To euthanize a rumor…

"Did somebody say my name?" asks Dr. Kevorkian.

Raise your hand if you think you’ve heard enough about health care!

Well, the truth is that we at USDemocrazy think there’s a whole lot still to say. So, whether you have or have not read our most recent post on the big overhaul, this post is still an important read.

Why? One word: euthanasia.

Now, we have heard a lot of euphemisms for this nasty term (which, you know, may be a euphemism too…). When we typed “euthanize the elderly” into Google we discoverd that euthanasia is getting alot of attention these days…

One reason is thanks to a Betsy McCaughey, former Republican lieutenant governor of New York, when she wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal:

But legislation now being rushed through Congress—H.R. 3200 and the Senate Health Committee Bill—will reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years.

Now, where did this notion of ending the lives of seniors prematurely come about? Presumably from a provision in the oft-talked-about bill.  The bill suggests Medicare cover a consultation between the elderly and their doctors every five years. (If you’re feeling ambitious, it’s on page 425 of the bill.)

According to a fact-finding piece aimed at debunking the euthanasia belief, Talking Points Memo pointed out,

These consultations include “an explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.”

Additionally, the White House has launched its own site (www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck) in hopes of dispelling such rumors… which, you know, don’t make Obamacare sound so appealing. (Here’s the link directly to the expert debunking of the euthanasia myth.)

It would seem that what started out as a discussion on helping seniors explore their options has turned into a monster that wants to pull the plug on America’s more mature generation.

“Is the Government Going to Euthanize my Grandmother?” asks Ezra Klein pointedly on his Washington Post blog, to which Georgia Republican senator Johnny Isakson replied with an explanation about end-of-life directives:

In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that’s because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia “durable power of attorney,” you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you’re unable to make those decisions.

Well, that makes sense to people in all fifty states, as Isakson later points out. He also mentions that the aforementioned consultations between patients and doctors about end-of-life treatment options is voluntary, too.

Yet, none of this talk about euthanasia has been helped by the assertion by former Alaska Republican governor Sarah Palin that the new health care plan will include so-called “death panels” to determine who will and who will not get the full level of care they need. Says Palin, via Facebook:

And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. 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.

The truth is, most people would agree that this system is evil. But the question may be is such a system is less fair than our current one?

On the complete opposite of the debate spectrum is Robert Wright at the Atlantic, who writes:

But let’s be clear: the people who are trying to sabotage reform by telling mind-boggling lies about its hidden rationing agenda seem, in fact, pretty content with rationing; they seem happy with a system in which the least “productive” members of society get bad health care, including, occasionally, health care so bad that it leads to death.

For more background, we suggest you check out Politics Daily’s bullet points on the euthanasia issue.

And for the other side, see what the Wall Street Journal says about how Obamacare will treat seniors.

Then, tell us what you think: will we be seeing more Jack Kevorkians under the new health care plan, if it passes? Or can seniors, and the rest of us, rest easy?