I ask myself on a daily basis if I am biased. I just can't grasp the nonsensical rants being spewed against the need to change health care in this country. Am I alone?
Don't get me wrong. I have attempted not to dismiss the rants out of hand. I have honestly tried to stop and listen to find out if I missing something that these people have gleaned that I have somehow missed.
From what I understand... these people seem to believe that we are all complicit in a government plan to kill people. I've read the offending passage... which I'm sure many of them haven't. It reads as such.
From the infamous Page 425 of the Health Care Bill
Advance Care Planning Consultation
Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4), the term ‘advance care planning consultation’ means a consultation between the individual and a practitioner described in paragraph (2) regarding advance care planning, if, subject to paragraph (3), the individual involved has not had such a consultation within the last 5 years. Such consultation shall include the following: ‘‘(A) An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to. ‘‘(B) An explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses. ‘‘(C) An explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy. ‘‘(D) The provision by the practitioner of a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning, including the national toll-free hotline, the advance care planning clearinghouses, and State legal service organizations (including those funded through the Older Americans Act of 1965). ‘‘(E) 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.
So... what I can try to see when I scrunch my eyes up tight and pretend to be them is that they see that doctors will be forced to provide consultation every five years in which they will be forced to explain living wills, health care proxies, powers of attorney, such insidious things called "end of life" services... **dramatic music** which include palliative care and hospice.
Could be as simple as that the people ranting don't understand that many doctors and social workers do this today? And that end-of-life services are not death squads? But wonderful and helpful services for the very, very sad fact that we ALL die eventually... some of us in long drawn out and painful ways that make it extremely difficult on those close to us... and so palliative care and hospice comes to help us? Having lived with and around nurses, social workers, and palliative care professionals most of my life... I realize from the stories I hear what happens when you DON'T have living wills and health care proxies designated. You have situations where your loved ones are forced to make decisions on your life or death without your input. And the guilt of making these decisions can last the rest of their lives. So why in the world would I NOT want a doctor helping me to understand this paperwork and my choices while I am still able to understand and help guide those around me with the decisions that most effect me?
And how in God's name do we get from that paragraph above to accusing Obama of being a Nazi? That is absurd. And yet people continue to jump on that bandwagon. "Well... the liberals called Bush a Nazi." This is the excuse I've heard. So that's what this is? Payback? And comparing someone who ordered the unprovoked attack on another country... to someone who is taking on the largest and most powerful example of what is wrong with the free-market system. Fascists were for free market, capitalist societies, as I recall. The ranters can't even get their analogies right. At the least, they should be calling him Stalin.
Where is the reasoned discourse? Where are the pro and con arguments that are what makes this country great? I'm not saying that the bill is perfect... none of them are. But if the best they can come up with is death squads... I fear for our society. Not because the liberals will ruin it. But because the opposition is apparently too stupid to argue the edges off the liberal agenda. And the real danger comes when you get the boat so out of balance that we all sink.
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It seems to me that the trend toward partisanship and the politicization of seemingly everything has definitely ratcheted up since the election. There seems to be a strategy amongst the naysayers to not just dig in and oppose every point, but to be outrageous with their accusations to capture media attention. Is it a form of misdirection? Is it mind control: saying a thing repeatedly until it becomes believed? Is it desperation? Or something we won't recognize until it's too late.
ReplyDeleteThey don't realize that anything passed by our government can be overturned or altered at a later date if it doesn't work for some reason, as designed, but these people are acting like it is the end of the world if ANYTHING related to healthcare gets passed. It's nuts.
ReplyDeleteSome of my relatives were upset that Obama signed the S-CHIP bill... providing healthcare for uninsured children. My sister's reason? Because the definition of a child was "someone up to 30 yrs old." I looked it up in the bill, and I couldn't find anything that said this. I told her the only thing I could think of, if what she heard was true, is if maybe that was the definition of a child for maybe someone who has Down's or some other condition or disability.
I really wonder where all this disinformation comes from.
*sigh*
ReplyDeleteI'm sick of all this already...
Happy... Sometimes I can't help but call a spade a spade.
ReplyDeleteRichard... I think it pre-dates this election by a long way. It goes back to the dirty tricks guys that Nixon employed... and probably long before. But it has spread to the media and now is taken as fact. That is what is most troubling.
Sleuth... It's no fun to get worked up about something unless you pretend it is permanent. But nothing is... is it?
Just LD... you are sick? I hope you have good healthcare.