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Loriyas wrote:I learned this today:

-p 425 Everyone on Social Security (including all senior citizens and SSI people) will go to mandatory counseling every 5 years to learn to choose from ways to end your suffering (and end your life). Health care will be denied based on age. $500 billion will be cut from seniors' health care.

That answers my question, in part, of yesterday in how we are going to pay for this.


To hear more this is the link:

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This is the kind of sh!t I am talking about. "end of life issues", that are in this bill; I do not want our government deciding things like this for me.

I hear ya Bubba!!!!

I will continue to research this but anyone who wants to join me, the help is appreciated! The more who understand the better!!!

Hold on there guys -

I just read the advanced care planning pages. There is nothing there that is giving the gov't the ability to deny any healthcare to senior citizens or in fact any one on social security.

5 year consultation. Depending on the level of care needed by the individual at that time, the individual will have access to and understand what resources are available and how to get them. Usually a doctor is involved as well as family members

I have a social worker that consults w/me on my needs aka personal hygene, rides to the doctors, house hold chores, meals on wheels etc.

Health Proxy - This could be a living will, or anything that states what healthcare issues you want when you can no longer communicate that to others.

This could mean - Do not resusitate, no food tube, no heroics, or the opposite never pull the plug due to religious reasons. In no way does it state that at any age, any health problem that the state will make the decisions for you. What they want is a legal document stating your wishes and to have it on record so any approriate person will have no doubt of your intentions.

I am in the process of gathering this info so it is on record w/my hospital, caregivers, family etc. Stanford asks if there is such a thing when you go for surgery.

This to me is nothing new except for a mandatory 5 year consult I would not be surprised that this is a current health care initiative and only tweaked a bit.

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Lyon wrote: I agree but hesitate to get too involved in this because it's obvious that things could get heated.

Just dancing around the fringe myself for the same reason. There're plenty of places the internet to get into a heated political debate. Here's where we just get heated with Bob

Lyon wrote: I agree but hesitate to get too involved in this because it's obvious that things could get heated.

I hope it don't, I just want views other than my own. If ya'll think this topic is a ticking time bomb, I can ask NHE to remove and or lock it. But so far, I have learned alot...

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Bob, I just worry because this ultimately affects all of us, especially us..
I just put alot of value on your thoughts, thats why I asked if I needed to have this locked. I have been educated 10x over on this topic so far. I am niether for nor against, just straddling the fence so to speak.

Bubba wrote:

Loriyas wrote:I learned this today:

-p 425 Everyone on Social Security (including all senior citizens and SSI people) will go to mandatory counseling every 5 years to learn to choose from ways to end your suffering (and end your life). Health care will be denied based on age. $500 billion will be cut from seniors' health care.

This is just a rumor....the "advance care planning" is not mandatory. The bill just makes sure that this is a covered service is a patient requests counseling...

Advance care planning is not mandatory in the House health care bill. The House health care reform bill provides coverage for counseling as a service through Medicare and is not mandatory. Section 1233 of America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 amends the Social Security Act to ensure that advance care planning will be covered if a patient requests it from a qualified care provider [America's Affordable Health Choices Act, Sec. 1233]. According to an analysis of the bill produced by the three relevant House committees, the provision "[p]rovides coverage for consultation between enrollees and practitioners to discuss orders for life-sustaining treatment. Instructs CMS to modify 'Medicare & You' handbook to incorporate information on end-of-life planning resources and to incorporate measures on advance care planning into the physician's quality reporting initiative." [waysandmeans.house.gov, accessed 7/29/09]

Rep. Blumenauer: "Myth: Patients will be forced to have this consultation once every five years." Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who co-authored the provision, released a fact sheet on advance planning consultations in the House health care bill that states: "Myth: Patients will be forced to have this consultation once every five years. Fact: Advance planning consultations are not mandatory; this benefit is completely voluntary. The provision merely provides coverage under Medicare to have a conversation once every five years if -- and only if -- a patient wants to make his or her wishes known to a doctor. If desired, patients may have consultations more frequently if they are chronically ill or if their health status changes."

I hate to say it, but I think the insurance companies are fear-mongering and using individuals to, unwittingly, promote their cause...by spreading rumors like this one thru the right wing media. A public insurance will benefit all, by creating competition for the current companies. I'm still plowing thru the bill....wow.
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I care about this issue deeply and from Bubba's initial question I thought others did also. I took it upon myself to research the actual bill. I have spent hours checking the exact pages, down to the sentences, before I posted anything, just so I would not be posting rumors. I included the link to the bill and encouraged others to please research also. I have been a part of this site for many years. I have learned so much from others. My intent was not to make this political, just informative as so many other threads here have been. You can research this and draw your own conclusions. I feel that there is no reason we can't all just discuss this in a civil manner. All points of view have value.

