One More Thing...

In my last blog, A Patient’s View of HR3200 I argued against the government sending someone to discuss your medical and end of life options if you are seriously ill or injured. Since then I have had people tell me that it is one thing to discuss end of life options with a 51 year old but a totally different matter when the patient is 91. They reminded me of the burden these elderly people were to the system and that there comes a point when you should say enough tests, operations, medical treatments and to simply let nature take it course. End of Life options are appropriate not only for the sake of the elderly person but also because of the extreme expenses to both the family and the government to keep them alive.

I agree, up to a point. In fact I was a bit angered to learn that a friend’s 87 year old mother-in-law had just had a hip replacement operation. This elderly woman suffered from dementia, diabetes, extreme arthritis and a multitude of other ailments plus her family ignored her the one time she spoke out against the operation since they thought they knew best for her. Or at least most did since some family members argued to stop everything and simply let her die but these voices were drowned out by those wanting her to have the operation. Plus I am sure that the nursing home also encouraged the operation for the practical reason of wanting her to be mobile and able to go to the bathroom on her own and not to require diaper changes. Yet all of the family infighting about treatment could have been avoided if she just had a Living Will. But at this point it was too late as she wasn’t capable of making decisions.

So yes, I agree that this woman probably should not get more medical treatment and should simply be made comfortable as she dies. But this puts you on a very slippery slope. For what is the cut off point? If my 51 is too young but there is a need for end of life options for this 87 year old patient then perhaps at 80 people should be denied treatment. Except I look at my own 81 year old mother. If she were to fall I would be one of the ones arguing for a hip replacement operation. Am I being hypocritical? No. For unlike the first elderly woman, my mother is a sharp, active, intelligent older woman who neither looks nor acts her age. My mother at 81 is as active as many a 65 year old. So you can’t use age as the criteria. What might have worked for my friend’s parent certainly would be wrong for my mother.

In fact, my father was only 65 when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After only one chemo treatment we realized he was dying and we then wanted to make what little time was left to be as easy as possible for him. In this case we turned to Hospice to help him. If a family member is dying then Hospice is wonderful. So why does the government need to create a whole new panel and one more bureaucratic department? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to provide government grants to this organization which is already in place and functioning quite well?

The final argument was the costs associated with health care for the elderly. Wow. How cold is that? Liberals actually worry that keeping mom and dad alive and paying for their health care will bankrupt the government. The same problem of lack of funding concerns treating uninsured people. Who is more important – the people or the government? For if the former, we can find the money. Hell, let the banks pay back their bailouts, take the majority of the stimulus money not spent and gee here’s a thought, fire the 30+ highly paid Czars (the Energy and Environment Czar is getting $172,000 for example) and let the Cabinet do its job instead. Money is not an issue. If Obama could find all these trillions for people to buy a car then he can find the money to take care of our parents. Besides, using existing groups such as Hospice would save billions in the projected salaries for new government employees.

Conservatives have made their point about the major problems with HR3200. Now is the time to start offering alternative ideas. Here are a few suggestions; some are already being discussed while others are my own ideas:

• Let the insurance companies create a co-op through which uninsured people can get health insurance. Restrict this to only US Citizens. Illegal immigrants are a tough situation and this country needs to review and revise their entire illegal immigrant policy as soon as possible. Meanwhile the expenses for treating illegal immigrants or citizens who don’t sign up for insurance should be shared by the entire country and not just the border states and those with high illegal immigrant populations.


• Provide grants to encourage and pay for anyone who wants to be a nurse, doctor, technician, nursing home aide or in any other medical professions. We will need all of these once we insure everyone but other than talking about rationing no one has thought of this.


• Use Hospice as the primary end of life care givers. Provide them with grants to expand their current business rather than the government creating a new parallel department. Offer the same grants to any other private company to insure competition.
  
• Make health insurance mandatory when you get or renew your driver’s license. When you renew your driver’s license there should be a Living Will form with the paperwork sent to you. They already ask about organ donations so why not also include Living Wills? Use Hospice or SS to handle all questions about Living Wills.


• Require all Americans including government employees and union members to be a part of whatever new plan is approved.

So come on conservatives. Instead of simply trashing HR3200 you need to start to come up with alternative suggestions. Forget calling people Nazi’s and instead present your Congressman with some great ideas that they can take back to the Senate and House. For we need a Health Care Plan that is truly by the people and not this monstrosity which is a plan by the government for the people.

No Taxation Without Cogitation!

