Breaking: Finance Committee to drop end-of-life provision
Just in from The Hill:
The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.
The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after it was derided by conservatives as “death panels” to encourage euthanasia.
“On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. “We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”
The Finance Committee is the only congressional committee not to report out a preliminary healthcare bill before the August congressional recess, but is expected to unveil its proposal shortly after Labor Day.
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They killed the provision – it was too old and didn’t contribute to the health of the overall system. Hmmm…
No amount a tweaking is going to make this bill good.
If you put icing and non-pareils on a dog turd, it looks good….
but it is still just a dog turd.
It looks like all of the “rioting” is having an effect. Keep it up people!
One “controversial” provision down and 1,000 more to go . . .
Whether it’s in the bill…or coming next year or the year after…“it’s in there”.
Riighhhtt…whatever you say, I believe! Always looking out for your constituents. The only thing I want to hear is that health insurance reform has been abandoned. I don’t trust any of them.
They’ll take it out now to help the bill pass, then put it back in once the law is in place and can be tweaked.
Huh? I thought congress was in recess…
C’mon now, these townhalls don’t sway politicians…and now there’s proof the Republicans are responsible for loading the townhalls with opposition…or so the Obamanistas will say. Why else would a Republican, Grassley, come out a disclose this?
That sounds suspiciously like they are (gasp) READING the Bill!
Kill the ObamaCare bill!!!
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), thanks for nothing. The entire bill is controversial and the American people, by and large are happy with their current healthcare. Everything the government touches turns to crap. Stay out of our healthcare!
I’ll think he needs to hear from us.
Oh yea now they say that. What about the complete dimwittedness of the people that added it? Are they forbidden from ever writing another piece of legislation?
And what about the Conference committee, after the respective bills pass both Houses. It will get added back in.
As they showed on powerline today, I’ll bet the Senate drops the Public Option too, then it will be added back in Conference Commmittee.
These people can be trusted with nothing.
The LAWS of economics say that…
Death Panels are mandatory under government-run health care.
As are shortages.
Lowered quality.
The death of innovation.
Mandated behavior/forbidden behavior.
Soaring costs in spite of all the above.
You don’t need to write any of that into a statute at the outset. It will all be following along as effects faithfully tag along after cause.
I do not care what they take out, just kill the gosh horrible bill. I hope people don’t believe for one minute it will not be snuck back in. I know it is really hard to believe, but I DO NOT trust our elected. Keep up the pressure people, please just kill the bill.
L
Notice that ‘Death Panels’ is put in quotes, while the euphemistic, 1984-ish “consultations for end-of-life care ” is treated as a wholly valid and legitimate term.
Sarah Palin/America 1
Frum/Parker/Brooks/etc 0
So what? It isn’t like there aren’t 3 different versions of the same crapola and even if it’s removed, it will get put back in. THESE PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS. They did this with abortion, too.
But, still good to see that they are, albeit indirectly, admitting what we KNEW WAS THERE.
They dropped a provision that Obama says doesn’t exist?
Whose to say he won’t reappear again?
Thanks for nothing, the people want the whole thing dropped.
and once that is finished time to add tort reform, remove mandates and then we would have a real foundation to build true reform on!
Oops, “it” not “he.”
Thanks to Sarah Palin!!
HaHaHA — Just add it back later … And who trusts their congressional clunker?
Obamacare: Abort the unborn, kill the old, save money, give money saved to Democrat constituencies, Obama rules for life. Hugo Chavez, eat your heart out.
Riddle me this Joker: How do you insure 47 million new patients with no new doctors and save money? Isn’t it obvious you have to ration care to old people, or you can’t save money?
And who is going to pay the $1.6 trillion in new debt?
Why not we try tort reform first.
Statement that does not make for good ju-ju:
“I’m from ____________ and I’m here to help.”
a. Washington
b. the home office
c. Squadron
d. all of the above
This is a great illustration of why I have taken exception to all the outrage about the end of life provisions being expressed here. Since I’ve been called about everything under the sun in doing so can you who are going to criticize me at least try to be creative this time? The RINO, John McCain zombie and liberal stuff is really getting over used.
The end of life care stuff in the current legislation is not that bad AND it not the problem. The end of life care stuff is actually pretty good stuff.
The problem is the rationing that will force people not by their own choice to face of end of life issues. The idea that you should have end of life decisions made clear and established is a sound and appropriate idea. The requirement to address advanced directives is already in place. There really isn’t much new about some of Obama’s end of life stuff.
