Before I begin my article, I must confess I fear that by writing about it, I am only making matters worse. Nevertheless, this idea, or rather, blatant lie, has steadily been growing and is now finding its way as an argument both by mainstream media and now even our own legislators. This article is a little long, but I promise you, well worth the read.
What am I talking about? A huge conspiracy. A plot so dangerous, I am even scared to talk about it. And who’s behind it? Obama and the government of course. All found in section 1233 of the health care reform bill. Sarah Palin enlightened me to the conspiracy the best way on her Facebook the other day when she wrote, “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.”
Wow. That’s really all I could think to such a statement when I read it. Sarah’s right. I don’t want that for America. That is evil. And then Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, said in a recent interview, “You are asking us to trust the government. Now, I’m not talking about the Obama administration but about the government. You’re asking us to decide that we believe that the government is to be trusted. We know people have said routinely, ‘well, we are going to have make decisions, you have to decide.’ Communal standards, historically, is a very dangerous concept…You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government when there clearly are people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.”
Rush Limbaugh added on his radio show that “People at a certain age with certain diseases will be deemed not worth the investment, and they will-just as Obama said-… give them some pain pills and let them loop out until they die and they don’t even know what’s happened.”
So what are they saying? That in section 1233 of this proposed health care reform bill there exists legislation which will establish euthanasia!? That we will be given drugs when we are in the hospital until we are murdered under the guise of “trust”? That children with Down Syndrome will be judged based on productivity?
Although it angers me to see people in town hall meetings yelling about death squads and communism and all kind of conspiracy jibber jabber nonsense, I really can’t blame them (besides on their laziness and unwillingness to just do some simple reading and research). Lots of these people at town hall meetings are honest Americans who are good people who in general trust their leaders (some, of course, are just hopeless wackos). And now their leaders, like Palin, Limbaugh and Gingrich, are saying over and over that this legislation equals euthanasia.
So can you blame them? It is a perfect feedback loop. First, cause fear in your constituency, then watch as your constituency reacts to fear at town hall meetings, then say you are not telling your constituents to go and disrupt meetings, your constituents are just scared of the “scary sections” in the health care bill. It is great politics, really. It saddens me to watch though, because it says a lot about the level of intelligence of our constituency as a whole.
The beautiful thing about all of this is not even Palin, Limbaugh or Gingrich believe what they are saying about these “death panels.” And I’m glad they really don’t. Because believing in quack conspiracy theories such as those would call serious questions to their intelligence. Let me prove it to you.
First, although Mr. Gingrich, has been relentless in his “death panel” efforts, just earlier this summer he was all for it, approving precisely the identical type of end-of-life counseling plan in The Washington Post. On July 2, he said, “More than 20 percent of all Medicare spending occurs in the last two months of life. Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has developed a successful end-of-life best practice that includes community-wide advance care planning, where 90 percent of patients have advance directives.”
He explained further, saying, “The Gundersen approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care. Gundersen delivers at a 30 percent lower rate than the national average. If Gundersen’s approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.”
So, Newt Gingrich not only states advanced directives/living wills are a wonderful thing for patients and their families to manage and organize care, he presumes that everyone on Medicare should get them as well. And he’s right. Saving billions through such a simple system is a good idea. I wish I had thought of that. And you know what else? That’s precisely what was planned in the House health reform bill which Gingrich then condemned as a “conspiracy” that euthanizes the elderly.
Then there’s Limbaugh. You can listen to his ads in which he states that “August is National Make a Will Month. Visit NationalWillMonth.com or better yet, set aside 10 minutes, go to LegalZoom.com and get started. Do it for yourself, do it for your family, take control. Now, LegalZoom is not a law firm, it was started by top attorneys to provide self-help services at your specific direction. LegalZoom.com. That’s LegalZoom.com.” So, either he doesn’t actually believe that health care reform and living wills are a “conspiracy” to euthanize old people, or he does accept it as true, but for a couple dollars in commission and advertising costs, he will tell to you to check it out because it’s something you should do for yourself and your family. I really hope to all that is holy that it is the first and not the latter.
But here is the trump card my friends. Straight to you from the Office of the Alaska Governor: “Whereas, Healthcare Decision Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decision, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directive to communicate these important healthcare decisions.
Whereas, one of the principle goals of Healthcare Decisions Days is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.
Now, therefore, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 16, 2008 as Healthcare Decision Day in Alaska.”
So, Palin, our savior against the forces of tyranny and euthanasia, made one day in the calendar year in Alaska a vehicle for awareness about advanced directives? But now she is saying this same concept of advanced directives/living wills is the same one that will euthanize our elderly and subject ourselves to “productivity” judgments? I’m sorry, Mrs. Palin, but you have some serious explaining to do.
