By Douglas V. Gibbs
End of life counseling, or death panels, was a feature of the health care legislation when it first emerged in Congress. Sarah Palin pointed out the existence of the provision, and the left promptly ridiculed her for her observation. The end of life counseling policy was then scrapped from the bill, and the Democrats waved their hands in the air, "Wah-lah, no more death panels." But their magic trick was nothing more than an illusion. Death panels exist in government health programs, whether the provision is in the text or not. Government-payer systems ultimately run into a need to streamline costs, which leads to the rationing of care, and when rationing care the idea is to only pay for necessary expenditures. This means that the older you get, according to single-payer systems wielded by nationalistic government systems, the less productive you are to society - hence the end of life counseling. Your death as an older person, reasons death panels, is for the public good, so that the money being spent on your worthless carcass can be better spent on some young buck who produces much more for The State.
The attacks against Sarah Palin for her death panels comment, of course, was for the sake of being able to poke at her, ridicule her, and try to make her look as stupid as they hoped the American people would believe her to be. . . despite the fact that she was correct, proven by the fact that the leftist Democrats later jettisoned the provision. More interestingly, however, was how a little more than a month ago hard left economist Paul Krugman actually suggested bringing back death panels as a tool to help reduce the deficit.
Though Krugman tried to backpedal later, it was a hapless attempt. Besides, all he did was verbalize what the liberal left knows to be their goal (but unwilling to spill the beans because they knew nobody would like it).
The liberals are willing to kill unborn babies, people like Cass Sunstein thinks we should force abortions, and even do so up to two years of age, so what's to stop them from killing the elderly too. . . other than angry Americans opposed to such barbarity, I mean.
Of course this is not the first time a liberal has let the cat out of the bag. Hard left liberal, and former Clinton labor secretary, Robert Reich made a similar observation back in 2007: "We're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die."
Alan Grayson, a Democrat out of Florida, stood on the floor of the House of Representatives and proclaimed that it was the GOP that really wanted you to die as a result of your health problems because he disagreed with the Republicans that the health industry should be market driven. "The Republican plan," said Grayson, "Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly."
Enter, stage left, Obama's return of the death panels. You see, this is how liberal Democrats work. If they don't get what they want in the beginning, they will slip it in, or simply force it upon you, later. Such is the way of authoritarians.
Anyhow, the end of life planning provision that set off the "death panels" political storm when Palin first brought them up are back, not by vote, but by regulation (regulations are the Democrat's way of forcing law down your throat without going through the proper processes - that's called a "seizure of power" - a tyranny in my opinion). According to the New York Times, the return of death panels commences on January 1st.
The regulation is something they are slipping into Medicare, which details that the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment (in other words, give you the option of having the plug pulled).
The liberal Democrats are excited, but silent, about this because their cruel provision is one that they don't want the people to know about. You know, it's all about that thing where they say they will represent you, but do differently because the voters, in their opinion, are just too stupid to know what's best for them. Of course, Teddy Kennedy proved (by his fight to stay alive by hiring the best doctors) that the leftist politicians would be exempt from such madness.
Ultimately, knowing that they are moving in a direction of government paying for health care, they know that they need to position themselves for being able to cut off care for the critically ill should the individuals prove to not be beneficial to The State.
Stalin would be proud.
The new rule was sure to include the word "voluntary" to cover all bases when it came to any opposition, but we know what voluntary means to Democrats.
The counseling includes doctors providing information to patients on how to prepare an “advance directive,” stating how aggressively they wish to be treated if they are so sick that they cannot make health care decisions for themselves.
Of course if it got rough enough, the Democrats would probably just pull a Schiavo and start pulling plugs at every opportunity.
Note that death panels are not technically a part of the new law. It is an added regulation, which is a way of pushing laws unconstitutionally, a strategy Obama and the Democrats will resort to a lot now that the GOP will have control of the House of Representatives (You didn't expect the liberals to be ethical or honest, did you?).
The Obama administration is claiming that the move is based on research that shows that “Advance care planning improves end-of-life care and patient and family satisfaction and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives.”
In other words, it saves a lot of fuss if we just let them die.
The opponents of this regulation have seen the evil for what it is, indicating that the heartless Obama administration has done this in the hopes of bringing back a procedure that could be used to justify the premature withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from people with severe illnesses and disabilities, simply because they don't believe the life is worth protecting.
