Major changes in the new Senate Obamacare bill from its House counterpart, in the sections involving assisted suicide. (The bill is actually a gutted and already passed bill from the House–HR 3590–a trick that may be designed to get around the necessity of a conference committee. More on that in the next post.) Recall that the House Bill prevented the promotion of assisted suicide in the end of life counseling. It’s missing altogether from HR 3590. This is the only reference to assisted suicide in the bill, starting at page 364:
SEC. 1553. PROHIBITION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION ON ASSISTED SUICIDE.
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Federal Government, and any State or local government or health care provider that receives Federal financial assistance under this Act (or under an amendment made by this Act) or any health plan created under this Act (or under an amendment made by this Act), may not subject an individual or institutional health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the entity does not provide any health care item or service furnished for the purpose of causing, or for the purpose of assisting in causing, the death of any individual, such as by assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.
That’s it. In other words, it is a conscience clause protecting medical professionals who don’t commit assisted suicide. There is no prohibition on promoting it or having it paid for under the plan.
Why need a conscience clause? Get this clause under the section 1323 of the bill creating the public option (p. 183), beginning at page 186:
(F) PROTECTING ACCESS TO END OF LIFE CARE.—A community health insurance option offered under this section shall be prohibited from limiting access to end of life care.
If assisted suicide, or even euthanasia, are legally considered forms of “end of life care” in a particular state–as it is now in Oregon, Washington, and Montana–it seems to me that the area’s community health insurance option would be required to provide “access” to it under this clause. How else can the provision be read? And because it would have been passed later in time, this clause could be construed to subsume existing federal law that prevents federal funds from being used in assisted suicide.
None of this is by accident. The next question becomes: Why might that be? Ideology plays a part, certainly. But considering all of the emphasis on cost control in the Obamacare debate, this has to also be about money. Can you think of any “medical treatment” for seriously ill or disabled people than assisted suicide/euthanasia? The cost of the drugs to kill are only about $100. Think of the millions that could be saved if expensive treatments never have to be rendered because patients have made themselves dead.
November 19th, 2009 | 4:12 pm
[...] More details over at Secondhand Smoke. Comments (0) [...]
November 19th, 2009 | 5:11 pm
Of course.
This is what Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) wanted (and worked with Compassion & Choices to obtain) when he first included the language in the House bill.
This enshrines an open door policy for physician-assisted suicide to take root in whatever states choose to go there.
And Wesley, you should add this to your predictions for the future: that conscience clause is definitely going to go away once assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia become as widespread and socially acceptable as abortion is now.
::shaking head::
November 19th, 2009 | 5:30 pm
Oh, and for those of you who are skeptical that this is really what it means:
The Oregon Health Plan, our version of Medicaid (which Blumenauer’s Oregon Democratic colleagues put together in the late ’80s), now explicitly covers assisted suicide. When the DWDA (“Death With Dignity Act”, so-called) went into effect in 1997, it was listed in the plan as an aspect of “palliative care” that’s covered without restrictions.
Blumenauer knows exactly what’s going on; he’s already seen health care rationing in action here in Oregon.
November 20th, 2009 | 2:01 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by J. Robert Howell, Lisa Stauber. Lisa Stauber said: Senate #obamacare bill – not just taxpayer funded abortions, but assisted suicide too! http://bit.ly/5Hp2XM #killthebill #teaparty #tcot [...]
November 22nd, 2009 | 10:33 pm
[...] that abortion funding is not the only pro-life problem with federal health care reform. In a recent post, Wesley Smith gives us an example of what else we should be concerned about with regard to the [...]
November 26th, 2009 | 12:53 am
[...] is similar to what Wesley Smith wrote about not too long [...]
December 7th, 2009 | 10:11 pm
[...] I have had great sympathy with the problem Obamacare has posed for people with disabilities. On one hand, many are terribly under-served by the health care system. On the other hand, I believe Obamacare will lead to explicit rationing of expensive patients, which will one day include people with disabilities. It could also one day support assisted suicide, as I reported here. [...]
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