Charlie Sykes: Obama wants to kill the elderly!!!!!!!!!

Betsy McCaughey is best known for writing a factually challenged attack on the Clinton health care plan for the New Republic that's frequently cited as one of the factors that helped kill it (it would have been killed anyway, but whatevs). She's gone on to mount a series of factually challenged attacks on the latest effort to reform our dysfunctional health insurance system. So, naturally, Charlie Sykes holds her up as a hero and spouts her latest talking point: Obama wants to kill the elderly!

From known prevaricator Betsy:

"On page 425, the Congress would make it mandatory, absolutely required that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner: how to decline nutrition, how to decline hydration, how to go into hospice care...and by the way, the bill expressly says that if you get sick, somewhere in that five year period, if you get a cancer diagnosis, for example, you have to go through that session, again....all to do what's in societies best interest, or your family's best interest and cut your life short...these are such sacred issues of life and death - government should have nothing to do with it".

Obama threw his grandmother under the bus --now he wants to throw yours under as well!

Actually, what the bill does is require practitioners to revist the issue of advance care directives (i.e. living wills) addressing life sustaining treatment (see Terri Schiavo) every five years.

Here's the ghoulish description  of the counseling session:

‘‘(E) An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.

Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing any references to Dr.Kevorkian in the above language. Nor do I see the explicit link between suicide and hospice care (which is covered by Medicare,btw).

But, Charlie has to whip up his benighted listeners into a froth with something, and this will definitely get his graying listeners going. One Sykes fan (in an email,the Brawler believes) said his friends say he's crazy for believing this ... but he knows it true. So Charlie will string him along for a few days. Then he'll find something else. Lie, incite, repeat. Great work if you can find it.

Does Charlie have an advance care directive?

Thanks to A Candid World.

Just in: Today Charlie links to Red State and it's a hoot (Brawler's bold):

The section requires that they talk to their doctor, not a lawyer, about living wills, durable healthcare powers of attorney, hospice, etc. Given the progressive intelligentsia already being on the record in favor of euthanizing the elderly, it is no small leap to see where the Democrats are headed with this.

Legally forcing senior citizens to have “death with dignity schedules every few years is just another way to say the government wants to make sure seniors know it is time to commit suicide to save the system money.

Again: Palliative or hospice care equals state-mandated suicide or euthanasia. Brilliant. (Also intriguing is the concept that everyone can afford a lawyer to write up a living will.) Charlie will no doubt whip his listeners into a froth over this -- and point out that the liberal elite media is trying to cover up this insane talking point.

Again, given that Medicare already covers hospice care, isn't the United States already engaged in a conspiracy to whack the old? (The original Medicare reimbursement rate was established in 1983 when Reagan was president.)

Just in: After ObamaKillGrandmaCare has been festering for a week, Talking Points Memo offers this debunking.

Full sinister language of Section 1233 beneath the fold.

SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION.

(a) MEDICARE.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—Section 1861 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395x) is amended—

….

(B) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘‘Advance Care Planning Consultation

‘‘(hhh)(1) Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4), the term ‘advance care planning consultation’ means a consultation between the individual and a practitioner described in paragraph (2) regarding advance care planning, if, subject to paragraph (3), the individual involved has

not had such a consultation within the last 5 years. Such consultation shall include the following:

‘‘(A) An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to.

‘‘(B) An explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses.

‘‘(C) An explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy.

‘‘(D) The provision by the practitioner of a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning, including the national toll-free hotline, the advance care planning clearinghouses, and State legal service organizations (including those funded through the Older Americans Act of 1965).

‘‘(E) An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.

‘‘(F)(i) Subject to clause (ii), an explanation of orders regarding life sustaining treatment or similar orders, which shall include—

‘‘(I) the reasons why the development of such an order is beneficial to the individual and the individual’s family and the reasons why such an order should be updated periodically as the health of the individual changes;

‘‘(II) the information needed for an individual or legal surrogate to make informed decisions regarding the completion of such an order; and

‘‘(III) the identification of resources that an individual may use to determine the requirements of the State in which such individual resides so that the treatment wishes of that individual will be carried out if the individual is unable to communicate those wishes, including requirements regarding the designation of a surrogate decision maker (also known as a health care proxy).

‘‘(ii) The Secretary shall limit the requirement for explanations under clause (i) to consultations furnished in a State—

‘‘(I) in which all legal barriers have been addressed for enabling orders for life sustaining treatment to constitute a set of medical orders respected across all care settings; and

‘‘(II) that has in effect a program for orders for life sustaining treatment described in clause (iii).

‘‘(iii) A program for orders for life sustaining treatment for a States described in this clause is a program that—

‘‘(I) ensures such orders are standardized and uniquely identifiable throughout the State;

‘‘(II) distributes or makes accessible such orders to physicians and other health professionals that (acting within the scope of the professional’s authority under State law) may sign orders for life sustaining treatment;

‘‘(III) provides training for health care professionals across the continuum of care about the goals and use of orders for life sustaining treatment; and

‘‘(IV) is guided by a coalition of stakeholders includes representatives from emergency medical services, emergency department physicians or nurses, state long-term care association, state medical association, state surveyors, agency responsible for senior services, state department of health, state hospital association, home health association, state bar association, and state hospice association.

Comments

[Danielle]

I work in health care and seriously just
had a client tell me that the government is hiring pharmasist and nurses to kill the mentally ill, elderly without family, religious people, veterans, and members of the NRA... seriously. She stated that this is being preached at her church and that a member of her church has allready been euthinized. She stated that I need to start building underground bunkers and teach my young children to shoot a gun... and that they should kill any mexican or muslim that goes onto our property because they are only there to rob or kill us.... seriously- people think like this... and they will all be voting for Sarah Palin