Stimulus Health Care Provisions Could Eliminate the Elderly, the Infirm & Terminally Ill
February 11, 2009 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Watch out for your Alzheimer’s family member (and yourself if you’re “senior”) if Obama’s Stimulus Bill sneaks through in its current form.
Deep within the multiple pages of the bill is a provision for a collecting one’s medical records on a national data base and appointing health care coordinators who will “approve” your care and perscriptions.
As ultimately planned, your doctor will have to get permission for your treatment, possibly by someone not medically trained but only looking at the bottom dollar or cost effectiveness:
- Is the cost of treating this person (you or your Alzheimer’s family member) economically worthwhile, considering age, life expectency and contribution or drain upon society?
- Will this person be a productive, contributing member of society if treated?
- Will the cost of treatment outweigh their future productiveness?
- Will the person be a burden…so we’ll let them die?
Senarios:
- Would my mother have been allowed to suffer and die or, perish the thought, be “put out of her misery,” when she broke her hip during her Alzheimer’s years? Because it was treated, she lived 8 more years…yes, in a nursing home and slowly progressing further into Alzheimer’s. But still she was a joy to her family and, by living and simply being there, taught her great grandchildren about love and caring.
- Would I have been forced to go untreated when I broke my back and required a body cast? Would we have had to prove my future contributions to society?
- Would my mother-in-law with breast cancer in her early 80s have been considered too old for the lumpectomy and radiation? (She died 12 years later of congestive heart failure, at age 94, cancer free. But no one could have predicted that longevity when she was treated.)
Non-complying doctors would be penalized if they treated a person the health care coordinator deemed unprofitable for society. The individual who could afford to go outside the system for treatment would be penalized. (”Penalized” could mean fines and even jail time.)
These national health care provisions could affect more than the elderly and infirm. What about anyone who is terminally ill or deemed not worth the expense of getting them well?
Related Posts:
“Big Brother” health care provisions
Fast Tracking Govt. Control of Health Care
(Scientifics Online image at Amazon)