The problem is by forcing rationing on people you are forcing them to make end of life decisions they don’t want to make. The monster is rationing.
Taking end of life issues out of the bill means nothing. It is not a win, it is not progress. There is no cause for celebration here. This is a non issue.
So the current legislation still forces you to face the impact of rationing for grandma’s and grandpa’s health care options but now you do so without having their wishes established an in place?
This is some how a good thing?
Thank you Sarah!!!
Doing the job Republicans refuse to do!
The problem is you can’t trust them. They will add things on as they go and if you don’t read the fine print they will still work in this crap. The whole bill must die then we have to vote out these socialist progressive democrats and fraud republicans so they can’t push this through.
Dont get too excited about this yet. It appears they only dropped it, because the House bill already has a work around:
Sounds to me like the House bill encourages hospitals not to allow readmittance for inpatient care which in the long run achieves their goal without the death panels.
Taht provision seemed like their main method of actually controlling costs. Personally I believe that this is an evil provision and an evil health care plan, but I am just a doctor. To get a good view of how these congressional hearings are going, please watch some clips from the “Monty Python’s Life of O’Brian”. That film is prophetic.
“a penalty for hospitals that are adjudged to have “excess readmissions”
Sorry and again if you don’t believe me, oh well….
There already are penalties in both medicare and private pay insurance plans for readmissions if too soon after discharges.
Not defending Obamacare. Just pointing out that if you are going to get upset over stuff like this it would help if people would find out a little more about how it works now.
That’s just a symptom . . . now they need to drop the entire stinking bag. In its entirety it is the most frightening socialist manifesto written in the last 60 years. Those politicos need to stop playing their stupid games and understand that throwing the people a small tasteless bone will not solve the problem.
Umm…
PP…?
Sarah IS a Republican.
precisely
At some point in the future we know that the democrats are going to transform from spendthrifts to deficit hawks. Now to the extent that the government adopts State-rationed medical care, they will have to cut somewhere and likely soon. Which is why even if this bill is defeated this year, it will, like shamnesty, keep coming back.
If they can’t kill off the old people (at the moment, anyway), then they will have to start denying huge amounts of services everywhere else or tax us all ’till we drop. Or both. One thing is certain — they are desperate to get this bill passed in one form or another. The goal is always to have the power to give health care to the groups allied with the Democrats and deny it to everyone else. That is why I am not terribly impressed with this development. The fundamental goals of the democrat party, the secular on earth to the liberals, have not changed and will not change. It’s only that the need to get the heat off Obama and his central planners must be overwhelming right about now.
We’re winning, but we have so far to go and outsourcing our efforts to the Republican Party (like we did in the 90′s) is no longer an option.
Only about 1500 pages (I think… How long was this bill again?) left to get rid of before you eliminate all of those unintended consequences.
I don’t know (maybe someone can tell us), but I really doubt that Oregon has an explicit “Death Panel” provision.
See, when you go down this statist road, you don’t need to write everything into law. It will be coming along, regardless.
There will be “Death Panel” decisions, regardless of what the laws say. It is inevitable under a statist health care system.
Just like federally funded abortions. You don’t need a law saying they will be provided. You’d have to have one saying they ARE NOT.
*********Faux News Alert*********
Obama names “Death Panel” panel!!!
Alice Cooper
Ozzie Osbourne
Joy Beyhar
Rosanne
1st alternate: Elvis (yes he’s alive and living on Fatso Island)
The motto….
Your lives our in our hands now, deal with it.
Breaking!!!
Al Franken is to be named Czar over Panel.
film at 11:00
Rags, I would like to believe Sarah Palin is a conservative first.
1. End state regulation of insurance of all kinds; health, auto, home, life. Let insurance companies compete for business on a national scale.
2. End mandates for insurance coverage. Let individuals decide on the amount of coverage they want for themselves, and what they are willing to pay for it.
3. Permit insurance companies to charge lower rates for individuals who demonstrate the ability to manage their risk factors.
4. Reduce federal regulation oversight to only that necessary to insure that companies can meet their capital requirements, loss reserves, based on actuarial data.
She’s not an establishment republican, however which I think is the point. For the most part they want nothing to do with her and wish most intensely that she would go away. Like many I have stopped thinking of her as a “republican” as well, just as I no longer attach the label to my self. To be honest, I still don’t know what to make of her but two things are clear:
First, the woman has tremendous personal and political power. Maybe even more than Obama, which must be scaring something out of a lot of people.
