Facts fall victim in end of life debate (with photo of the nutters)

[depakid]

Psychological projection at work- Joan Korman ,left, and Dawn Tabrizi, right, hold protest signs during a rally protesting government managed health care in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
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In town hall meetings, Internet postings and other forums, some opponents of health care reform have seized on a provision written by Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer to illustrate what they say is the sinister nature of the health care plans in Congress. The provision in the 1,200-page House bill allows Medicare to pay for end-of-life consultations for seniors. It has bipartisan support and has been praised by doctors, patients, and professional groups, from AARP to the American College of Physicians, to the Consumers Union.

But the more extreme critics say it will allow government to euthanize the elderly. Some opponents say Blumenauer wants to kill your grandmother. Blumenauer says the attacks are a political effort to destroy health care reform. "Some of these people know full well what they are saying is false," he said, "and they don't care."

The provision moved through three House committees without serious objection, he said. "If there was a hole in it, I think it would have been attacked" in committee. The aim of Blumenauer's bill is to give seniors a chance to clarify for doctors and family members how much care they want in an incapacitating emergency. Do they want, for example, to be resuscitated, put on a respirator or fed through a tube?

Not knowing what a patient wants can leave family members stuck in an emergency room with difficult decisions. Unless the patient or a family member directs otherwise, doctors will take every measure in an emergency to keep a patient alive. Blumenauer's amendment, which has bipartisan support, adds a Medicare benefit to the House health care bill that would pay doctors to talk with seniors about their preferences for life-sustaining treatment.

The discussion would be voluntary and might include an explanation of advance directives, living wills, hospice and the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy. The amendment says nothing about doctor-assisted suicide, a legal option for terminally ill residents in Oregon. Medicare would pay for the consultations every five years.

"It is really a good idea," said state Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, a physician who helped Oregon craft recent health reform legislation. "One of the big problems with elderly patients is taking the time to find out what they want to do and need at the end of life."

Oregon has a bigger percentage of people who meet death in their homes than most states because more Oregonians plan for their end of life care, said Dr. Susan Tolle, director of the Center for Ethics and Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
"Most of the time you do not die peacefully with family around you in a family home if you do not make plans," she said.

To foster better planning, Tolle and the Center for Ethics created the nation's first Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form, now replicated or under development in 30 other states. The form allows people near the end of life to express the level of care they want in an emergency.

Still, the attacks continue. Senior citizens "will be offered assistance and instruction on how to take their own lives," political observer Marie Jon wrote last week on the Web site of RenewAmerica, a group focused on preserving principles of the nation's founders.

Advanced directives are useful in recording adults' preferences for hospital treatment, but emergency medical workers cannot act on them. They need a medical order, which the POLST form provides. This year, the Oregon Legislature adopted a health reform plan that includes money to create the nation's first statewide registry for medical order forms. Tolle's center and OHSU's Department of Emergency Medicine expect to have the registry up and running this fall.

The registry gives emergency medical workers immediate access to a patient's wishes. An OHSU study found that in one in four cases, emergency workers were unable to find the medical order forms in time to act on them.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/08/facts_fall_victim_in_end_of_li.html#preview

[babylonsister]

1. Every post I read, the stupid always hurts. nt

[SwissTony]

2. They've already test driven it, haven't they.

Aren't Members of Congress covered by a goverment scheme? (I'm not American and could be wrong, but I recall seeing that somewhere)

[depakid]

3. LOL -of course they have!

I can't decide whether this has gotten Kafkaesque- or is just straight up keystone cops type stuff.

In a saner society, I'd put good money on these folks having had been Democratic plants.