Will Democratic Health Care Bill Encourage Senior Citizens to Die?
The Truth-O-Meter at Politifact.com has taken on claims from Republicans and conservatives such as Betsy McCaughey, Fred Thompson and Rush Limbaugh that under the Democratic health bill, Medicare recipients would be encouraged to die.
McCaughey said such encouragement would include teaching the elderly to "decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care ... all to do what's in society's best interest ... and cut your life short."
The bill allots Medicare patients one end-of-life counseling session every five years, covering topics like how to write a living will, but it's not mandatory and doesn't encourage people to die. AARP's Jim Dau says McCaughey is wrong and "cruel."
For our ruling on this one, there's really no gray area here. McCaughey incorrectly states that the bill would require Medicare patients to have these counseling sessions and she is suggesting that the government is somehow trying to interfere with a very personal decision. And her claim that the sessions would "tell [seniors] how to end their life sooner" is an outright distortion. Rather, the sessions are an option for elderly patients who want to learn more about living wills, health care proxies and other forms of end-of-life planning. McCaughey isn't just wrong, she's spreading a ridiculous falsehood. That's a Pants on Fire.
Keeping old people alive at exorbitant costs is a great business. Senior citizens often can not simply decide to stop paying for their medication or they will die. Private business has older people by the proverbial balls. Of course they dislike any sort of nationalization of health care -- they dislike the current government programs, too. Why? Because they can't force the government to pay more than the government is willing to pay. They'd have to either drop their insane prices or go bankrupt.
LMAO... than why do 49 "socialist" (lol) countries have a longer life expectency than the US's "superior" private healthcare system?
and btw they can still keep whatever private insurance they have anways so your point isn't even valid...
the point is people that dont have cover will after the reform... IE, if anything the average life expectency will be higher not lower as your reply would imply by them going to be being refused healthcare if this reform goes through, which is absurd... ask anyone in a country than has such a system.
bottom line is the healthcare system in the US is already failing tens of millions of americans and that increasing by thousands constantly, reform is needed, and was needed even decades ago... even FDR and carter tried to do this and was shot down by the AMA, even before clinton or obama tried it.
Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system. 1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher. 2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher. 3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them. 4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:
Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent). Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians. More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent). Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent). 5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.” 6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment. 7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.” 8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent). 9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain. 10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the p
In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States. Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries
Given we do have some problems here w/pre existing conditions and such and the family who goes bankrupt because of the 9 yr old w/lukiemia our healthcare is the best in the world. I listed the facts.
Everything the government touches get poison and raped for funds why will this plan be any different?
I just talked to my neighbor about heatlhcare today he said he dont have the money for it but sitting on his wall right now is a 72 inch plasma tv w/full surround sound and blu ray and 2 months ago he just bought a 50,000 dollar boat but he cant afford healthcare for his family. Give me a break why does he deserve to have healthcare from the taxpayer or small business.
face it, when a billis written is always has items that can be taken two ways at least. given government track records, you can bet it will be used the good way for a while then will be turned around to the benifit of those in power. google agenda 21. then be afrais, very afraid.
Thanks for helping out on an argument that I was going to make. We should not emulate those countries mentioned in your list; we should copy France -- the country with the best health care system in the world.
Well, I promise you my dad isn't spending up all his disability check on luxuries and claiming that he can't afford his $265 inhaler, which is a month's supply of medicine. No, he turns to me and my brother for help, since that's nearly a third of his disability check. And my brother puts off doing anything about his hernia to help out our dad, since he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and could stop breathing without that inhaler.
Why don't you talk about people like them? Because you want to keep reforms that would *help* them from happening, as though the corporations that are feeding Republicans and conservatives these talking points are going to reward you?
FIrst let me say sorry to here about your dad and brother.
I am also one of those people who can't afford my medicine for epilipsy a 3 month supply is 1500 bucks luckily my mom has been lucky enough to get me on a plan through her income that gets me my medicine for free. My knee needs surgery but I dont have the insurance or the money for that either.
So I know what thats like to an extent but I would rather suffer than have my neighbor have to pay for my surgery or my medicine I just dont think its the American way thats my opinion of course.
