A hug for you! If I could recommend this post a thousand times, I would do so.

The house measure was co-sponsored by two republican congressmen.

An excerpt from and article addressing this issue with link posted below.

In the past week, reform opponents have seriously distorted section 1233 of the House health care bill. GOP figures including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) have ominously warned that the legislation would force seniors to choose between cost-effective ways to die. In actuality, section 1233 allows for Medicare to cover voluntary counseling sessions for end-of-life decisions, such as writing a living will.

In a briefing with online reporters on Monday, senior White House officials said they felt blindsided by the distortions. Questions about whether health care legislation would touch these sensitive topics came largely from the Republican side of the aisle. And when the bill was being crafted, they said, no objections were raised.

"I think they sincerely thought that is something we should do," said one aide. "And I don't think there were any questions about [section 1223] when it came up in the committee."

That may be because, removed from the heat of the current health care debate, addressing end-of-life consultations is a bipartisan concern. As pointed out by Carla Axtman of the group Compassion & Choices, an organization dedicated to care of terminally ill patients, several Republicans are on record supporting variations of 1223.

In the House of Representatives, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) introduced legislation in April that dealt directly with Medicare reimbursements for Physician Order for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) conversations.

His bill has two Republican co-sponsors, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) and Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/11/memo-to-palin-republicans_n_256390.html

Since you are gaming the recs

and I don't want to support you spreading your stupidty around...I feel that I should prove further that Senator Isakson supported this measure 'when he was in the house'. Just to clarifying that your post is BS.

The following is another excerpt from an article explaining that Senator Isakson 'supported an identical measure when he 'was' in the house'...followed by the link

"I received a request from a reader about the bill that Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) sponsored to allow Medicare reimbursements to doctors for end of life consultation. It turns out he originally sponsored this bill when he was a member of the House, and it was not controversial. Think Progress » Sen. Johnny Isakson: Palin’s ‘Death Panel’ Talk Is ‘Nuts’:"

http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2009/08/sen-johnny-isakson-rga-the-death-panel-talk-is-nuts.html?cid=6a00d8341bf80c53ef0120a4e72e46970b

Following is an excerpt of Ezra Klein's interview of Sen. Johnny Isakson, "One of the foremost advocates of expanding Medicare end-of-life planning coverage".

Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?

In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.

This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.

How did this become a question of euthanasia?

I have no idea. I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as [euthanasia] that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

And if you wish you may read the "death panel" provisions of HR 3200 here.

The is no provision which compels anyone to undergo "Advanced Care Planning Consultation". Such consultations are between “between the individual and a practitioner described in paragraph (2)“.

‘(2) A practitioner described in this paragraph is –

‘(A) a physician (as defined in subsection (r)(1));

‘(B) a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant who has the authority under State law to sign orders for life sustaining treatments.

On his website, Isakson's picking nits to try to distance himself from Obama. He's obviously been taking a lot of heat from the right.

But, the fact remains that what he proposed for both the House and the Senate bills is language that allows for benefits to be paid for the costs of end-of-life counseling.

For the benefit of the extremely dim, David, here's why the government should be involved: End-of-life counseling is needed to be sure that a person's intentions are clear even after they are no longer able to articulate them for themselves. How do you know what kind of care a person wants to receive, and when they might want to stop receiving it, if they have never indicated such and are not now in any condition to do so (i.e. coma)? This is both a medical matter and a legal matter. There is cost involved. It doesn't make sense to be paying for a person's health care and then draw the line short of coverage for such an important matter.

Of course, to David and Sarah and others with their same abysmal level of comprehension, the preceding paragraph reads: Obama wants to snuff old people.

By the way. Does anybody know why the implementation of ObamaCare won't go into affect until January, 2011? Is Mr. Obama simply playing politics here with peoples' lives or is there a practical reason for the delay?

ex anmio
davidfarrar

Does anyone else think it's strange that a Republican Senator will tell the truth to Democrats and lie to their own base? Isakson at one time was considered a moderate kinda guy. I wonder how many other Republicans are pulling this shit?