Lori

Our health care system needs some serious adjustments..put ins. cos. in a position to compete and you will see huge changes. I think EVERYONE should have affordable heath ins. If docs want tort reform, do a better job of policing their own.

BUT...we don't need the federal gov't--or any gov't for that matter--running our health care system. I have worked for state gov't for 25 years. Marrying gov't with the private sector will never work.

I am 60 years old. It will be a cold day in hell when I sit across the table from a gov't bimbo and discuss end-of-life issues! If at age 62 I need a pacemaker, I'm getting one! I may have no value to our Pres, but I am indispensible to my chldren.

Tweak healthcare---yes. Let the feds run it? God help us!

Loriyas wrote:I care about this issue deeply and from Bubba's initial question I thought others did also. I took it upon myself to research the actual bill. I have spent hours checking the exact pages, down to the sentences, before I posted anything, just so I would not be posting rumors. I included the link to the bill and encouraged others to please research also. I have been a part of this site for many years. I have learned so much from others. My intent was not to make this political, just informative as so many other threads here have been. You can research this and draw your own conclusions. I feel that there is no reason we can't all just discuss this in a civil manner. All points of view have value.

Lori

Lori-
Absolutely! Just wanted to point out that one view on "mandatory care planning" for seniors was a myth, and the site you linked to was the Fred Thompson show (which does have a political bias). I said that I thought folks were being duped thru rumors...NOT that you did this! I appreciate the link you've posted to the actual bill. That's what I'm reading now, and it's a doozy!! It's great having all sides in this discussion and you are being so helpful for us all. I also hope to always be civil....just needed to clear that one misconception up by finding out what the lawmakers actually intended, and putting it on here.
Peekaboo and I both read that section for ourselves, and found nothing on there about 5 year mandatory advanced care meetings....
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Or any discrimination based on age.

Quote Health care will be denied based on age. $500 billion will be cut from seniors' health care.

There is no reference to this. Where on page 425 +/- a couple pgs does it say that?

Quote: I hate to say it, but I think the insurance companies are fear-mongering

Fear is contagious and does not listen to reason. (facts)

Hey Peek...I didn't see anything there about 500 billion either. It's another rumor going around on e-mail..here's the actual e-mail from an unbiased site trying to clear up fact/fiction in senior issues-
fiction:

On page 425 it says in black and white that EVERYONE on Social Security, (will include all Senior Citizens and SSI people) will go to MANDATORY counseling every 5 years to learn and to choose from ways to end your suffering (and your life). Health care will be denied based on age. 500 Billion will be cut from Seniors healthcare. The only way for that to happen is to drastically cut health care, the oldest and the sickest will be cut first. Paying for your own care will not be an option.
Now, CALL YOUR PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell them to read page 425 if they don’t read anything else. Surely some of them have parents.

http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/?p=615

fact:

The St. Petersburg Times PolitiFact describes who’s behind this campaign and how it continues to victimize seniors. The Orlando Sentinel also provides details on what’s actually on page 425 in the House bill in their editorial “Health Reform Hooey“.
As the President described yesterday, what the House has proposed (you can read page 425 for yourself here ) is to pay doctors for any end-of-life consultations they might–not must–provide their patients. Only the most cynical and opportunistic critics could turn that into pushing suicide for seniors.
We know America’s seniors are worried about what health care reform could mean for them. We too are concerned that current efforts by blue dog Democrats and conservatives in Congress have shifted the focus away from meaningful reforms to solely cutting Medicare’s bottom line, meaning benefit cuts. These so-called “fiscal hawks” seem to have forgotten that, according to the CBO, if every entitlement in the federal budget were repealed outright - eliminating Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other critical programs - but nothing were done to slow the growth in health care costs overall, we would still find ourselves spending almost 70 percent of the nation’s wealth on health care by 2082. This is why health care reform is vital to Americans of all ages.

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OK...reading page 425...it's all about advanced care planning. The section actual goes from 424-431. And there's no mention of cutting funding for seniors. It's tough slogging thru, but I recommend anyone who has questions read the bill.
Here's the link Lori posted, it's great, easy to read....
link to HR3200....all 1000 pages

I'm just afraid we're going to be getting slammed with alot that is not fact based, to scare us. Consider who has the most to lose from a public option for health care- not US citizens, but for-profit health care companies. They do not want us to have the option to get a government plan, if we want to. No one will force us to buy the government plan. If we're insured, nothing changes.
read for yourselves....and don't watch those TV commercials with the scary music
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