As muzikal203's post this evening reveals, many of Senator Grassley's constituents still apparently labor under the misapprehension that getting free advice from a doctor to help with a difficult end of life decision can itself be fatal. I am ashamed to admit that for weeks now I have ridiculed their position, but if the Senator is to be believed, the ridicule has only made them more scared.
I now finally see that telling scared people that they shouldn't be scared is like saying there isn't a monster under the bed, and then turning out the light. I see now that, rather than mocking these people, we should have been supporting them. Friends, let us leave our cynicism behind and take these fellow citizens at their word. If they are scared, our mission needs to be to cheer them up and make them feel more secure, not to talk them out of it.
It is in this spirit that I share with you an idea is to put this wrenching issue behind us once and for all. I propose an immediate amendment to the President's health insurance plan to provide for a national Leave Me Alone card. The card would be red plastic and have a large bald eagle on it with a stethoscope around its neck and a bright blue piece of masking tape around its beak, and every American would get one to use as they please, as freely as, say, a Medicare or NRA membership card. The holder of the card would then simply have to present it to any medical professional who attempted to talk to them, and the doctor, nurse or specialist would immediately have to clam up. Any failure to respect the card would be an automatic HIPAA violation, for improperly disclosing private medical information to the very patient entitled to it that had declined it, the penalty for which would be a loss of the right to seek reimbursement for talking to the patient.
The curious could still seek free end-of-life advice, doctors would be freed from talking to patients who walked into end-of-life consults with their hands over their ears, the scared would have the security and solitude they so deeply crave, and and there would be more more resources available for those who actually wanted to be treated to be treated. A win-win-win solution indeed. The Leave Me Alone card. With your help, we can make it a reality, and free public servants like Senator Grassley to move onto the next challenge, scaring us about immigration reform.