[BRIGADE] PJB: Time To Go, Grampa
Published: Tue, 08/04/09
by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 4, 2009
With "controlling costs" a primary goal of Obamacare, and half of
all medical costs coming in the last six months of life, "rationed
care" takes on a new meaning for us all.
London's Telegraph reported Sunday that the National Institute of
Health and Clinical Excellence, known by its Orwellian acronym
NICE, intends to slash by 95 percent the number of steroid
injections, such as cortisone, given to people who suffer severe
and chronic back pain.
"Specialists fear," said the Telegraph, "tens of thousands of
people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer
excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as 500 pounds each for
private treatment."
Now, twin this story with the weekend Washington Post story about
Obamacare's "proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or
terminally ill patients about what medical treatment they would
prefer near the end of life and how to prepare instructions such as
living wills," and there is little doubt as to what is coming.
The Post portrayed the controversy as stoked by "right-leaning
radio" using explosive language like "guiding you in how to die"
and government plans to "kill Granny." Yet, is not the logical
purpose of paying doctors for house calls to the terminally ill,
whose medical costs are killing Medicare, to suggest a pleasant and
early exit from a pain-filled and costly life?
Let us suppose the NICE plan in Britain is adopted. And an
80-year-woman, living alone, with excruciating persistent back
pain, is visited by a physician-counselor. What is he likely to
advise? What conclusion would Grandma be led to by a doctor who
sweetly explains what treatment she may still receive, what is
being cut off, and what her other options might be?
What other options are there?
Examples of how to "die with dignity" are at hand.
Three weeks ago, Sir Edward Downes, the world-renowned British
orchestra leader, who was going blind and deaf, and his wife of 54
years, who had terminal cancer, ended their lives at a Zurich
clinic run by the assisted suicide group Dignitas. They drank a
small amount of liquid and died hand in hand, their adult children
by their side.
This is the way of de-Christianized Europe. For years, doctors have
assisted the terminally ill in ending their lives. Indeed, it has
been reported that indigent, sick and elderly patients who could
not make the decision for themselves had it made for them.
In America, we have a Death with Dignity Act in Oregon and such
suicide counselors as the Hemlock Society, which itself took the
cup in 2003. Now we have Compassion & Choices, which counsels the
elderly sick on a swift and painless end. Before he took to ending
the lives of patients who were not terminal, but sick and
depressed, Dr. Kevorkian had his admirers. Not infrequently, one
reads of nursing homes where the infirm and elderly have been put
to death.
Beneath this controversy lie conflicting concepts about life.
To traditional Christians, God is the author of life and innocent
life, be it of the unborn or terminally ill, may not be taken.
Heroic means to keep the dying alive are not necessary, but to
advance a natural death by assisting a suicide or euthanasia is a
violation of the God's commandment, Thou shalt not kill.
To secularists and atheists who believe life begins and ends here,
however, the woman alone decides whether her unborn child lives,
and the terminally ill and elderly, and those closest to them, have
the final say as to when their lives shall end. As it would be
cruel to let one's cat or dog spend its last months or weeks in
terrible pain, they argue, why would one allow one's parents to
endure such agony?
In the early 20th century, with the influence of Social Darwinism,
the utilitarian concept that not all life is worth living or
preserving prevailed. In Virginia and other states, sterilization
laws were upheld by the Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who
said famously, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
In Weimar Germany, two professors published "The Permission to
Destroy Life Unworthy of Life," which advocated assisted suicide
for the terminally ill and "empty shells of human beings." Hitler's
Third Reich, marrying Social Darwinism to Aryan racial supremacy,
carried the concepts to their logical if horrible conclusion.
Revulsion to Nazism led to revival of the Christian ideal of the
sanctity of all human life and the moral obligation of all to
defend it. But the utilitarian idea -- of the quality of life
trumping the faith-based idea of the sanctity of life -- has made a
strong comeback.
And the logic remains inexorable. If government intends to "bend
the curve" of rising health care costs, and half of those costs are
incurred in the last six months of life, and physician-counselors
will be sent to the seriously ill to advise them of what costs will
no longer be covered, and what their options are -- what do you
think is going to be Option A?
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/time-to-go-grampa-1623