Political opportunism: Bush 1999 Texas Futile Care Law

[norml]

Political opportunism
Congressional Republicans have forsaken their traditional politicsto exploit the Schiavo family's tragedy for gains in the next election.
A Times Editorial
Published March 22, 2005

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In 1999, as governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed a bill that would allow hospitals to override the wishes of family members and remove a patient's life support when further treatment was judged futile by a hospital committee. But on Sunday, the president rushed back to Washington from his Texas ranch to sign a bill, cobbled together in an emergency weekend session of Congress, to keep one severely brain-damaged woman alive despite what her husband says - and what state courts have held - is her desire not to linger in a persistent vegetative state. Have his convictions changed? Or his politics?

With the family tragedy of Terri Schiavo transformed into a cause celebre for religious conservatives, the Republican leadership in Congress and the White House have turned it into a travesty. The likes of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and our own Republican freshman senator, Mel Martinez, have been ringmasters of a congressional circus, using outright lies and half-truths regarding Schiavo's care and condition to justify passing a highly intrusive and, we believe, unconstitutional bill.

Some lawmakers no doubt voted their convictions, but there also was a whiff of political opportunism in the air. An unsigned memo that was circulated among Republican senators over the weekend said the case could be exploited as "a great political issue" that could excite the party's "prolife base" for the next election.

Forget the Republican Party's traditional support for federalism and state's rights. It doesn't matter that Florida's courts have grappled with this case for seven years, with 19 state judges - after lengthy trials and painstaking review of the medical evidence - consistently upholding Michael Schiavo's right to carry out his wife's wishes and remove her feeding tube. It doesn't matter to Tom DeLay and Bill Frist that a brain scan and electroencephalogram indicate she has no cerebral activity. Frist said the images he saw in a short, carefully edited video of Schiavo "depicted something very different" from a persistent vegetative state. As a physician, surely he knows better.

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http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/22/Opinion/Political_opportunism.shtml

[sui generis]

1. that's because a hospital has limited equipment

I believe the patient's family has a reasonable opportunity to find an organization or equipment that will continue life support before the hospital "pulls the plug".

It's meant to keep families from warehousing their charges in a hospital, not because of anyone's freaking political agenda.

We're just as guilty of politicizing this as the other side.

[salin]

3. Ten days is reasonable time?

Since it has been politicized... pointing out that bush favored the money side before (the costs of the patients care) and now does not - is worth noting.

This has actually been a concern of my repub, md brother for years - that at some point there would have to be a rationing of health care resources as more folks try to "save" lives past the point of viability while others who do not have the same money are kept out of the system (because more resources get eaten up by the former.)

If the two cases in texas are the first two tests of the bill, as is reported - in five years that isn't many cases that get to this point. The law, on the surface (haven't studied it) seems to have a number of review steps in place - hopefully some that are independent of the hospital making the final decision.

But as long as they are politicizing it - and upending the constitutional seperation of powers - I think pointing out the crazy politics behind it is completely legitimate.

That said - I have stated elsewhere that I feel great symapathy for all family members (husband and parents/sibs) in this tragedy. I also find the media circus to be disgusting.

[sui generis]

9. economics are unfortunately reality in healthcare

yes, a wealthy person would have considerably more options than someone with mediocre income.

There is no difference in denying seniors medicine if they can't pay for it and denying someone institutional life support in a hospital.

I'm not saying it's right, just that it's reality. We also have to deal with reality from another angle: let's say I was in a terrible accident and had to get a hemi-corpectomy (where they just keep the upper half of your body).

I would be constantly under someone else's 24/7 care, would essentially be non-ambulatory, on a feeding tube (among many other tubes) and even though I might "heal", I could never lead a gainful productive happy life, and there is no cure for a hemi-corpectomy.

Just because the technology exists to keep me alive or to allow me to survive by cutting off half of my body doesn't necessarily mean that I would want it employed. Furthermore, I think my ability to pay for that surgery and the post surgical care does factor into taking an extreme measure like that, whether I want it or not. Again, reality, not necessarily "right".

[salin]

11. the difference

per denying seniors medicine and institutional life support - is that probably the former costs less. Have to wonder how many cases of the latter (at least for a short period of time) are caused by the former?

