Daily Kos

Trust W. to actually sign something like this into law.

I don't remember the name, but there was a man who was denied care to the great consternation of his wife.  I'll try to find the details -- it was about 5 years ago in the San Antonio area (I live about 25 miles away from SA), and was on the local news for days as the wife fought to save her husband, even begging other hospitals to take him. Death panel, indeed.

who he and Gonzales killed directly in Texas' execution chambers.

that many Republicans would often have no problem withholding life support to reduce costs -- both personally and as a matter of public policy were a patient unable to pick up the tab. There might well also be a racial or class differential built into their decision process. This whole deather meme is all about projection. It is a god damn psychodrama.

but there are a lot of arguments to be made in favor of such a panel.

One of the ways such legislation is helpful is when family members refuse to honor end of life decisions of the patient, like the Schiavo case.

Others are where family members or certain subsets of family members may insist on brain dead patients or patients in a chronic vegetative state being kept alive through extreme measures.

Should a hospital be forced to keep alive a 90 year old substantively dead patient at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars?

We need to have rational discussions of these situations . . . and in my experience, most end of life problems involve the refusal of hospitals or to withhold extreme care when that was the patients wishes.

Most doctors over the age of 65 have Do Not Resuscitate orders on themselves.  If you are 60+ and have to be resuscitated in a hospital, your chances of ever walking out of that hospital are 5% or so. The older one gets, the more senstive to any oxygen deprivation, and the more severe will be the damage during oxygen deprivation.  You won't get better - but you will incur an additional $300,000 or so in medical bills before you die.

ANd we are NOT talking about euthanasia here - or mercy killing - we are talking about withholding or withdrawing extreme measures - not administering life ending drugs.

these are OUR death panels, not YOURS! I mean, they're just for poor people, vagrants, people a darker shade of pale and other undesirables!

/fanatical rightist

The Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Jeb Bush v. Michael Schiavo. Mr. Schiavo is the husband and legal guardian of Terri Schiavo, who suffered cardiac arrest and fell into a coma in 1990, resulting in brain damage. Michael Schiavo received permission from a Florida trial court to disconnect his wife's feeding tube and allow her to die. Terri Schiavo's parents, the Schindlers, are fighting Michael Schiavo and that original court decision in order to keep her alive. They disagree that Terri Schiavo is in a "persistent vegetative state."

In October 2003, the Florida legislature passed what is known as "Terri's Law," which allowed Governor Jeb Bush to issue an executive order to keep Terri Schiavo alive. Earlier this year, the Florida Second District Court of Appeal struck down "Terri's Law." Governor Bush appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. At issue is whether this law is a violation of the separation of powers and the Florida state constitution.

What was the motive behind this legislation ? Was it a cost saving measure or a cover your ass measure paid for by lobbyists ?

The Republicans don't care whether or not the death panels are true, they just want to whip people into a frenzy and get TV time. They want to stall real debate. After this is sent to rumor control and debunked, there will be another and another.

That said, to those of us for whom facts matter, nice diary.

re: the value of the Act, and with clammyc that it is the hypocrisy that is the central issue.  I find it ironic that the act is called the "Futile Care Act."  It seems a poor choose of words as it sounds as subjective as the language in some living wills which includes "if there is no hope."  

Bottom line, as the Act is still the law in Texas, copies of it should be in the hands of every pro health care reformer in that State when they go to a Town Hall meeting.

Thanks for the diary and my morning dose of irony.

That's the response you get if you bring up anything from 43's administration as governor or president. This useful phrase of theirs applies to the deficit, torture, the invasion of Iraq ... really anything. Sometimes they'll say "Yeah, we know some mistakes were made. But I'm talking about now."

And that's how they worm out of taking responsibility for any action on their watch.

So much for keeping guv't out of my personal decisions republicans.

I guess that only applies to certain group of selected individuals because the rules are different for them...IOKIYAR.

No wonder these wingnuts are petrified of this...they've witnessed it first hand in Texas.  

And just to be clear, I'm all for the piece of legislation that allows families and individuals to get end of life issues counseling paid for by the guv't.

and correct me if i'm wrong...
but don't health insurance policies allow coverage for abortions?  this seems to be a big beef now, that folks don't want their tax dollars going to pay for someone's abortion... but their insurance premiums are covering these now already.

