Obamacare's End of Life Counselling: False Friends

[jordan179]

The cruellest aspect of the "end of life" counselling is that it will be most effective (read: "will be most likely to result in suicide") when directed against the loneliest and least fortunate old people. This is because the counsellors will assume greater relative emotional importance in the lives of the victims.

In other words, Obama wants to

Comments

[brownkitty]

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.

SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNN!

[unixronin]

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

[pathia]

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

[chris_gerrib]

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.

[headnoises]

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).

[heathen_wolf]

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.

[opalescence]

And that opinion is downright scary.

[heathen_wolf]

I can see why you would think that, but tell me why you do instead of allowing me to assume.

[irked_indeed]

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?