What astounds me is that many of these now opponents also voted for the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Bill. That bill in part provided funding for end-of-life counseling. The bill provided “Counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.” Or I guess as they are beginning to be called now, “death panels.”
In total, 204 Republicans in the House and 42 Republicans in the Senate voted for the “death panels.” And there was not a chirp about then-President Bush conspiring to euthanize old people.
To be fair, the 2003 bill applied to terminally ill patients, including those in hospices, whereas the 2009 bill applies to Medicare recipients – that is, everyone over 65. This means the proposed bill would affect many more Americans than the 2003 one did – many of them healthy seniors. The time for discussing these issues would potentially occur years before someone fell seriously ill. So although that could be an arguable point in terms of cost because of increased numbers of seniors affected, it could more easily be argued that the costs saved from allowing everyone in Medicare the option of an advanced directive would be far greater.
Additionally, the author of this current section is none other than a Republican Senator from Georgia, Johnny Isakson. He is completely dumbfounded as to how his proposed amendment became a question of euthanasia. When recently interviewed in the Washington Post he stated, “Sarah Palin’s Web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up.”
The plain and simple fact is that this is originally a Republican idea. And it kills me to write that statement. By classifying it as Republican or Democratic, I am just another vehicle of division in this country. So really, the plain and simple fact is that this is originally a good idea. A living will allows someone to say in writing how they want the end of their life to be handled. So that no one can argue, “He or she didn’t want that!” If you want to fight until the bitter end with any and all means possible, then great, you would have an opportunity to state it in writing.
If you on the other hand, after a consultation with your physician, weighed the risks of resuscitation, or for whatever reason decided that being kept alive under difficult circumstances was not your will, then you could also do that. All of this provision would have done is offered to pay or help pay those in Medicare for the consultation.
And here is the most troubling and tragic part about all of this: The provision in the bill which these flip flopping nutcases (or political geniuses) were using to prove their “killing the elderly conspiracy” has been removed from the bill. Yet, we continue to hear representatives and senators talk about this crazy notion of senior citizen euthanasia and use it as a “solid” argument against the bill!
But hey, maybe I just haven’t been seeing the whole picture. Don’t you see? It is section 1233. One times two is two. And two times three is six. And six times three is eighteen. And don’t you see what that is!? Six plus six plus six. 18. 6-6-6! The mark of the beast! God help us all!
Or, alternatively, don’t you see!? A republican put the legislation in there under orders from other republicans because it was planned all along that they would use this section as the foundation to destroy any kind of healthcare reform 6- 6-6!
In all seriousness, what we are seeing and hearing about isn’t a healthcare reform debate. It is politics – politics without accountability, in its purest and factless form. I, for one, am tired of it. What I am proud of is our Mississippi senators and representatives. They have been posing honest questions to the reform legislation, and encouraging bipartisanship instead of employing scare tactics that now seem to be so popular in the media. Roger Wicker, one of our senators, recently wrote: “Congress is in the midst of a vigorous health care discussion covering a wide range of ideas. Our country needs health care reform, but it is important that any legislation approved have broad bipartisan support.”
He continued, saying, “Our country desperately needs health care reform, but we cannot afford to get it wrong. Instead, we must work together to develop a plan that will preserve what works and fix what is broken. Congress has a unique opportunity to strengthen our health care system for every American, and I hope we take advantage of this chance to enact reforms that provide true benefits for every Mississippian.”
And right he is, for according to the Census Bureau’s March 2007 and 2008 Current Population Survey, about 25 percent of Mississippians age 19-64 are without health care insurance. Further, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 21 percent of Mississippi Medicare beneficiaries discharged from the hospital were re-admitted within 30 days. Considering the billions spent annually on potentially preventable hospital readmissions, reform legislation allowing for follow-up benefits for Medicare beneficiaries would save billions and improve patient discharge results.
The list of potential health care reforms that would have great positive impact in Mississippi goes on and on. What is going on in Washington will affect us in Mississippi. We are one of the poorest states in the Union and have the lowest life expectancy. I challenge you to ask honest questions, ones that will shape this reform debate into one in which if a bill is finally passed, it can hopefully have positive effect on the status of our health in this country. Don’t propagate needless fear with foolish arguments and assertions and become the pawn and instrument of those interested in the status quo. Everyone agrees here are things that need to be reformed, and if we don’t let ourselves fall prey to foolishness, then our leaders on both parties will refrain from saying outlandish things in order to retain support.
Let’s be an intelligent constituency demanding accountability and facts. Let’s not let our politicians get away with scare tactics on both sides of the aisle. I for one find it insulting. If we start calling their bull for what it is, then we can start focusing on the real questions, and they will be forced to answer the real answers.
Julio Cespedes is a senior
majoring in biological engineering.
He can be contacted at
[email protected].