Nero Obama's Death Panels - will they survive whatever Supreme Court rules?

[JohnCraven]

A question we all should be asking is what will survive in Nero Obama's Obamacare if the Supreme Court rules against the individual dictate.

Perhaps, quite a lot, unless the next Congress has the courage to repeal the whole thing lock, stock and barrel, and that may well include Nero Obama's Death Panels which Sarah Palin so aptly identified.

A recent article published by Human Life International in their Mission Report No. 327, April, 2012, gives us a clear indication that the Death Panels will indeed survive and may even thrive unless we pull the whole thing out by the root.

I've reprinted this portion of the report below so you will understand just how important it is for strong Conservative TEA Party types to take over the Senate and increase in number in the House regardless of who takes over the White House in 2012.

JohnCraven
New Orleans



Once we admit the right to kill unproductive persons,
then none of us can be sure of our own life.
(Rev. Clemens von Galen, Catholic Bishop of Munster,
Germany, speaking out against Hitler’s euthanasia
Policy, 1939)[In: “Black Robes, Black Heart” by Debi Vinnedge,
Celebrate Life, July/August, 2005]



HLI Mission Report
No. 327
April, 2012

Of Rationing, Death
and End of Life Care
by Arland K. Nichols,
National Director of HLI America


In 1997, the state of Oregon
legalized physician assisted
suicide (PAS), allowing a
physician to aid and abet an
individual in the unthinkable act
of self-murder without fear of
criminal prosecution. In many
ways this disastrous decision both
marked and helped to effect a
shift in the thinking of Americans,
many of whom increasingly
view the elderly and disabled as
expendable if they are no longer
able to “exercise their autonomy”
or be useful to society.

Since 1997, proponents of
PAS have found efforts to legalize
the practice to be slow going—
only Washington State has joined
Oregon by declaring suicide a
medical treatment in keeping with
the needs of patients. In the meantime,
however, it appears that
society has increasingly warmed
to PAS, as supporters have
manipulated public opinion by
employing euphemisms to make
it more palatable. Advocates
describe PAS in sterile terms such
as “self termination” and “self
deliverance,” and even apparently
laudable terms such as “an
act of compassion and mercy,” a
“choice for freedom from suffering”
and “aid in dying.” Behind
this fabricated veil of credibility,
professionalism and compassion,
they have won victories in the
court of public opinion.

But also behind that veil is
a reality that cannot be hidden.
Once suicide is considered a
medical treatment, bureaucratic
authorities tasked with keeping
health care affordable can deem
it the best course of “treatment”
for a patient. Consider Barbara
Wagner and Randy Stroup who
were denied life-saving chemotherapy
by the Oregon Health
Plan, and instead offered suicide
as a course of treatment. Ms.
Wagner told ABC News, “It was
horrible. I got a letter in the mail
that basically said if you want to
take the pills, we will help you get
that from the doctor and we will
stand there and watch you die.
But we won’t give you the medication
to live.”

This election season, more
states are facing efforts to legalize
PAS, including Massachusetts,
Vermont, Hawaii, New York,
Pennsylvania and Montana. Of
these states, it is in Massachusetts
that the battle for life will be
most difficult. If PAS proponents
succeed in getting pro-suicide legislation
on the ballots, Catholics
and pro-life voters will need to
mobilize and vote for life. Further,
citizens of these states should be
aware of the position of their local
candidates and should weigh this
position heavily when they vote.

On the national scene, end of
life care has increasingly become
a political, cultural and moral
issue. It was front-page news
during the debate surrounding
health care reform, reaching a
feverish pitch as former Alaska
Governor Sarah Palin warned
of “death panels” and President
Obama personally declared such
claims to be “fear-mongering.”
Indeed, the Affordable Care Act
has given pro-life and Catholic
communities many reasons to fear
its implementation. One concern
is Ezekiel Emanuel, who served as
President Obama’s special advisor
for health policy in the the White
House Office of Management and
Budget. Emanuel has argued that
we should treat “65-year-olds
differently … because they have
already had more life-years.”
Emanuel has also stated that,
“[S]ervices provided to individuals
who are irreversibly prevented
from being or becoming participating
citizens are not basic and
should not be guaranteed. An
obvious example is not guaranteeing
health services to patients with
dementia.”

Emanuel’s ideas are at the
center of an administration that
seems comfortable with limiting
patient-physician choice in order
to save money.

Rather than empowering
patients and physicians to make
the best decisions for patient care
at the bedside, the Affordable
Care Act will restrict choice in the
form of the “Independent Payment
Advisory Board (IPAB)”—an unelected
bureaucratic entity charged
with cost containment in the
implementation of the new health
care law. President Obama has
repeatedly stressed the importance
of reducing costs because “the
chronically ill and those toward
the end of their lives are accounting
for potentially 80 percent of
the total health care bill.” Through
IPAB’s cost-containment decisions,
“[T]hey’re going to have to give up
paying for things that don’t make
them healthier,” he noted in a New
York Times interview.

National Review’s Stanley
Kurtz explains how IPAB will
work:

IPAB’s price-setting power
gives it control over medical
decisions now made by doctors
with their patients. And, yes, that
means rationing by unaccountable
bureaucrats. The one-size-fits-all
consequences of IPAB declarations
will be final for many an unfortunate
patient. In that sense, IPAB
will indeed be a death panel.

These developments make
clear that what happened to
Barbara Wagner will not be an
anomaly once ObamaCare is
implemented. When we go to
the polls this November, health
care needs of the sick, dying and
disabled are of utmost concern.
The Culture of Death is creeping
once more into the very legal and
moral fabric of society through the
care we provide these vulnerable
communities. We should take heed
and vote accordingly.

[Warhawk1982]

This whole thing was a waste of time and money and they pushed for it anyway. If it passes the Supreme Court, if it isn't repealed, there should be a second Revolution.