Undercover threat to seniors

And people with serious illnesses.

Looming dangers to the health and even life of many American citizens, dangers hidden in the thousands of pages of proposed health care mandates, have been coming to light in the past two weeks. Some deny the threat is there, say for health care rationing for the elderly and most vulnerable patients. But they’re politically motivated.

There’s no denying it’s in there as currently written. Some call it a ‘euthanasia mandate.’

In an April 28 New York Times interview, the president spoke of having government guide a “very difficult democratic conversation” about “those toward the end of their lives [who] are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.” Those statements sounded a little creepy to us. Deciding who gets denied care at the end of life should not be dependent on government cost controls.

(This was predicted and exposed months ago.)

Presidential health care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and chairman of the Department of Bioethics at the Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, has argued that independent government boards should decide policy on end-of-life care. He also has defended rationing care more strictly for older people because “allocation [of medical care] by age is not invidious discrimination.”

It is in that light that House Republicans warn against draft Section 1233 of the House Democratic health care bill as an area of deep concern. It provides for seniors, every five years, to be provided “advance care planning consultation” for “end-of-life services.” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan warn that the provision “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.”

If that fear sounds far-fetched, consider that similar things already are happening in several states.

Like Oregon, where the warning was sounded before the last election that the physician assisted suicide measure on the ballot was euthanasia dressed up. The tragic case of Barbara Wagner mentioned in this article is not only not isolated, it’s a prime example of what’s likely to come.

Barbara Ann Wagner was refused insurance coverage for the drugs that her doctor recommended to help treat her cancer. Instead she was sent a letter from her insurance company that offered to pay for a lethal dose of “medication.”

After Wagner’s story went public, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the potentially helpful drugs stepped forward and offered the treatment for free. Tragically, Wagner passed away from cancer on October 18, but, as the anti-euthanasia ad says, left a “final message.”

“They will pay to kill me but they will not give me the medication to try to stop the growth of the cancer,” says a tearful Wagner in the ad, who then urges: “People of Washington, don’t vote this (I-1000) in.”

They did, and as the Washington Times piece notes, cases like hers are becoming more commonplace.

As Jeff Emanuel noted in a post at the Red State blog, Oregon’s plan expressly does not cover “medical equipment or supplies which will not benefit the patient for a reasonable length of time.”

And “reasonableness”, as the Times states, is not determined by doctors. It’s determined by state bureaucrats. Expand that to federal bureaucrats on a federal health board making these determinations for citizens of all the states, and you don’t have to imagine where ObamaCare….as currently planned…will take and leave us.