Its Been Happening For Years – It’s Nothing New
Ronal Reagan knew what’s been happening.
Nothing has changed! Call, write or fax your Congress people. Stop this new attempt at Socialism now!
Freedom Finder
Archive for August, 2009
Let’s Clear Out Congress
This picture speaks volumes. Give Congress (the American Public) artificial respiration – out with the old, in with the new.
Short but sweet . . . .
Hurry Up And Die
The Death Book for Veterans
Ex-soldiers don’t need to be told they’re a burden to society.
By JIM TOWEY
If President Obama wants to better understand why America’s discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.
Last year, bureaucrats at the VA’s National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, “Your Life, Your Choices.” It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA’s preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated “Your Life, Your Choices.”
Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.
“Your Life, Your Choices” presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political “push poll.” For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be “not worth living.”
The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to “shake the blues.” There is a section which provocatively asks, “Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug’?” There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as “I can no longer contribute to my family’s well being,” “I am a severe financial burden on my family” and that the vet’s situation “causes severe emotional burden for my family.”
When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?
One can only imagine a soldier surviving the war in Iraq and returning without all of his limbs only to encounter a veteran’s health-care system that seems intent on his surrender.
I was not surprised to learn that the VA panel of experts that sought to update “Your Life, Your Choices” between 2007-2008 did not include any representatives of faith groups or disability rights advocates. And as you might guess, only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as “Compassion and Choices”).
This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. Worse, a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to “Your Life, Your Choices.” Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America’s 24 million veterans deserve better.
Many years ago I created an advance care planning document called “Five Wishes” that is today the most widely used living will in America, with 13 million copies in national circulation. Unlike the VA’s document, this one does not contain the standard bias to withdraw or withhold medical care. It meets the legal requirements of at least 43 states, and it runs exactly 12 pages.
After a decade of observing end-of-life discussions, I can attest to the great fear that many patients have, particularly those with few family members and financial resources. I lived and worked in an AIDS home in the mid-1980s and saw first-hand how the dying wanted more than health care—they wanted someone to care.
If President Obama is sincere in stating that he is not trying to cut costs by pressuring the disabled to forgo critical care, one good way to show that commitment is to walk two blocks from the Oval Office and pull the plug on “Your Life, Your Choices.” He should make sure in the future that VA decisions are guided by values that treat the lives of our veterans as gifts, not burdens.
Nice way to treat our Vets Mr. President!!
The Tea Party Express
It looks like FOX is going to have a tour a little later this year called the “Tea Party Expressâ€. Its goal is to help us to take back our country from the radical liberals in charge now.
When George W. Bush was the President, the media touted the “take back our country†mantra as a good thing.
Let’s see how they flip-flop when Conservatives are talking about looking to “take back our countryâ€.
Will they still use those tired old “tea bagging†perverted sexual references? By the way its kinda funny how the only people who knew about the perverted sexual were the media and the Libs.
Watch the video -
Freedom Finder
To hell With the Fourth Amendment
[Amendment IV]
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I ask you, what right has the government (little “gâ€) to CARE no less investigate what a company pays its employees?
Check out this story from an Insurance publication ————–
WASHINGTON_Dozens of the nation’s largest insurance firms must decide whether to honor a request from House Democrats for detailed financial records, part of an investigation into executive compensation and other business practices in an industry that opposes President Barack Obama’s health care proposals.
A spokesman for Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said Tuesday night that 52 letters had been sent to health insurers with $2 billion or more in annual premiums. He said letters were not dispatched to other industry groups, some of which have been airing television advertising in support of Obama’s call for legislation.
The request to insurance companies included records relating to compensation of highly paid employees, documents relating to companies’ premium income and claims payments, and information on expenses stemming from any event held outside company facilities in the past 2 1/2 years.
The requests were made in letters signed by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who guided a portion of health care legislation through the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month as chairman, and Stupak, who heads a subcommittee on the panel.
They wrote that the committee was "examining executive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter.
A spokesman for the insurance industry declined to comment.
The letter from Waxman and Stupak requested the information be provided by early September. While companies are not under legal obligation to comply, the committee could respond to a refusal by voting to subpoena the information at a later date.
Among the documents requested were records relating to compensation paid to any company executive earning more than $500,000 in any year from 2003 to 2008.
Waxman and Stupak also sought documents relating to premiums paid by policy holders, claims payments, sales expenses, administrative expenses and profits, broken down by categories such as employer-provided coverage; individual coverage, Medicare and Medicaid.
The requests were issued at a time when Obama’s health care proposal is under intense attack from Republicans and other critics, including the health insurance industry. Much of the opposition focuses on proposals for the government to sell insurance in competition with private carriers.