Somdething needs to be done though I'm just not sure what but I dont think this plan is the answer
AGENDA 21 is the PLAN of the United Nations to Depopulate and take control of almost all of the lands of the world for 'RE-WILDING', that is turning land back into what it was BEFORE man came along. It's Uber Rich Environmentalists and Conservationists that want the majority of the planet for their personal Playground. I have two links for you to learn more about Agenda 21: http://www.liveleak.com/ Here is a Interactive Mapping System that was just created and released in April of 2009 this year: http://gapanalysis.nbii.gov/ Now, "no man, not even native ones" will be allowed to live in the "protected areas". So just check out how very little land there will be for the "human resettlements" into the "sustainable developments" a.k.a., COMMUNES. Not nice apartment or condo style Communes, no! Yucky ECO-TOILET with STRAW in them, type living. Very crowded and cramped with a minimum of 8 people per living unit, in these very narrow and tight living areas. You will be Re-Located. And, what's the FIRST ORDER of AGENDA 21? DEPOPULATION! See what Obama has planned for the very, very young and the Elderly! His Health Care Reform Bill will DO AWAY WITH MEDICARE. There won't be any Medicare anymore. There will be a denial of services to your Grama and Grampa, and they will be required to take "dying with dignity" classes. They will be "offered" nicer care IF they sign their DEED of their property over to the good ole' Government! And, there was a mild mannered Black African American man Attacked and kicked, punched and stomped in St.Louis Missouri just the other evening. Some SEIU Union (hired) Thugs saw Mr. Kenneth Gladney, age 38, quietly standing at a Townhall Meeting handing out "Don't Tread On Me" little yellow flags, and they jumped him. Knocked his eyeglasses off, so he could not see anything and messed him up badly enough for him to spend the night in the hospital and he's still in a wheelchair. Some very revealing photos at: http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/ I was reading an online newspaper last week, The Willamette Weekly and on the right hand side of the screen I saw this Ad for a JOB. Here's what that Job Ad said: JOB: (503) 244-1004 BE A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER! HEALTH CARE REFORM NOW! INSPIRE SOCIAL 'CHANGE'! FIGHT FOR WORKING FAMILIES! EARN $11 PER HOUR! FULL BENEFITS! RAPID ADVANCEMENT! Paid For by: WORKING AMERICAN COMMNITY AFFILIATE of the AFL-CIO! Paid THUGGERY. Here's another link of interest: http://blog.aflcio.org/ CIVILITY??? That's NOT what happened to Mr. Kenneth Gladney! Here's a listing of ALL the Townhalls: http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/ The AFL-CIO wants everyone to go to all the Townhalls to Thug On all those elderly folks and mild mannered folk like Mr.Kenneth Gladney There's PLENTY of validating You Tube Videos of Mr.Gladney being beaten. Anyone that watches that video and say's that these are all GOP paid Republicans is DIM indeed
asks them what their wishes are. Personally I don't want to be another Terri Schiavo.
If I become brain dead I want to be allowed to pass on naturally rather than be artificially forced to continue. Others feel differently, this asks them what they want.
It's completely at any Senior Center, so I don't understand why you need an enormous Government Bueraucracy to write up a Living Will or Trust? I know hundreds of people where I live that live on nothing but SSI & SSP, that's Supplemental Security Income & in California an added Cash check of SSP, State Supplemental Payments, they also get free MediCAL, if over 65 they also get MediCARE, and they get completely FREE Legal aid, Senior Advocacy! You can look in the front of any phone directory and there is a list of such services. Completely FREE...So, don't wait, go and have a Living Will and/or Trust or Both made right away. What needs to be done is getting rid of the Waste, Abuse, Misuse of what we already have now, not create even more of a mess. And, SSI & SSP pays ZERO taxes, has never had to work a single day in their lifetime, may own a home of any size or any value whatsoever, and still qualify, in California for a monthly Tax Free payment/cash of $907 per Individual or $1,569 per couple. If your Illegal and age 65, in California you can definately get the tax free, SSI & SSP. Along with that you can get CAPI a special illegal alien Social 'Entitlement' Program, added to that is HUD-Section 8 housing vouchers, USDA Rural Direct homeownership Grant, plus the USDA Rural Direct that got massive amounts of money in the stimulus is the most used way for legal or illegal aliens to buy homes, and the limit is very, very high. They only pay 1% home loans, and there is a Down Payment Assistance Grant that pays the down payment for them. If they cannot pay the 1% mortgage payment after all that free grant money, they get yet another Government Subsidy that will pay 60% of the remaining balance per month for them! They also get real good grants for buying businesses too. This is probably why the polls show people are not that excited anymore about the Obama Health Care Reform Bill, it will cover Illegals, however they will NOT have to pay any taxes on their FREE/GRATIS health care..Nice huh.
Obamacare WILL Cover Illegals-Unless Americans Say
"NO!", Yes, the Obamacare reform bill as it is now, WILL indeed cover illegals, and they will not pay a penny for it, as it is for them under MediCAL right now. http://vdare.com/ A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 80% of Americans opposed the idea and only 11% supported it!
