I think counseling at that point, TO STRENGTHEN AN ALREADY-MADE DECISION, may be appropriate. But it doesn't sound as if that's what you're talking about, and I'd like a link to what you are talking about if you have one.

I don't think suicide, in certain cases, is a wrong or evil thing. I do think that it's not a light decision, nor one that belongs to anyone else.

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The more I see of the machinations of this administration, the more I despise it.

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This is already in medicare. Hospice care is not covered by most insurance policies.

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Except Obama wants nothing of the sort. The proposal merely covers consultations to develop a living will if the senior wants one. Moreover, it's not even Obama's idea - a Republican Senator from Georgia, Johnny Isakson, put it in the bill.

Isakson explains the provision here.

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The end of life counseling section is established in section 1233, which Compassion and Choices-- formerly the Hemlock Society-- is claiming credit for.

Compassion & Choices has worked tirelessly with supportive members of congress to include in proposed reform legislation a provision requiring Medicare to cover patient consultation with their doctors about end-of-life choice (section 1233 of House Bill 3200).

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People hire nurses and care-givers to pretend to friends to their elders -- you've heard of nursing homes? Hospice care?

Suicide should be a viable end-of-life choice for every American adult. Spiritually I do not always agree that it is the right or correct choice, however it should still be a choice. I would much rather that choice be available to the incurably ill, or the incapacitated...people who are little more then vegetables sitting in a chair. Why should we force these people to remain caged in their bodies? Its not a fair thing at all.

That and the sudden drop in the human population...well, it sounds like a benefit to me.

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And that opinion is downright scary.

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It is a fundamental misunderstanding of the human condition to suggest that mere illness or incapacitation is enough to reduce people to "little more than vegetables."

Pre-penicillin, lots of things were "incurable." Did the people who had them stop being vegetables once medical science advanced?

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people who are little more then vegetables sitting in a chair.

I take great issue at people being called vegetables. Humans are humans. Vegetables are vegetables. Very big difference.

If not, then hey, let's round up all such persons and shoot them right now. After all, they're just taking up space and resources, right?

What a frightful view of life. Human life does not become more or less valuable depending on whether one can move or communicate. Human life is valuable because it's human. And because regardless of whether someone is old or sick or debilitated in some way, someone loves them. They are a parent or grandparent or spouse or child or friend.

Even if they don't have anyone to love them, they are still valuable human beings. You don't just toss them out like a piece of trash just because they do not conform to someone else's standards for what constitutes a life worth saving versus one to be thrown away. Those people are the most vulnerable of all, because they have no one to fight on their behalf.

And that's why those of us who oppose this so-called health care bill are opposing it - to fight for people just like this, against attitudes just like this.

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I can't yet go that far, but the plan appears to allow that as a possibility. We must be wary. (Well, hell, I don't want this monstrosity to pass anyway.)

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A living will is not suicide. It's allowing your loved one to place a "do not recusitate" order on a man bedridden with bone cancer (my great-uncle) or not to put a feeding tube into a man who hasn't spoken for 3 years (my grandfather) when he quits eating.

By the way, a living will is an option, not required of anybody by this will.

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It's hard to imagine anything more vile?

What about MAKING IT ILLEGAL for people to choose when they want to end their life?

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Because we've got cops stationed in every old guy's house, watching to make SURE they don't down a pint of scotch and walk out in a snow-storm.

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There are women out there who already do this, or similar-- they come into an older person's life, become utterly indespensible, and a year or so later the old person dies... and either the house has been stripped or the will now reads that the scavenger gets it all.

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Ugh, how horrible! I don't know how such people live with themselves! How sad that people can sear their consciences to such an extent that behavior that would sicken most people doesn't even cause a twinge of guilt or shame.

::sigh::

But I think that's something else that should be kept in mind. Whenever there is a possibility of abuse, people will do so.

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I wonder what sort of things in human guise would volunteer for the role of "counsellors" in such a system?

Good Little Party Members oozing Concern(TM) & Compassion(TM), of course.

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You might find this site useful, if depressing.

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It's hard to imagine anything more vile.

Dude, you have advocated nuking cities full of innocent civilians just because their (non-democratically-elected) leaders are political enemies of the US and/or Israel.

That is way more vile.

I suspect you're against this because it suits your own political ends rather than out of concern for the elderly, since you have shown little humanity on many occasions in your posts and comments in my journal (particularly towards the Palestinian and Iranian people).

In fact, I'd say this argument is pure ad misericordiam.

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You and I don't agree on much, but you're onto something here: if we hold life to be sacred, or of inherent value, then we must also hold the lives of our opponents, and even our enemies, to be of inherent value. If we don't, well, then, to heck with old people.

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That is quite overly simplistic. The views about Palestinians and Iranians are based on the fact that they threaten us and/or our allies and are simply uninterested in resolving conflicts peacefully. They only want to destroy their enemies and guess what: We Are Their Enemies, so either we strike first or they strike.

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Way to come out of nowhere with a statement that not only has nothing whatsoever to do with the post or even the topic in general, but is meant only to be insulting - to a point where if this was my journal and you'd said something that outrageous to me, I'd ban you. Wow.

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I know that I don't want to end up intubated for 15 years like Terri Schiavo. If I'm brain-dead, I would not want to be resuscitated or have my life prolonged at that point. Yuck.

I also do not wish to have invasive and expensive medical procedures if I'm terminally ill. I would rather be allowed to die than have some hospital suck out my family's life savings and leave them penniless.

That reminds me - I need to get a living will.

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What if you can still respond to (and, presumably, enjoy) the presence of your family and friends, like Terri Schiavo?

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Although I am a supporter of the "Right to Die" concept, since it's an option I very much want to have open to me later in life, I do not at all cotton to people being coerced, or otherwise talked, into it if it wasn't their own idea.

And, quite frankly, that's exactly what that sounded like would be the case when I first heard about the concept of "End-of-Life Counseling".

"So, Mr. Abernathy: you're 84 with early onset lymphoma and no children, whose applying for treatment and prolonged care. Tell me; what exactly do you have to live for anyway? Why don't you just take some time to think about it and get back to us?"

Admittedly, it would probably have to be a part of any national health care plan. After all: every government agency has a department dedicated to "cutting costs". Since the government will ultimately be paying for end-of-life care, they'll want to pay the least amount possible (like with everything else). The coma ward version of the "lowest bidder", if you will.

If you want to be kept alive on a machine for a couple decades; slowly robbing your children of any inheritance they might have otherwise gotten: it's your life, that's your call. It shouldn't be the government's.

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Except the provision in the bill does not coerce anybody into anything. It merely says Medicare will cover end-of-life counseling if you want it.

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"It's hard to imagine anything more vile."

Except Auschwitz. This seems kinda similar: Obama is Hitler and old people are the Jews. Downright chilling to those of us who still have a conscience; for this administration, just another day.

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Jordan,

I recently read Section 1233 and opined about it here. I don't think it says what you think it says. The counseling mentioned deals with a care provider informing the patient of available resources for obtaining the proper forms and getting them filled out. The advisory panels have to do with the forms themselves and making them available. No 'thumbs up' or thumbs down' on treatment.

A heads-up only.

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I believe what people are generally speaking of with the advisory panels are separate from the advanced directive outlined in 1233.

Anytime you've got a gov't agency, they're going to HAVE to have a panel that says aye-or-nay on if they'll pay for treatments. When Gov't is the only route around, a nay is death.

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