There is a controversial provision tucked away in a House bill which would allow for Medicare to pay for counseling every five years or however critical condition that patient was in in regards to the end of their lives. Some critics such as former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made a reference to it as "death panels". Whenever a senior citizen reaches a certain age they would have Medicare to fund "End of Life" counseling for them whether it be hospice or something else. That's how President Obama described the bill.
That provision was dropped from a Senate bill because of the possibility of the misinterpretation that "End of Life" counseling could mean, according to Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), who is on the Senate Finance Committee. Those that support this provision will say that the "end of life" counseling has nothing to do with euthanasia, per se. However, if the government seizes control of our healthcare industry, they will become arbitrators and make life and death decisions in regards to terminating a person's life. There's no way our country can fund nationalized health care. It's too expensive and there isn't enough taxable revenue to go around to fund it. The government will probably be taxing health care benefits as well as using other taxable measures to fund it. It will be a drain on our economy. There's no way the quality of health care we have now will be provided with limited funds. I predict we won't have the health care services we do now if health care is nationalized.
I believe the government will be making decisions when it comes to the rights of terminally ill patients. That's not the government's place to do that. However, when we live in a society that doesn't uphold the Christian view that life is sacred and worth living, then you'll find our government assigning value to human life. They've already done that with the unborn. If the unborn child's life is not worth protecting, then what's the worth of an elderly person who's no longer considered a benefit to society when they have limited mobile capacity?
I know there are debates when it comes to living wills and determing how far to go when it comes to medical treatment when a person's incapacitated. Some patients sign living wills stating when they reach a certain point when they're no longer able to function to not put them on life support system. They have that right if they desire. However, euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is murder. That's what Dr. Jack Kevorkian did a number of years starting in 1990. He was put in jail from 1999-2007 in Michigan for a particular assisted-suicide murder. I remember the Terri Schiavo incident in 2005 when Michael Schiavo successfully sought through court order to have her feeding tube removed and she died of starvation and dehydration on March 31, 2005. He fought against Terri's family who wanted her to live. She wasn't in a persistent vegatative state, according to some reports. Her family would've been willing to take care of her by themselves.
If the "End of Life" provision ever makes it into the final bill which President Obama would sign, it could lead down the pathway to euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, in my opinion. When a government becomes the arbitrater when it comes to medical treatment for certain groups of people, then they'll support measures to eliminate them, because they no longer are of use to society (in their opinion). That's the humanist mentality. We've seen what value the government places on the life of an unborn child. The government supports abortion as well as infanticide (partial-birth abortion). The next step will be legalizing murder towards the elderly and those that are in critically ill condition. Christianity is what gives value and meaning to life. When a country rejects the Bible, then truth becomes relative and the value of an individual will be based upon moral relativism--that is the circumstances of an individual based on that given moment. If that individual is considered a nuisance and misfit, then they must die. That was the mentality of Adolf Hitler.
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