Obama and other supporters of a so-called government option argue it would help control costs and keep insurance companies honest by forcing them to grapple with competition.
Opponents say it gradually would undermine the present insurance structure, which is built around private insurers, and lead to a system controlled by the government.
The issue drew intense focus over the weekend, after Obama speculated aloud about the possibility that legislation might omit the government role in selling insurance.
The White House said there had been no change in position. But liberals expressed dismay, giving rise to increased speculation that Senate Democrats could soon abandon all talk of bipartisanship and draft legislation tailored to their own rank and file. Any such measure would inevitably jettison many of the compromises crafted in weeks of bipartisan Senate talks, and it was unclear whether the talk was a ploy to persuade Senate Republicans to agree to a compromise.
COOL HUH???
Some of Glenn Beck’s Really Sensible Videos
Check these out
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/program/beck-talks
Who’s side is the Media on??
i wonder??
End-of Life Decisions
Keeping End-of-Life Decisions, Our Decision
by Newt Gingrich
Emotions are high in the debate over the future of our health care, and for good reason. What we are discussing are deeply personal, often deeply emotional issues.
I think every American should have the opportunity my father-in-law had to have a conversation with their doctor about end of life care that is totally private, in which there are no standards set by the government and no fear of the bureaucracy.
We had that kind of an experience at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, where my father-in-law died.
At Gunderson – without any mandates from government – 92 percent of patients have advanced directives setting out what kind of care they want at the end of life.
Patients are treated with compassion, dignity and humanity. Families are engaged. Doctors are allowed to do what they think is best for patients, without fearing that the federal government is looking over their shoulders.
Health Care Isn’t Politics.
It’s Personal.
End-of-life care is becoming a political football – and that’s precisely why so many Americans are fearful for the future of their health care.
Because it’s not politics. It’s personal.
And the test of any health care reform proposal is whether it gives us more power to control deeply personal decisions, or whether it takes that power away.
What follows is an article I wrote for the Los Angeles Times this weekend that explains how health care reform in Washington threatens to take us down the road to government control, and what we can do to stop it.
Your friend, 
Newt Gingrich
What Happened to the First Amendment?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
This article asks the same question as the title of this blog
Apply Heat to Half-Baked Health Care Reform
Chuck Colson
BreakPoint
August 10, 2009
Most Americans agree that we need healthcare reform. Adequate health care costs too much, and too many people—especially the working poor and unemployed—don’t have access to the care they need.
But in the frantic rush to pass health-care reform before the August recess, Congress has cooked up a health-care reform package that should give every Christian grave concern. And I’ll tell you why.
First, Congress has rejected every amendment to protect the consciences of medical providers. Doctors and nurses who refuse to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive reproduction procedures, or even so-nicely phrased “end of life services†could be forced to choose between their consciences and their careers. This is unjust and un-American. Freedom of religion, last time I checked, is still enshrined in the Constitution.
Even more ominously, forcing religious institutions—like Catholic hospitals—to perform such procedures could lead to the closing or sale of nearly 13 percent of our nation’s hospitals. The effect on the health care system—and on the poor—would be devastating. As Fred Caesar of the Catholic Health Association points out, “Catholic health care providers are [often] the ‘safety net’ to thousands of patients in the communities they serve who cannot afford health care coverage.â€
Second, we have every reason to believe that the various reform plans being debated could lead to taxpayer-funded abortions. House committees have already voted down amendments specifically prohibiting abortion funding. And Congress is ready to give the secretary of Health and Human Services and other governmental bodies the authority to mandate abortion coverage.
Third, as I’ve said before on BreakPoint, we have to resist any so-called reforms that would lead ultimately to a government-run health care system. I can argue that, as a matter of promoting justice, ensuring access to quality health care is a proper, biblical role for government. Actually running a health care system, determining who gets what care when and for how much, is not.
Does the term “Health Choices Commissioner†send chills down your spine? One House bill would, according to the National Review, “hand over vast powers†to such a commissioner, who would be in charge of “the new bureaucracy charged with regulating basically all health insurance in America.â€
Frankly, the only medical choices I’m interested in are the ones I make in consultation with my doctor and my family. Not a government commissioner who, with tight budgets, could be called “Dr. Death.â€
Then there’s fiscal responsibility. The Congressional Budget Office says the health care plans now being considered in Congress would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years. Yet more debt being heaped on future generations.
So as your members of Congress and your Senators return home for their summer break, find out where they stand on these important issues. Attend a town hall meeting, write a letter, make a phone call to their local office. Be polite, but be firm.
We want reform. But anything that violates freedom of conscience, erodes the dignity of human life, or leads to a government takeover of health care cannot be called reform.
