[Edited for more catchy title]
They tried with Death Panels. It fizzled. Now they're trying a new strategy. The VA. A disgusting WSJ Op-Ed by Jim Towey who calls it "The Death Book for Veterans".
Of course, if they can't get you pissed by telling you President Obama wants to kill grandma, now they want you to believe he wants to kill off our soldiers.
Towey tells us of an ominous 52 page booklet, entitled "Your Life, Your Choices"(pdf) first published in 1997 that, according to Towey, "the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use." Also, according to Towey: "Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices". Never mind the fact that he states earlier in this same paragraph: "Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated [this book]" (last year =/= President Obama, that would be Bush)
Follow me below the fold and we'll discuss "The Death Book for Veterans" in more detail.
This book, he says: "presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political 'push poll.' For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be 'not worth living.'"
Now, we've already established by this point in the book that you're working on what you would want done if you suffered and accident or illness. So, there is no "predetermined conclusion" about it. You're making preparations about what happens IF. And IF you're there, you want THIS done.
That is a living will.
Towey uses the politically charged term "push poll" to cause anger, when in fact, if you go to the page in question, it is a series of questions that you score in order to come up with a picture of what you would deem acceptable circumstance. What your line in the sand is for how far you would go, or how far you're not willing to go, in what makes your life worth living. This is the whole point of planning advanced care. The whole point of a living will. It is not about expenses on your insurance carrier, or you government. It is about how you want to live, or not live, if something unfortunate were to happen. How do you want to LIVE.
The columns to select from are: Difficult but acceptable. Worth living, but just barely. Not worth living. Can't answer now.
The questions are things like:
I can no longer walk, but get around in a wheelchair.
I can no longer contribute to my family's well being.
I am in severe pain most of the time.
right on up to:
I rely on a breathing machine to keep me alive.
or
I am a severe financial burden to my family.
He says in his piece (of shit):
The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."
The thing is, this is a mish mash of two diffrent sections. The "Section that provacatively asks 'Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?' is NOT in the question and answer scoring section. It is a completely different section. It is in the scenarios section, and it is used to illustrate how two different people can say that same statement, and mean completely different things.
From the booklet:
Here's another example. Have you ever heard
anyone say, "If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug"?
What does this mean to you? What's a vegetable?
What's a plug? Even people who live together can
have very different ideas about what the same words
mean without knowing it. The story of May and
John Williams shows how important it is to be
specific about what you mean.
"I'd never want to live like a vegetable." Both
May & John Williams have always shared this belief
during their fifty years of marriage. But when they
were talking about their advance care plans, they
learned that they had very different views about what
that meant. For May, it’s when she can’t take care of
herself. John was surprised. For him, being a
"vegetable" is much worse. "It’s when my brain’s not
working but my body is being kept alive by
machines."
When you say, "pull the plug"
it could mean a variety of
things:
• Stop the breathing machine
• Remove the feeding tube
• Don't give me antibiotics
• Stop everything
And where he states: "There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as 'I can no longer contribute to my family's well being,' 'I am a severe financial burden on my family' and that the vet's situation 'causes severe emotional burden for my family.'"
Those aren't "scenarios". Those are questions to ask yourself. BEFORE you get there. Those are the what if's. Do you want to get to that point. Those are the ones you SCORE with the "Difficult but acceptable. Not worth living" scores. If it's difficult, but acceptable to you to cause a severe emotional burden on your family, then that is your choice, GO FOR IT. That's why you score it first, and make your decisions based on the worksheet.
That's the whole point of a living will. An advanced directive. To make these decisions BEFORE you are there. So you don't have to make these decisions out of guilt while you're sick or disabled. "Do I ever want to be at the point where keeping me alive is killing my family?"
NOT, AM I at the point where keeping me alive is killing my family?