Why ANY member of Congress, Democratic pundit, union spokesperson, etc., would POSSIBLY make ANY public appearance, without shouting about Sun Hudson from the rooftops, is beyond me.

This needs to be talking point number one in healthcare.

Someone needs to point this out to Keith Olbermmann and get it on Countdown.

This story needs to go viral right now.

Government "Death Panels" started by G.W.Bush!

. . .is a waste of time. You can no more move this crowd with reason than you can the people who insist that evolution is meerly a 'theory". You would have better luck argueing with your dog over whether to pee inside or outside.

I live in Texas and remember when this went into affect.

They also give you more paperwork when you are able to voluntarily enter a hospital.

Yes, the hypocrisy is going to kill us all.  Seriously,  there are some people out there who if successful will kill healthcare reform and how many people will die as a result?

It's Okay If You're In Texas...

you and I likely the only two people to remember this 1999 information about Bush's neocon Texas and you made the most relevant diary of it..so glad you did

I think this just increases the rationale for evidence-based medicine to be an integral part of any kind of government plan.  In addition to being a public health asset, this kind of database would make it a lot easier to audit for whether treatments are being denied on sound medical basis or for costing reasons.

The audits could of course be done with purely subjective expert verdicts, but it would take a lot more effort to really run their rationale to ground.

Here's an excellent article from  Salon on the Murder by Spreadsheet For Profit Insurance Companies model of them. Deny, Deny, Delay, Delay.....Bottom line it's all about money.

Don't you see, it's okay if a Republican actually for-real does things like that.  It's only bad if a Democrat does something that could be deliberately misunderstood and made to sound kinda like that if one's had enough vodka to impair one's thinking.

See?

When dealing with the right wingers, just remember the simple rule:  Republicans are doing God's work, Democrats are working for the devil, therefore anything a Republican does is good and in your best interest, and anything a Democrat does - no matter how good it seems to be (oh, they're tricky! -- is bad and evil!

Life's so much easier now that I have Glenn Beck to do all my thinking for me...

This is REALLY well put (source at the end):

Last week, former Governor Sarah Palin (R-Wingnuttistan) claimed that
Obama's health care reform plan could result in a "death panel"
killing her infant son, who suffers from Down Syndrome.  She was
backed up by Newt Gingrich the following Sunday on "This Week".

Well, sorry to disappoint the tinfoil brigade, but there are no
provisions for euthanasia anywhere in any of the health care reform
bills under consideration by Congress.

But there are "death panels" right here in the U.S. - in Texas, to be
specific.  Texas has a law on the books called the "Advance Directives
Act", aka the "Futile Care Law", which empowers hospitals to stop life
support for incapacitated patients in "hopeless" cases, even over the
objections of family members.  As Governor of Texas, George W. Bush
(that paragon of "pro-life" virtues) signed this legislation into law
in 1999.  Bush's successor, Rich Perry, signed an amendment in 2003
that made the law applicable to minors.

Not only that, but the health insurance companies that Republicans,
tea-baggers, birthers and other whackaloons are defending so
vigorously have their own de facto "death panels".  That's 'cause if
you suffer a catastrophic illness or injury, you stand a 50-50 chance
of being dropped by your health insurance company!

http://tauntermedia.com/...

Maybe it's a good thing that Ms. Mooseburger endured the 10-hour
flight from Texas to Alaska to deliver her youngest son Trig in her
hometown hospital.  Besides mental retardation, Down's Syndrome comes
bundled with a whole host of serious health issues.  If she had
delivered in Texas, the local hospital board may have pulled the plug
on little Trig.  Or she would have had a humungous co-pay from using
an out-of-network hospital!

Source: http://groups.google.com/...

It tells you everything you need to know about the "deathers," "wingnuts," etc.

It is all about emotional responses and gross oversimplification for them. Bush was right because he loved Jesus just like them or he talked about limiting government (didn't come close to doing it, though) or because he didn't like the law particularly, especially when it precluded doing what he (and they) thought was right.

What this revelation means is that the concerns of the deathers actually are in line with those of Obama and those who are carefully trying to create a new arrangement that keeps what is working right but addresses the issues that are threatening the overall system. They will never, ever admit this -- and may not even understand it -- but it is the truth.