House Bill: "No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens." According to America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, Page 143, Line 3, Section 246: "No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens. Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States." [America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, accessed 7/22/09]
a Republican backed Amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller of Nevada, that would have PREVENTED illegal aliens from receiving government subsidized healthcare under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and Obama. The House Ways and Means Committee NIXED the Heller Amendment by a 25-to-15-vote along STRAIGHT PARTY LINES. Illegals currently cost $11 BILLION a Year for Healthcare.
If it was true, but it's a right-wing nutjob lie. Insurance companies already would prefer that we all died. It would save them a lot of money. They certainly have no incentive to keep us alive - especially when we get old. They make it so difficult to receive care in the US that death would be welcome over the stress our present heathcare system places on us all. I get so tired of fighting my insurance and my doctors. It's very stressful. I'd welcome a complete overhaul of our failed system.
Man, this thread has brought out the right-wing anti-Obama loud mouths, I see. They are probably the same idiots that are showing up at townhall meetings and running their mouths over something they know nothing about. They have been dispatched by Limabaugh, Beck, Newt and O'Relly to save American from communism. I can't stop laughing.
How the Illegals WILL receive FREE Healthcare from
HR-3200 The Heller Amendment would have forced health agencies to conduct simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states give illegals drivers licenses, which will be sufficient to get free health care under the plan. Also, millions of illegals who already have COUNTERFEIT Social Security cards or other FRAUDULANT Documents. There is NO ENFORCEMENT mechanism in the Legislation, to prevent illegals who use FAKE ID's to obtain JOBS also obtaining TAXPAYER-SUBSIDIZED Health Insurance. The Heller Amendment would have provided a way to WEED OUT non-citizens from the program. Would have "better screened" applicants that are illegal. The underlying bill, HR-3200, is insufficient for the purpose of preventing illegal aliens from accessing the bill's proposed benefits, as it does NOT provide mechanisms allowing those administering the program to ensure illegal aliens cannot access taxpayer-funded subsidies and benefits. The Heller Amendment would have required that individuals applying for the public health care option would be subject to two systems used to verify immigration status already in use by the government: The Income and Eligability Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program. The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S. citizen. Rep.Lamar Smith recently pointed out another LOOPHOLE. Obamacare offers family plans. And there is NOTHING keeping a family of illegals from getting covered so long as ONE OF THEM (most likely an Anchor Baby) is Legal. And yet another LOOPHOLE is that the "No Federal Payment for Illegal Aliens" clause only applies to the "affordability credits" just one of the various taxpayer-funded options under the bill. Nothing keeps illegal aliens from being covered by the National Healthcare Plan. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) simply wants to make sure the bill, as drafted, doesn't PROHIBIT illegal immigrants from accessing free healthcare. And, of course Obama wants MORE Constituents when he does a Shamnesty for them all. The BIGGEST problem for legal U.S. Citizens from the plan will be when someone who has lived legally all their lifetime goes into the hospital to find out suddenly that they are NOT covered because an Illegal Alien has been using their Social Security number fraudulently and THE ILLEGAL is being covered under the Plan, kicking the legal citizen OUT of the system plan. What a mess to undo that the legal U.S. Citizen will have! And, if anyone thinks that illegals DO NOT get Welfare, I live in California and grew up in Los Angeles County, ever hear of CAPI? Illegal Senior's age 65+ can get SSI & SSP in California at $1,569 per month, tax free cash.
"No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens. Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
Illegals from obtaining FREE Healthcare under the current draft. Nothing. Too bad you people are do pathetically DIM headed. Your utter lack of verbal and written skills show terribly, and make you look like illiterates. Ugh, LOL, oh my, what a pathetic pair of dum-dums.
that every single illegal in the United States right does NOT get Welfare, food stamps, MediCAID, or anything like that do they ichi? Oh get your head out of your A^^ will you!
Don't let the person get to you. They remind me of whats-her-face that comes out of the shadows everytime Scientology is mentioned. Plus all they are doing is copy and pasting the same crap on whatever sites they can get on. Heaven forbid they would have to sign up on multiple sites and then take the time to form an opinion when they can just c/p the same tired lines over and over.
You are the one who obviously can't read. You certainly don't understand what you do manage to read. ichi just proved you wrong, yet, just like most right-wing idiots you act like he didn't pawn you.
If you're going to insult the intelligence of those who contradict you, you should probably mind your grammar and spelling so YOU don't look like the "idoit." But if you're hoping to be taken seriously on a forum where people discuss issues rather than just shout about them, you probably shouldn't even go there. So far you're 0 for 2 in defending your points, and that's not terribly convincing.
