayers dime, after abandoning your Senate seat, Sarah Palin was actually dealing with a health care crisis in Alaska! Thanks to the federal government, it’s rules, and regulations the poor and elderly had long waits and poor health care.

You see, elderly Medicaid patients were facing those "mythical" death panels daily. Thanks to Palin’s efforts she was able to reduce the Medicaid backlog by 83 % in just two years. An incredible feat.

So Barack Obama, democrats, media, whoever, please keep on quoting Sarah Palin. Keep talking about her. Heck, even make fun of her!

All of you are just pawns on her chess board!

Sarah Palin has your number and it’s going to be a really long 3 years!

Sarah Palin Reduced Medicaid Backlog 83% In Two Years. Saved Senior Citizens From The Horrors Of Government Run Health Care

Fresh off of taking the health care debate to a whole new level, and exposing the immorality of it all, Sarah Palin has released some very interesting statistics that prove her bonafides on health care issues.

Released through her Facebook page, Palin lays out how she fought the Alaska Legislature to make sure senior citizens didn’t have to wait for quality health care.

Now obviously this shows that Sarah is someone who gets things done. Someone who actually serves the people. But more importantly, this proves what Sarah and all of those who oppose Obama’s attempt to forcibly destroy the best health care in the world have been saying.

What could be a better predictor of how things would end up with the government running health care?

Yes, there will be health care rationing, that’s what was going on in Alaska until Sarah stepped in. Unfortunately, under Obamacare, there will be no one to intervene on behalf of America’s senior citizens.

You know, this sort of thing is exactly what Sarah was talking about when she used the words "death panels."

Now of course, the media, the democrat/communists and our RINO friends all blew a gasket over that comment and ran around trying to deal with it. Even Obama was compelled to clumsily try and refute it in his Portsmouth, NH faux townhall event.

These Ivy League brainiacs couldn’t understand what all of us uneducated rubes know instinctively. Now will there LITERALLY be "death panels," a group of people that an individual will have to stand before and be judged?

Of course not.

These government types aren’t brave enough to face people in person. But there will be a group of "medical advisors" who will make up a board that determines who is eligible, as a group, for certain health care procedures. This group will look at cold hard data, not warm human beings as they decide.

The other problem is money. America is already broke. We owe more money now than we can ever pay back. As this actually starts effecting the government’s ability to function, there will be rationing and long waits for service. It’s inevitable.

Every nation that has socialized medicine rations care. People die quite often waiting for doctors to treat major illnesses. There are plenty of stories of people in nations with socialized care who die of cancer that could have been successfully treated had they gotten early care and diagnosis.

All of these things, and more are what Sarah was talking about when she spoke of the metaphoric "death panels." These panels are the ones who set up the standards and practices as well as the bean counters who have to stick to a budget.

But enough of that, let’s look at the release from Sarah Palin"s office:

"Contrary to some assertions, Sarah Palin has a strong record supporting Alaskan seniors. For example, Governor Palin successfully obtained approval for a five year extension of a state program that provided monthly cash payments to low-income seniors.

On May 23, 2007, using a rarely invoked emergency regulation, Governor Palin ordered assistance benefits to continue for Alaska’s neediest seniors after the Alaska legislature failed to fund the SeniorCare Program. After her action, the legislature responded, and on July 28, 2007, Governor Palin signed Senate Bill 4 to continue support for low-income Alaskan seniors by adopting the Senior Benefits Program. "This program continues important assistance to Alaska seniors," Governor Palin said. "I promised that seniors would not go hungry, and we worked with the Alaska Legislature to address this critical need." It was estimated that 10,700 Alaskan seniors would be able to benefit under the program.

Also under Governor Palin’s tenure, on December 19, 2008, the state stepped in and took over the Mary Conrad Center, an Anchorage nursing home, when the state determined that there was "'immediate danger to the health, safety or welfare' of its residents."

So, with this clear record of support and care for Alaska’s seniors by Governor Palin, what is the current criticism about? According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, prior to Governor Palin’s election in November 2006, in April of 2006, in an effort to control rapidly increasing costs for home health care providers, known as the PCA program, Governor Frank Murkowski’s administration implemented a screening process for Alaska Medicaid eligible persons by using a Level of Care assessment (LOC). The LOC assessment was designed for persons who would otherwise require hospitalization or nursing home care and was intended to help weed out fraud and abuse.

By definition, many of these people were ill, elderly or disabled and thus in need of personal care attendants to assist them. Only registered nurse assessors were allowed to evaluate consumers to determine if they qualified for PCA care. The job of assessing consumers was contracted out, but the State of Alaska DHHS determined that the hired contractor had too much backlog. Notably, under federal Medicaid strictures, the State could not get another private business to bid on the contract. So the State was forced to take over the job in November 2007. However, the State DHHS was unable to eliminate the backlog using its own staff, and the backlog then grew. The Federal DHHS temporarily suspended new admissions to the PCA program pending audit compliance to handle the backlog of existing cases and come up with a plan to speed the assessment process. The suspension has been lifted as of August 12.

Further, Gov. Palin’s FY 2009 budget clearly showed her analysis of the issue as of December 2007, and described both the problem and the solution long before the federal government got involved. The backlog issue was discussed and a plan proposed for improvement.

The graph below shows that under Gov. Palin (2007 and 2008) the backlog problem was dramatically reduced, from 30.9% in 2005 to 4.5% in 2008. Looking at these data, one can conclude that Gov. Palin substantially reduced the outstanding percentage of Medicaid assessments by 83%.

% Not Reviewed

FY 2008 4.5%

FY 2007 4.5%

FY 2006 23.18%

FY 2005 30.9%

What is the lesson in all of this? Even with good intentions, the government generally cannot provide better health care services than the private sector. Beware of complex federal laws purporting to offer government health care. For those who want nationalized medicine, take heed of this lesson."

More information can be found here.

Time and time again Sarah Palin proves that she has the leadership qualities America is looking for. While the NYC/D.C. Beltway "educated elites" are stuck in a quagmire of mediocrity and confusion, Sarah has already been there, done that, and got the t-shirt from it!

Sarah’s experience with government run health care, and it’s dangerous and disastrous effects on human beings, should serve as a major warning to all. You do not want the government to have anything to do with how you basic needs to quality health care are met. Might as well commit suicide and get it over with.

It still amazes me how the Republican party is tackling this issue. Now granted, there are some sharp folks working behind the scenes crafting real reform, but they aren’t getting themselves heard. For the most part though the message from the Republicans to the democrat/communists is a hearty "slow down."

Sarah Palin’s message to the democrat/communists is "Not no, but HELL no!"