Second, she is reading Thomas Sowell. That I thought from the start was an absolute must, and she is doing it.
She must be listening to Ann Coulter and that is pretty cool too.
Gee, Chuck…how can you “take out” something that we’ve been told repeatedly “isn’t there?” And, it still doesn’t address the rationing and the costs associated with “the government option.” Cut the crap. People can obviously read and can see through the attempted overthrow of the healthcare system by Obama and Congress.
In a related note: Dingy Harry Reid has referred to townhall protestors as “evil-mongers.” Good strategy, Dingy…more insults toward working, tax-paying citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. How’s that workin’ for ya’?
Now what about the “voluntary” parental counseling?
Just wait until some political appointee without kids designs a program to “teach” parents how to raise their kids. I’m sure that will be good for the country.
Maybe Ted Kennedy can do it, his kids turned out great. How’s rehab Patrick?
This deletion is only a milkbone to keep us mad dogs happy for a minute or two. Any, and I mean ANY, version of a healthcare bill is the camel’s nose under the tent. The entire concept of these bills needs to be destroyed. Then we start working on getting rid of the other socialist medical policies of the federal government.
If they try to pass this, I’m sure they will have a reserved section for future language after the vote.
Classic misdirection. The more we focus on one particular aspect of the bill, the more ammo we give them to “negotiate” the “differences” and come to a “bipartisan compromise.” The entire thing is a stinking pile. The fact that they dropped this provision actually makes me a little queasy, because I fear that they will now turn to their constituents and say “See, I’m looking out for you.” Then everyone will shuffle on home…
Doesn’t matter what is in or out… they will put it all back in during markup and have it on Der Furher’s Desk in record time.
We’re still going to kill retarted kids. Since it’s not in the bill in the first place, there’s no way to remove it! Mwahahaha!!!
Slighly OT, but related:
Apparently, we are all “evil-mongers” now, according to Harry Reid.
He probably thinks we are smelly too.
If they take it out now,they’ll put it in later, even if it has to be passed on it’s own as some sort of amendment or addition to the base pile of crap. The Democrats and Obama will have their road to euthanasia, at any cost.
Which I fully believe. That was, of course, not my point.
We do ourselves no favor wallowing in a fevered indulgence of hyperbole. This is a very serious time, and we face very serious threats. I want us all to keep our thinking and writing serious.
Except when we are just having fun…
Golly, I wish you were clever enough to realize what you said is perfectly true…
Potomac Two Step:
Omitted from the Senate Version that is passed
Included in the House Version that is passed
Put in during the Conference
Signed by the President
http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/8-13-09rrmonsterRGB20090813063542.jpg
true…for America
Americans should “gird our loins” for the long haul on this crap sandwich. This thing is just beginning.
Sen. Grassley reaching across the aisle. What a dope. Another pol not listening to what the people are saying. Kill the bill, not old people.
Lets start with tort reform.
Seems like they could get widespread support from citizens by having a one page bill on tort reform and a one page bill removing all incentives for illegal immigrants to come and stay in America.
It won’t happen, but just sayin’.
Now that the dems are starting to back away from the current bill, we should press the GOP to start introducing ideas that will really reform health care
1. Tort reform
2. moving SHPS away from the use it or lose model it is now by allowing it to grow even if it’s not used by the end of the year. make it mobile similar to 401k’s.
I agree. The thing with end-of-life issues, directives, powers of attorney, living wills, etc. is that what in the world makes any of us think they’ll ultimately be respected?
If the Constitution isn’t protected by the current administration, what will they care what we print out on our HPs at home?
My prediction: this bill as it stands is dead. What will happen come September is that it will get pared down into some kind of Medicare bill and one of the provisions these weasels will circle the wagon around is health insurance for illegal aliens as a backdoor amnesty attempt.
That is ultimately what this is all about. Secure the border and 80-90% of the problem disappears.
found this morning ,this quote:
After all, through out the bills I have seen so far, it says that the “Secretary” will, after a period of time, like 6 months to a year, provide a list on the specifics of the legislation. In other words ObamaCare, if passed, in any of its recent incarnations, is nothing more than a BIG BLANK CHECK for the government to do as it pleases.
Anyone familar with American government and its history, knows that, once you open the door, there is no going back. They pass any sort of health bill, the “tweaks” will come. It’s only a matter of time-something usually slipped into another bill, unnoticed.