On this 4th of July weekend I would like to propose a revised version of the slogan that helped to rally the continental troops into fighting and defeating the English. Back then our forefathers complained that they had no vote in whether or not they would be taxed. Instead the King imposed all taxes. So the great slogan of No taxation without representation was born, thus helping to create the United States of America

Today, I propose a slight change to this slogan to reflect our current situation. My revised slogan is No taxation without cogitation. Aren’t familiar with cogitation? It’s a great old fashioned word that means concerted thought or reflection. So what I want my representatives to do is simply read all proposed bills, think about it and then vote. Sounds reasonable, right? And yet, from the first Congress there have been a few Senators and Representatives who would never bother to read a bill but would vote the party line. However starting this year, major bills are being passed in which none of our Congressmen or women are bothering to read what they are voting on much less cogitating on how much it would cost us, the citizens, when the bill is implemented.

This new trend started with the Stimulus Bill which grew into a 1000+ page bill which no one could have read in its entirety in the brief time between publishing the bill and voting on it. This massive bill, which would spend over $787 billion of our money, was passed by 246 people (ok mainly democrats) in the House and by 60 Senators. To their credit, our government officials were told that they had to vote on this bill immediately in order to resuscitate a dying economy. And yes, in January 2009 the news was grim with increasing unemployment and major companies failing left and right. We also had a new and exciting administration and so it is understandable if a vote on this bill was seen as yet one more support of Obama.

For all of these reasons, this massive bill, which few people read, was pushed through Congress on record time in order to save our economy. Now it is six months later yet less than a tenth of the money has been spent. OK, I'm all for saving the money if the economy is rebounding. Oh wait. The economy is worse than the start of the year. In fact, Obama’s economic team had said that if the bill was passed then the 7.2% unemployment rate at the time of the vote would probably peak at 8%. Oops. They just announced that our current unemployment rate is 9.1%. And that is with the $787 billion in stimulus aid! Seems to me that maybe somebody ought to finally read all 1000+ pages to see just what that money is earmarked for and how it is supposed to be stimulating our economy. All it has stimulated so far is the unemployment rate.

But did Congress learn? No. In fact last week the House of Representatives did it again. They passed another long bill regarding a new concept of Cap and Trade. From what I understand it is basically a taxing platform to raise money from corporations and citizens to spend on “green” environmental stuff. Even putting aside the ongoing arguments (and yes Senator Gore, people are still debating global warming as they should) there is still the unconscionable fact that our Congressmen and women once again voted on a bill which they didn’t read.

This time it was a complete farce. When Representatives complained that they didn’t even have a copy of the bill Speaker Nancy Pelosi told them that there was one copy at the podium. That’s it; one copy for over 400 people to share and read. Only problem is that even that “final” copy was missing the 300 pages of addendums added at 3am of the day of the vote. Denying Representatives a chance to even read a bill is a complete abuse of her power. Plus it is one thing to be loyal to a new administration but to blindly pass massive bills unread which would change the foundation of this country and heavily tax citizens in an effort to redistribute wealth is unethical and disgusting.

Has it reached the point where we need to demand that if a bill requires new or increased taxes then our Senators and Representatives who vote on it must sign a statement indicating that they read it in full? They would then be held accountable for what was in that bill and what they approved with their vote. If they were forced to read it and to be accountable then they just might produce reasonable bills without pages and pages of rediculous earmarks.

Plus isn’t accountability what Obama promised us? Wasn’t his administration supposed to be one of both accountability and transparency? And yet Congressmen can’t even get their own copy of a bill and when they do the bills are so voluminous that no one can read it in time for the vote. Plus there is the whole issue of the unheard of speed in which these bills are being forced through committees and onto the floor with little to no discussions and not even time to read it even if you had your own copy and wanted to read it.

It is time to say Stop! We must demand No taxation without cogitation! We and our children and grandchildren will be paying for the taxes hidden in these unread bills and we can’t let this go on. Beginning with the upcoming Senate vote on the Cap and Trade we must demand that our Senators at least read the bill before they vote on it.

And how sad that we even have to tell our Senators and Representatives to read something before voting on it. But thanks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who are trying to jam bills with massive taxing and redistribution of our country's wealth down our throats then we must demand of our Congressmen and women to read the bill and think about its implications before voting on it.

So join me in shouting No taxation without cogitation and maybe someday there might actually be a vote by people who have read the bill, understand its tax implication and had a lively intelligent discussion about it. Now wouldn't that be nice....