When it comes to promises from the government that things will be "better" under their newly-devised plans, history shows us that they can't be trusted. Projected budgets for Boston's infamous "Big Dig" highway tunnel project intitially were about $2.6 billion, but ballooned all the way up to $14.6 billion!and was completed 5 years later than contemplated. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3769829/
Costs for Medicare and Medicaid in the early 1960s was about "$39 billion in 1965, [and] increased to $75 billion in 1971. To combat the swift increases in costs, Congress instituted "health care reform" in the guise of limitations on reimbursements to physicians and hospitals. They also enacted legislation to create HMOs. HMOs devised "managed care" as a cost-saving measure and it has ever-since dominated how private insurance companies (and Medicare/Medicaid are run). http://www.cchconline.org/privacy/hmoart.php3
Now, we are being told that health care reform will not result in any damaging effects to seniors, but at the same time, they openly talk about rationing expensive care for the elderly. There can be no other conclusion that many seniors will end up dead, sooner rather than later under reforms to health care in the USA. The President's own health care advisor,
With regard to the environment, the government promised that they would clean up toxic sites. Superfund sites were given special priority and later on some of these were allowed to be treated, "cleaned-up" and as a "Brown site," transferred to private ownership and developed for public or private use. Inspectors from the government told communities that these sites were "safe," however, in dozens and dozens of sites all over America, people are getting sick and the government denies that that problems are related to the toxic sites. One toxic site is the former NASA facility where Downey studios in California was later built and used.
Former Hospice Patients Alliance board member, Vickie Travis has done a huge service to the public by researching and publicizing the cover-up at the former NASA facility. A story in the LA Times shows how many workers at the site have become ill after working there; it also shows how those responsible for the clean-up deny any problems, deny that there are any toxic materials, and deny that illnesses acquired have anything to do with the site. Whatever the government says, the workers' lives have been devastated, tests have been denied in many cases, care has been denied in many cases and huge efforts have been made to cover it all up. See: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-downey2-2009aug02,0,6357142,full.story and for the documents that show what really happened: http://downey.kaiserpapers.info/
I could go on and on with accounts of government promises made, "respected" officials stating that something is "safe," and only later admitting after terrible results, that they "underestimated" the problem, or "had no idea" people would suffer or get sick.
We cannot trust the government to honor the lives of the elderly and disabled. Their care under proposed legislation is to be rationed or denied outright. We have only to look at who is guiding this process and what their values are. They do not honor the sanctity of life of each patient. They are looking at how to cut costs, while at the same time billions of dollars are stolen through fraud in Medicare and Medicaid (and no real effort to stop that fraud is undertaken). And at the same time, billions of dollars are going to "who knows where." The government cannot say where all the bailout dollars are going.
Under the new proposals, the government will pay for an end-of-life consultation to promote end-of-life decision-making, including advanced directives, DNRs and other documents that are sold as affirming patient choice, but in reality are honored only when the patient decides to reject care, reject CPR and limit costs. See Lifetree's excellent discussion of similar inititiatives from other states that is to be included in the new health care reforms: http://www.lifetree.org/newsletter/06_06.html
If a patient says he or she wants all care normally provided, courts or panels of doctors and social workers can override the patient's wishes (in hospital futile-care protocol committees). We have heard these stories from families around the country.
See Judie Brown's new post, "PALLIATIVE CAREÕS MERCILESS TWIST" showing how the hospice and palliative care movement has been infiltrated by those who do not honor the sanctity of life ethic, but wish to further the culture of death, assisted-suicide and euthanasia. http://www.all.org/newsroom_judieblog.php?id=2697
Please contact your Congressman to let them know what you think about current proposals. Shouldn't doctors and patients retain the right to choose for themselves what care is best?