Kill the Bill – the WHOLE BILL
That TAX is still in there to put every private insurer OUT OF BUSINESS. The plan still allows the government to pay doctors whatever the government wishes to pay them. The IRS is still the enforcement arm of the plan. There is still a tax penalty for not having insurance. Having catastrophic health insurance is still illegal. Parts of the plan are still immune from court review, (&how is THAT Constitutional?)
Agreed JS. But it is interesting how those who push for Gov’t run health care are also the ones who push end-of-care provisions (just stripped) and doctor-assisted suicide provisions or laws..I believe there is no coincidence between those efforts…one provision complements the other-especially when there is the gov’t- decreed mandate proposed or installed to pay doctors specifically to give end-of-care counseling or even doctor-assisted suicide as opposed to a rational, thoughtful, and independent assessment by the attending doctor(s) of what could or should be done by a family with a terminally or severely ill loved one.
Euthanasia, death boards: A Case study in the life cycle of a Republican lie.
hello? It’s spelled ‘retarded’.
Shame.
If it was a lie, then how did they remove it?
“are also the ones who push end-of-care provisions”
I very much push for end of life provisions. Just think how the Terry Schavio case would have gone if she had hers in place. However I am very much opposed to Obamacare.
Oh lgm, if you want to point at anyone lying you need to take care of your own house first. Obama has been and is still lying over and over.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), RINO, vote him out.
as a wise radio personality said, you can’t cut payments from people who aren’t sick or injured. they are money into the gubmint. the sick, the terminal, the mentally ill, the injured are the only ones costing the system money, so they are the only ones that can possibly face cost savings and that can only be done by rationing. we already have generic drugs, and people generally don’t use them. we already have rationing of medicare and medicaid, so people have to buy supplemental medicare policies. medicaid patients use the emergency room rather than face the medicaid system. so how do you squeeze money from a system when we are building a new beaurocracy.
Get it straight lgm, Sarah used the term “Death PANEL” and she is DEAD RIGHT about it in the original house version! (Grassly now saying they are dropped the offending provision) HR 3200 provides that a doctor CAN COLLECT PAYMENT for counseling on ‘end of life choices’ including hospice.
How would like that for your mother or other close elderly relative LGM? Say she’s in really bad shape, nobody is sure whether or not the cancer treatments are going to work out and it’s all up to her will to fight – and then along comes the pitch from the doctor to be sure she hears about her option to choose hospice, (ie give up and DIE), so the doctor can then collect more money from the government for the counseling service, (because he/she is only getting paid 50% what they used to be paid from private insurers…). And YOU have ZERO to say about her hearing about it!
This is the ONLY rational thing for Americans to do.
Kill the Bill. Every page. Until it is dead, dead, dead.
The entire House bill is an abomination.
Start with a clean page. Founding principle: free markets work. Remove ALL government market distortions from the health care industry, from the insurance industry, and watch the magic go to work.
Guys…
The Death Panel and the “end of life counseling” are two separate but related concepts.
Oregon, as far as I know, does no “end of life counseling” as a state mandate.
Oregon HAS “death panels” that decide what will and will not be paid for. It is a POLITICAL decision, made by POLITICALLY MOTIVATED AND INFLUENCED “experts”.
lgm is an idiot, by his own choice. Let him be what he has chosen to be.
“so how do you squeeze money from a system when we are building a new beaurocracy.”
You increase the pool from which you draw funds. In other words you add those folks who aren’t sick, don’t need, want nor choose to pay for health insurance now. You force those people to participate by fining them for not participating. By increasing the size of the pool you disburse expenses over more people so the cost to a particular person goes down.
This is why Obamacare will have to include the young folks and penalize them for not playing nice with others.
Rationing AND forcing people to participate. Both of those have to be in play.
It is a huge attack on personal freedom.
For it, before she was against it, I guess.
Please, I write “directives to care-givers” for my clients. That does not make me in favor of the ghoulish practice of sitting down with sick people…expressly for pay…to get them to go one way or the other.
Indeed, many of my clients EXPRESSLY opt for the “full monty” of continuing care. Everything, all the time, as the Eagles would say…
Jeez. Think(?!) Progress(?!) as source?
Agreed. I am referring to when such provisions are dictated by some law or gov’t mandate, combined with distinct pay for physicians or for those acting in a physician’s stead (ARPNs-?). If such plans are done voluntarily without a scintilla of coercion, then I am fine with end-of-life provisions. I reread what I wrote and I see the contradiction between the first sentence in reference to this issue and my later comments..It’s my mistake (re: post #61).
