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Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
Scaring Seniors to Death
By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services
Is the White House losing the message war on health care? Like other
presidents, Barack Obama is pestered by myths and conspiracy
theorists. He can easily ignore the "birthers," who refuse to let
facts get in the way of their misguided belief that Obama's birth
certificate is a fake. But if there is any rumor that he needs to
squelch as soon as possible, it is the truly dangerous myth that he
wants to kill seniors.
He faced that question head-on during a televised town hall at AARP headquarters in Washington last week.
"I have been told that there is a clause in there that everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told to decide how they wish to die, " a woman named Mary asked the president.
Mary did not say where she was told this, but it is not hard to guess. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts and House Republican Leader John Boehner, among other critics of Obama's health care plans, have been spreading the idea that the House health care bill promotes euthanasia.
They take this notion from a provision in the bill that would provide Medicare coverage for an end-of-life consultation once every five years, if the patient wants it. If a person falls ill with a life-threatening disease, more frequent sessions would be allowed.
Ironically, similar end-of-life concepts have been a part of federal health care law since 1990 -- with bipartisan support. But now that Republicans can use the language as a wedge between seniors and Democrats, lo and behold, it has become an alleged invitation to legal suicide.
They have been aided in this mission by a key figure in the killing of Bill and Hillary Clinton's proposed health care reforms in the early 1990s. Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, a conservative health care specialist, lit the spark on various op-ed pages and talk shows, including former Sen. Fred Thompson's radio talk show.
There she told Thompson that "Congress would make it mandatory, absolutely require, that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner."
"The bill expressly says if you get sick somewhere in that five-year period, you have to go through that session again," McCaughey continued, "all to do what is in societies best interest or your family's best interest and cut your life short."
Nonsense. The provision would require Medicare to pay for advanced care consultations, but it does not require individuals to take advantage of the benefit.
Nor does it require that a government bureaucrat intervene between the patient, the patient's family and a doctor or nurse practitioner, as McCaughey insists it does.
Yet, in a telephone interview with me, McCaughey continued to insist that the counseling was "mandatory" when, in fact, it is optional. "I'm standing by that," she said of the word "mandatory."
She denied that she ever said, as Boehner implies, that the plan encouraged euthanasia. Still she characterized it as requiring seniors to be instructed in "how to cut your life short," even though the legislation does not require anything of the sort. It does help, as Obama explained at the AARP town hall, patients and their families to receive end-of-life counseling. Is that a bad thing? Not at all, McCaughey agreed, as long as the government doesn't get involved in it.
"These are such sacred issues of life and death," she said. "Government should have nothing to do with it." OK. The bill calls for government to fund the counseling and get out of the way, much like private insurers would.
And, by the way, let us not pretend that private insurers don't take dollars and cents into account, too, when they decide who gets covered and what doesn't get covered.
Even though most Americans tell pollsters they are satisfied with their current coverage, our system costs more and covers fewer people than those in other industrialized countries -- and the problems of cost and coverage are getting worse. We need to have an honest debate. Our lives depend on it. But, of course, politics and political ideologies inevitably get in the way.
Obama has tried to learn from the Clintons' mistakes. He's turned the details the plan over to Congress, but the prolonged debate and multiple bills have muddled his message while the Republicans have a simple bumper sticker: "Nope."
Now opponents of the bill are adding another four-letter word: fear. Unfortunately this debate could be scaring seniors to death. Unlike the Clinton era, today's voters have another ally on our side: Internet-age media. Obama showed during his campaign how to get his message out in a hurry. He needs to do that again, as soon as he figures out exactly what his message is.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.
(c) 2008 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
This news arrived on: 08/05/2009
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Posted Comments:
08-11-2009 03:06
JCE wrote:
Our legislature, republican that it is, overturned Palin the Bull Quitters veto on the stimulus money. Guess they were more interested in serving them people than she was. And in doing the job they were elected for.
08-10-2009 16:30
JCE wrote:
Our legislature is already at work to undo the harm Palin did, especially the refusal of energy stimulus money, which we need. Most of the legislature is smart enough, but we do need a super majority. And Palin is doing exactly what I said she would do. Imagine anyone actually being dumb enough to believe that any of the bills or amendments have anything like death squads. Just because I am against all the congress is doing on the various bills and amendments doesn't mean I have to resort to the lies and distortions that idiots like Palin and the far right extremist terrorists who have been pulling the puppet strings on the birthers and baggers. The truth is good enough for me. But then, they don't have the truth on their side, just a ton of money at stake, whereas most of us have our health care and economy at stake.
08-08-2009 21:13
JCE wrote:
Or they could see what Palin did to Alaska, and why we are happy to see the bull quitter go....anywhere away from here. She is too full of quit for us, and we are having major problems with flooding, fires, and people without homes, food, or fuel. Why do you thing she quit? Between the job, and the abuse she put onto her family, and getting caught with four or five valid ethics violations, she couldn't deal with a little stress. Well, if you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Or BS lower 48 voters into giving you a million bucks to go play politics, and get rich talking BS to idiots. Our moose and wolf population will have a chance to balance out again. We will recover. But being a major republican state, we will elect another fool.
08-07-2009 20:11
WCM wrote:
JCE, you are right.The Republican National Office is getting so way out there that some of our folks
from Georgia are giving up their national positions to come back home to run for state post."Sen. Nathan Deal" leaving Washington to run for Governor?He has basically had a cake walk each time he has ran for the senator post.That is sense the wealthy northerners and Floridians have moved into our state and taken control of our politics.This makes me think that he sees trouble in Republican paradise.He can fill his pockets easier here sense the "Grand Old Crooks" control our state.
from Georgia are giving up their national positions to come back home to run for state post."Sen. Nathan Deal" leaving Washington to run for Governor?He has basically had a cake walk each time he has ran for the senator post.That is sense the wealthy northerners and Floridians have moved into our state and taken control of our politics.This makes me think that he sees trouble in Republican paradise.He can fill his pockets easier here sense the "Grand Old Crooks" control our state.
08-07-2009 17:52
JCE wrote:
John Smith III Perhaps you are aware that Obama got the least of all campaign contributions, and the most from the common people. Clinton got much more, especially from the oil companies, and McCain got the most, especially from the oil companies. And that factors in the employees of the companies who gave money to them to give to the candidates, thus weaseling around the law. The lobbies are perhaps the biggest threat to our country. That and the stupid voters who buy the extremist propaganda that the machine puts out. It doesn't really care which kind of nut someone is, as long as they keep voting for one party or another, letting each have their turn, and not holding them accountable. Just playing at tea bagging and protest. Our founding patriots would be ashamed of them all.
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