Note - we are really not in disagreement here.

I just find the current justifications to balance bushjr's first and later stand - a bit convoluted and am willing to point them out. Wouldn't do so - had it not been thrust so opportunistically into the limelight.

Did you know that DeLay fought the "private bill" option in this case - he fought (and won on a previous voice vote in the house) against the private bill option. He wanted a much broader bill. If you look at the wording of the republican talking points on the issue (that somehow got leaked to the press) it talks of "people like Terri Schaivo" - eg they were planning to fight for a bill that would open the door for re-review of countless cases.... willing to tie up families, hospital and the judicial system into knots - all for some political points with the rr right to lifers.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[salin]

4. Wondering

if a hospital committee - who has financial interests ...

is going to be more even handed than an md court appointed guardian ad litem who has no inherent conflict of interest?

[fryguy]

7. that's how the courts operate

judges consider and weigh the testimony and eveidence from the medical experts. they do not seek to render their own medical opinions. and the judges who have consistently upheld Judge Greer's decision were preforming the exact type of judicial review they are supposed to under the law - which does include de novo reviews that allow the higher courts to consider the underlying merits of the case when deciding if the lower court was reasonable in its findings.

[fryguy]

5. the law was used for the first time last week

to terminate the care of a six-month old baby boy against the wishes of his mother:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3084934

<snip>

Then at 2 p.m. today, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his Sept. 25 birth. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.

"I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive," Wanda Hudson told reporters afterward. "This hospital was considered a miracle hospital. When it came to my son, they gave up in six months .... They made a terrible mistake."

<snip>

Texas Children's contended that continuing care for Sun was medically inappropriate, prolonged suffering and violated physician ethics. Hudson argued her son just needed more time to grow and be weaned from the ventilator.

<more>

where was tom delay and the other gop saviors of the terminally ill? to answe that, one need only consider that hudson was from a poor black family......

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[salin]

8. a hospital committee with conflict of interest

vs. a court appointed md guardian at litem with no conflict of interest.

Me, I would opt for the latter.

However I would also opt for a living will so it wouldn't come to that point.

[fryguy]

12. we lost tipping

what do you think, the 8 posts was a give away?

[salin]

13. naw

more the pattern during those eight posts. Raise a single question, again and again - and do not respond when that question is addressed in order to have a conversation. Single talking points repeated eight times with nothing else - generally don't last long.

[fryguy]

10. hospital committee with conflicts of interest is ok

but a neutral court deciding the case based on the facts presented to it by experts from both sides and following the well established rule of law is not? how does that make sense.

[norml]

14. It's Not About Terri Schiavo: A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

It's Not About Terri Schiavo

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Laura Flanders

From The Laura Flanders Show (March 20th, 2005):

About that posturing in Congress on Palm Sunday, I've got just one thing to say: it's not about Terri Schiavo.

Accidentally in uttering the words "she's my life," in her conversation with the media Terri Schiavo's mother revealed what's at the very heart of this whole dismal story. None of this is about poor brain-destroyed Terri Schiavo. It's all about someone else's life, or various someone-elses.

Tom DeLay knows nothing about morality or ethics. He dragged congress back to Washington for a special session so he could put his fellow members through a loyalty test on Palm Sunday. According to Robert Novak (who, as we know, knows these folks) analysts at the RNC sent out a warning this week to the House of Representatives that the GOP's in danger of losing 25 seats in the 2006 election. The Schiavo case "is a great political issue" for Republicans, anonymous advisors told party senators in an unsigned memo this weekend. It isn't about Terri Schiavo's life; it's about the life of this GOP-ruled congress.

It isn't about Terri Schiavo, it's about tossing a bone to poor Christian voters who voted Republican this November but haven't gotten a thing for those votes so far, except a slap around the face with another brass knuckle budget and tougher treatment for poor folks who go bankrupt. It's about performing compassion when this congress is really only-and-all about profits. And it's about obscuring the corruption and fraud on which Delay's power is built, and hoping poor voters will forget that once they've cast their votes, the GOP doesn't care about them anymore. Their first order of business is well, business.


snip

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/03/con05097.html