Ragspierre :Good answer to
neocon527 .
without a scintilla of coercion or reward for and/or by friends, family members, gov’t employees/officials or medical professionals i.e. end-of life-provisions RE: post #74
The current language has been removed and replaced with a bookmark for future language. The bookmark is labelled “Throw Momma from the train!”
“I am referring to when such provisions are dictated…”
There is a difference between dictating the dialog, the questions, and dictating the answers to those questions.
There is a huge problem in this country because the questions are not being asked often enough in enough places for the typical patient to get the idea that “Hey, maybe I do need to put my desires in writing…”
Sorry to be repetitive but the monsters in Obamacare is rationing and coercion to participate. Not the end of life care provisions.
It is the rationing that puts the end of life decision piece in play and front and center.
It is the wrong target and having the end of life issues pulled means nothing.
I saw a picture on Fox News that I meant to save so I could link to it. It was a picture of a young woman carrying a sign that said, “I do not want to talk to anyone about end of life issues”. It is the dumbest sign imaginable and illustrates my point perfectly. What a misinformed woman that is. She absolutely needs to talk to someone about her end of life issues. How many of the folks who were totally freaked about Terry Schavio still don’t have advanced directives in place?
The questions need to be asked. People need to be reminded on a regular basis to address their end of life desires. AND those decisions need to be reviewed periodically with a greater frequency later in life.
Not only is there nothing wrong with that, it is a very good idea and needs to be encouraged.
Sarah Palin 1. Obama 0.
I sure hope Palin can take the dialog from the end of life issues to the rationing that will force less care for the elderly. If she can’t it will be easy to make this outrage look goofy.
Rationing is where all the problems flow from. To say there won’t be rationing is a lie. There simple has to be rationing. Since grandma will no be able to have lets say dialysis, at 102 THEN she will be forced into end of life care. The source of the problem is rationing.
Rags:
Over the past 2-3 weeks, it seems that yet another ?4th ?5th? Sybil personality has appeared.
Whoever is posting now as lgm tries to sound deliberate, serious, thoughtful, and deep.
Do you think perhaps that several folks sharing a house and a computer also share the sign-in name “lgm” – sort of how the Gorgons’ three sisters, known as the Graeae, shared one eye and one tooth?
Let’s remain diligent. These devious and deceptive idiots in d.c. will most likely slip some type of verbiage into the bill just prior to voting on it that will include mandatory end-of-life discussions/counseling with some bureaucrat making the final decision. Be aware and beware!
It really is a poser, Granite. The “person” actually does seem to shift significantly.
As to the Graeae, two things: I think I dated them, and, secondly,…WOW…I am impressed by your knowledge of mythology.
They took out the “end of Life” part that wasn’t in the bill. How nice. And then they slip it back in when it goes to secret conference where they slip in at the last minute their little secret pork and other goodies. Let’s not be fooled by this “BAIT AND SWITCH”. Since they denied that the “end of Life” was ever in the bill and now have admitted it was in the bill, we can not believe these liars and deceivers. Oh wait- Obama campaigned that these debates in conference would be transparent so we can watch. Yah right!!!!!!!! Another Lie.
floam- Sorry I repeated most of what you have already said. It wasn’t showing when I began my comments.
A lot of “experts” and deceivers owe Sarah a big apology. I am sure it will be forth coming.
Do not be fooled, people!!! They will do this a lot. They will take out the most controvertial parts that people yell about the most. Then sneak them back in at midnight. There is NO TRUTH IN THESE PEOPLE. Everything that is in the bill right now is there because they put them there. Why would they do that if they didn’t truly want those things in there??? Since they don’t really care what the people think, and are only saying what they think we want to hear, why should we believe they intend to take all these things out and KEEP them out? Do they have a track record of doing that? Just the opposite. They are sneaky, slimy, crapweasels and corruption oozes from every stinking pore. I can’t believe I just said that…but it is an apt description. I am becoming more and more convinced every day that this country is being run by totally immoral people who want to radically change us into a socialist or even communist country.
Gasp:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp108&sid=cp108d60yh&refer=&r_n=hr391.108&item=&sel=TOC_2103579&
Calling all Thread Rangers for reserve duty at:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/07/23/the-dont-taze-me-bro-moment-of-henry-louis-gates/?loggedin=1250286071#commentform
Shooting for the 7,000 post mark.