How dare these political elitists for believing that it is up to them to make decisions that should be left to individuals.
What's next? Logan's run?
Elizabeth D. Wickham, executive director of LifeTree, a pro-life Christian educational ministry, said she was concerned that end-of-life counseling would encourage patients to forgo or curtail care, thus hastening death.
“The infamous Section 1233 is still alive and kicking,” Ms. Wickham said. “Patients will lose the ability to control treatments at the end of life.”
Honestly, this all wreaks of euthanasia, and ultimately will lead to such draconian policies such as eugenics, where ultimately not only will the undesirable be left to die, but only the best stock for The State will be allowed to breed.
This is truly some evil stuff the liberal Democrats are playing with.
Of course the Democrats lie about what this is, and project the opposite, saying things like, “It will give people more control over the care they receive.”
The truth is, it will be a means of convincing the patient to hand over their life to a heartless, soulless government, so that The State can exterminate their lives at its own wishes.
An Email regarding this regulation asked that the addition of the death panels not be advertised. “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.”
If this is such a wonderful thing, why don't you want to "broadcast" it?
This returns us to the idea of the General Will. If you will remember, the General Will was a creation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a person that was instrumental in bringing about the French Revolution over 200 years ago.
The Jacobins were a socialist group that were heavily influenced by Rousseau's philosophies, as were people like Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall on the American side of the pond. People like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson viewed these nationalistic ideas as being a deadly threat to American liberty that if allowed to proceed would expand the size and scope of government, and would ultimately lead to the government determining who lives or dies.
Nationalism is an unhealthy love of one's government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others, which becomes in deracinated modern men a substitute for religious faith. Rather than believing that government should be bound by the chains of the Constitution, liberals believe that government should be able to perform any act it believes necessary for the "common good." Which is where the General Will steps into the picture.
The General Will is the common good, and is a will not necessarily known or recognized by the general public, but is presumed to be known by the ruling elite. So, there is no need to get the public in a stir, because they "wouldn't understand anyway." Of course, once the General Will is put into play, it gives the government the excuse to include all aspects of human life into their plans, through the supposed presence of the General Will. And whoever refuses to obey the General Will becomes an enemy of The State, and must be restrained by the body politic. Hence, the reason they use regulations to force this tripe across on us.
Ultimately, the goal is to decentralize our federal government, and create an authoritarian system that decides everything for you, including whether or not you should be allowed to live or die when the dusk of life approaches - hence, the death panels.
That Email I mentioned earlier continues: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”
In the end, Sarah Palin was right, and the liberal Democrats knew it (which is why they tried to censor her through ridicule). She had said that Obama's death panels would decide who was worthy of health care. John Boehner, who may very well be the next Speaker of the House, agrees, saying back during the death panel hub-bub, “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.”
Obama, back pedaling from the criticisms, at the time, said that nothing in the bill would “pull the plug on grandma.” And then the Democrats promptly pulled the provision, just to make sure.
Despite the provision being pulled, the very idea of government paying for health care services gives the government the ability to determine who gets care, and who doesn't. Therefore, despite the wording being technically pulled from the health care legislation, the reality of death panels remains.
And now, the wording for death panels is included as a provision in Medicare, which will ultimately be absorbed into the socialist universal health system that the Democrats are trying to put into place, which basically gives the liberals a back door for pushing death panels on us. . . whether we like it or not.
After all, remember, these people believe they know better than you. The General Will can only be known by the ruling elite, in their opinion. So if they can't get you to accept it willingly, they have no problem forcing their social engineering on you one authoritarian move at a time.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Paul Krugman Recommends 'Death Panels' to Help Balance Budget - NewsBusters
Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir - New York Times
'Lake Wobegon' author: Let GOPers die - World Net Daily
Sunstein: Fetuses 'use' women, abortion limits 'troublesome' - World Net Daily
Sunstein: Government must fund abortion: Declares 'no problem' forcing taxpayers with religious, moral conflict - World Net Daily
OBAMAS REGULATORY CZAR WANTS TO ABORT BABIES UP TO 2 YEARS OLD!! - God Like Productions (You Tube later pulled the video of Cass Sunstein's sick declaration - Obama's "Science Czar", John Holdren, also has indicated he supports abortion of children up to two years of age)
Lawmakers OK with forced abortions: 'What kind of leaders refuse to protect pregnant women who want to keep their child?' - World Net Daily (what begins in Canada will trickle to the U.S.)
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