AND, this book isn't even geared to Veterans. It is a generic book. Created for advanced care planning, that the VA picked up on. Yet, Towey makes it sound like it is specifically geared toward guilting our soldiers into suicide to lift the burden from their families and their country, because they have to walk on an artificial leg.
Lets stop here for a moment and discuss who Jim Towey was and is.
He was Director, White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives, 2002-2006.
He is President of Saint Vincent College.
Got that. Faith based initiatives. President of a faith based college. Florida.
Okay, back to the story.
He also would like to use this time to pimp his own screed:
Five Wishes
Many years ago I created an advance care planning document called "Five Wishes" that is today the most widely used living will in America, with 13 million copies in national circulation. Unlike the VA's document, this one does not contain the standard bias to withdraw or withhold medical care. It meets the legal requirements of at least 43 states, and it runs exactly 12 pages.
After a decade of observing end-of-life discussions, I can attest to the great fear that many patients have, particularly those with few family members and financial resources. I lived and worked in an AIDS home in the mid-1980s and saw first-hand how the dying wanted more than health care—they wanted someone to care.
So, I looked it up. You can buy it online. (no thanks)
But, here's the bulk of it:
What is Five Wishes?
Do your loved ones and family physician know your wishes regarding medical care if you become seriously ill?
The Five Wishes booklet is an easy-to-use legal document that lets you plan in advance for how you want to be cared for in the event that you become seriously ill. It is an "advance directive" because when you complete Five Wishes you give direction to your physician and family, in advance, on how you want to be treated. Once it is filled out and properly signed it is valid under the laws of most states.
The booklet deals with all of a person's needs: medical, personal, emotional and spiritual and encourages discussion of your wishes with your loves ones and physician.
The Five Wishes booklet leads you through decisions regarding:
* Which person you want to make health care decisions for you when you can't make them.
* The kind of medical treatment you want or don't want.
* How comfortable you want to be.
* How you want people to treat you.
* What you want your loved ones to know.
This is advanced directive? A living will? Geezus, this is no more than the conversation you have at the dining room table with your family that is vague and often not binding. In fact, here's what Illinois lawyerRay J. Koenig III, specialist in Elder Law, Probate of Wills & Administration of Trusts, Probate Trusts & Estates Litigation and Trusts & Estates has to say about this booklet:
"Five Wishes should not be used in place of Illinois statutory forms for living wills and powers of attorney for health care."
Attorneys should be wary of recommending that clients use the Five Wishes document instead of the forms provided by the Living Will Act and the Powers of Attorney for health Care Act. The Five Wishes document uses legally ambiguous language and can potentially conflict with the authority delegated under a power of attorney for property. In certain instances the document allows the principal to breach the statutory requirement that a principal's doctor not serve as his agent.
These problems will inevitably result in litigation, which is something advance directives attempt to avoid. The appropriate - and indeed, very useful - role for the Five Wishes is not as a legal document, but rather as a tool to promote family dialogue about aging and incapacity.
The lesson we should take from the popularity of the Five Wishes document is that lawyers and the general Assembly must be more responsive to the needs of Illinois citizens. Aging with Dignity has distributed over 11 million copies of the Five Wishes, which shows that the public wants advance directives that are easy to understand and can be completed in "the living room." The statutory forms should be made friendly to the social workers, nurses, and other care providers who are often integrally involved in the execution of advanced directives.
I'm sorry this is so long and involved, but you know by now, it takes 5 minutes for these assholes to take something good and tear it apart and nail it right on President Obama's ass, and it takes 2 months to put it back together. I wanted to make sure we were ahead of it.
I just caught a bit of Faux Noise this morning. I don't know what happened, my remote must have revolted (pun intended). But Chris Wallace has a planned segment (probably the whole show) on just this subject matter on his Sunday "show". It's coming folks. Be armed. Get a hold of the booklet. It's not that hard to read. It's not subversive. It's actually a good read. It's the same stuff you'll see in your doctor's office.
It's the next meme. I was already on it because a super wingnut in my area has already blogged about it.