You saved me the effort.

Remember, these people are telling folks that the government is going to kill them. And in states with Republican leadership, there's at least a grain of truth to the urban legends.

People living in places like LA, TX, AL, MS, all do have good, specific reasons to think that their state or local governments don't give a damn about them, or, if they are non-white, actually would prefer they just "go away".

Like I said: Anytime the Republicans are in power, they attack another nation. Anytime they're not, they attack their own.

We should not deny that a Public Option program and Medicare will be making decisions regarding what care they will pay for in end of life situations. Nearly all families want heroic end of life care, even when patients are terminal. If we are going to bend the cost curve we are going to need to adopt a tougher approach to end of life care. The Texas plan outlined in the diary was a thoughtful approach. We may not agree with it in every case, but these are difficult decisions that cannot in every case pay for heroic efforts. Nearly half of all lifetime medical expense is in the last six months of life.  We can no longer afford that. We have let the gopers steal the framing with their clever "death panel" phrase but we lose all credibility when we don't provide a candid response. Instead we change the subject by pointing to the private insurance companies who make these calls every day. The fact is that Medicare and the Public Option are going to need to adopt tough end of life guidelines like the insurance companies. Let's be honest about it.

send this diary to every media outlet in the country.  Just maybe it will cause a few of these idiotic gasbags to SHUT THE F**K UP.  I've seen all the stupid rhetoric on this subject that I can stand.

Everyone remember George W. Bush's mocking of the executed Karla Faye Tucker?

"Please. Don't kill me".

And he did it anyway.

So another fear-based screaming point turns out to be yet another case of Republicans being guilty of what they're frothing around about.  Their hypocrisy used to be amusing when it surfaced, but has long since turned foul.

Maybe if progressives can get a stronger public health system in place, our brothers and sisters across the aisle can get the mental health care that they so desperately need.

And we can get some peace and quiet while we fix the things they've broken over the past decades.

What does any of this have to do with federal healthcare legislation.  There are no fewer than FIVE unfinished bills circulating around Congress.  Discuss the bills, not what some Texas governor did in a state bill 10 years ago.  

...when we went to the rally at John Cornyn's office.

If you're on life support in Texas and your insurance money runs out, the hospital can pull the plug, thanks to then governor G.W. Bush.

This article in Alternet, March 23, 2005, compares the Terri Schiavo case to that of Sun Hudson, a six month old Texas boy who was removed from life support against his mother's wishes:

No Life Support for You

during the Schiavo fiasco.  Funny how the guy who signed that law had to interrupt his vacation to try to intervene in a family tragedy where the patient was already brain-dead.

for someone to diary this!  I remembered previous discussions.  Thank you!

Interview the screamers to find out if

(a) they voted for Dubya (of course they did, right?)

(b) they would support a program like the one Dubya put into law in Texas (of course they wouldn't, right?)

(c) why they weren't shouting in the streets back then?

Fuck these people.  I am so sick of them and their craziness.  They make the truthers seem rational and calm in comparison.

several times already.

Plug pulled on Texas futile-care bill
A Texas bill aimed at extending the time families of medically futile patients have to find another medical home itself ran out of time.

The measure that the Senate passed was scheduled for a House vote in late May. But it did not come up for debate before a midnight procedural deadline. The bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Dianne White Delisi, would have given a medically futile patient's family a total of 48 days to find another facility to continue care or take the matter to court.

A spate of headline-grabbing cases in which hospitals gave families the 10 days' notice required under a 1999 law before withdrawing futile life-sustaining treatment sparked the legislation. Anti-abortion and disability rights groups pushed for an earlier bill sponsored by Republican Sen. Bob Deuell, MD, that would have forced hospitals and physicians to continue providing care until the family could find another facility willing to accept the patient.

Dr. Deuell's measure earned strong opposition from hospitals and physicians, who say that providing extraordinary life-sustaining treatment in futile cases is medically and ethically inappropriate because it holds no benefit for the patient. But the Texas Hospital Assn. and the Texas Medical Assn. signed on to the Delisi bill, marketed as a compromise.

http://www.ama-assn.org/...

n/t

I got to be 6th in line of three lines at our town hall. A woman in front of me made statements to our representative and audience about euthanaia and abortion etc. Another woman had been sitting next to me reading her numbered ponts from a faux grp called Liberty something(Counsel I think). So I took the opportunity to point out this act. I said this stuff about euthanasia and death panels was gabage, I told them about what the act did and ended with who signed it into law. The large church audience erupted to boos and apoplause. We had about 80% pro reform, single payer, and 15 to 20 right wing stupids reciting stupid shit off the faux grp sites having no factual credibility. People stopped me on my way back to my seat to thank me, applaud me and slap me oin the back and shake my hand.

Putting this little known fact out had the effect of showing the repug wingnuts  for what they were really doing there to everyone. I recommend doing it the way I did. Start out with the brief facts of what the panels can do without notifying the family or patient, they can start poulling the plug and end with in 1999 W signing it into law. It gets the righties following along thinking its going good for them, others aren't sure, then its a shot of reality right at the end. Pro Public option people loved this comment.  

That is how I referred to it.

I wonder how many times the plug was pulled to save money for a health insurance company or hospital?

Can anyone come up with that number? It would be interesting.

to this

the more ridiculous its supporters sound.

(The GOP health insurance plan is the status quo)

Greg Shenaut

If my memory is correct, about a year ago, I heard about a similar law or proposal for a law in the state of Virginia.  However, due to family crises, I haven't had time to dig around for citations.  It doesn't surprise me at all that Texas, which is similar to Virginia in its approach to social services and legal matters, would have such a law.  

It's sad that none of our paid news media knew about or cared to report this.  A  special thank you to you, clammyc for providing this information, so important to informed debate on healthcare.

clammyc, I suggest you read Ellen Goodman's excellent end-of-life care column from last Friday.  The single most salient point in the column is that "[o]ne-quarter of all Medicare dollars are spent in the last year of life, much of it in the last month."  That's a mind-boggling amount of money if you think that we spend $500 billion a year on Medicare.

I don't very often agree with George Bush, but I do agree with him on the Advance Directives Act.  We can't continue to say that an uninsured 51-year-old electrician with a bad back must work through his pain because he can't afford the surgery -- all so we can the wishes of a 93-year-old Medicare beneficiary with Alzheimer's to remain on the respirator until death.  That doesn't seem like justice to me.

"the politics of projection" . . . we'll accuse you of doing what we do, have done, and will do- and loudly: the party of no accountability.

the lies about the health care reform 'death panels' is to point out that they are untrue, not to talk about some other 'death panel'.

Next time somebody talks about the "death panels" under the proposed health care reform, ask them how they feel about the death penalty.  A hundred bucks says they're okay with it.

Ek rightfully points to an example of the Futile Care Law in which a care facility can refuse to continue life support, only allowing the family a limited period of time to find another facility willing to accept the patient. Very much a "death panel" situation - look at the name of the thing: Futile Care.

The text you have pulled from the code is the Advance Directive Act, which actually is a good thing. That says that if a patient has signed an advance directive stipulating that certain treatments not be given (ie. do not resuscitate me, I don't want dialysis or a feeding tube, etc) then the doctor can't pull a "Bill Frist on Terry Schiavo" and say I am going to force this person to be on these machines even if he has all the legal documents proving he doesn't want that.

It is sad that so many are reccing this, despite the obvious confusion of the two legal components.

have laws allowing physicians to make the decision. (Link provided upthread)

He would have executed Jesus Christ because Jesus had long hair and questioned authority, both capital crimes.  It would have been the "Christian" thing to do in his mind.
There was a fast lane at the death chamber in the Huntsville State Penitentiary when Dubya was Texas governor.  He set records for killing death row inmates, and innocence was irrelevant to him.

... she just misremembered where she read it.

Ba Dum Bump. ;-)

Awesome detective work as always Clammy!!!!

I tried posting the article from Wiki on Sarah Palin's facebook page. (FYI, the article contained footnotes including a reference to the actual text of the Advance Directives Act.) So what was their response?  OMG, I had no idea that Bush was a cruel, Machiavellian SOB?  No, the astute comment was, "That's a really old article." As if that changed the facts in any way.  
Oh, and then they blocked me from posting. Twice.