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Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill

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Sunsilver
Post subject: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sat 29 Aug , 2009 8:18 pm
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I have a very dear friend who's a bit ummm...'out there' politically. She attends a very conservative Catholic church, and ardently supports the Catholic 'right to life' agenda.

However, she keeps sending me these links that say Obama's health care bill supports euthanasia and abortion. There are never enough facts in the links to support these assertions, and I am going nuts trying to convince her that this extreme right wing agenda is a bunch of crap. I also have failed in my efforts to view the actual health care bill so I can see for myself the relevant section.

Here's the latest e-mail:

Subject: Obama pushing Euthanasia on Veterans -- Wall Street Journal
From: eagle@gopusamedia.com


HOT PETITION to STOP OBAMA'S SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER. Please select, sign, and WE WILL FAX your petition automatically to all 52 "Blue-Dog" House Democrats and/or all 100 Senators, right away (saving you hours of labor!)
We've already sent nearly 100,000 faxes, can you help us reach 200,000?

WSJ: Obama and Shinseki now pressuring Veterans toward Euthanasia


The Wall Street Journal just published a shocking editorial written by a respected University President, confirming the Obama Administration is now using VA hospitals to order doctors to pressure all military veterans to sign "pull the plug" do-not-resuscitate orders, hastening their premature deaths through mandatory "end of life" counseling.

President Jim Towey of Saint Vincent's College, founder of the non-profit "Aging With Dignity" and former White House Director of faith based initiatives, wrote a blistering expose entitled "The Death Book For Veterans," revealing President Obama's new Veterans Administration (VA) directive, presumably signed by VA Secretary, General (ret.) Eric Shinseki, which mandates all veterans' primary care physicians must graphically discuss "end of life planning" with all VA patients (not merely those nearing death), and must refer them to "Your Life, Your Choices," a book that openly encourages Euthanasia and was written with guidance from the group formerly known as the Hemlock Society. That same pro-suicide group now boasts on their web-site of directly leading the charge to ensure "end of life counseling" is mandated in the Obamacare bill, HR 3200.

On page 21 of the Shinseki-mandated Veteran's Euthanasia book, all military veterans are encouraged to complete a checklist of various scenarios, to decide whether their own life would be "not worth living." For example, the booklet asks veterans 7 questions pressuring veterans to sign a "living will" that authorizes doctors to terminate your life, if you are:

1) Living in a nursing home?

2) Being in a wheelchair?

3) Not able to "shake the blues?"

4) Ever heard anyone say, "If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug?"

5) No longer able to contribute to your family's well-being?

6) Are you a severe financial burden to your family?

7) Do you cause severe emotional burden for your family?

"This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable," says Towey, "Worse, a July 2009 VA directive [presumably signed by Shinseki] instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to 'Your Life, Your Choices.' [the Euthanasia booklet.] Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America's 24 million veterans deserve better." Towey recommends a "five wishes" living-will document that does not pressure suicide.

But instead the Hemlock Society booklet is now MANDATED for doctor referral to all patients in all VA hospitals, heaping more evidence upon the growing list of proofs that the Obama Administration is LYING TO THE PUBLIC by denying their health care plan pushes Euthanasia on the elderly. They already do it today. Just imagine if ALL hospitals become government-run like the VA.

SELECT HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.

OBAMA ACCUSES HIMSELF AND FELLOW DEMOCRATS OF LYING

Obama held a conference call with reportedly 140,000 members of the "religious left" and accused himself of lying, saying that anybody who claims his health care plan funds abortion violates Exodus 20:16, "thou shalt not bear false witness." But Obama knows his fellow Democrats supported the Capps Amendment to HR 3200 funding abortions through an accounting-scheme, and defeated pro-life amendments prohibiting abortion funding. On July 17, 2007, Obama himself told Planned Parenthood, "in my mind, reproductive care [abortion] is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I propose. [My] plan…will provide…reproductive services [abortion]." It now appears Obama is calling himself a liar, since he personally believes his own plan must contain funding for abortion.

The Capps Amendment has a Section 4B that reads: "Abortions for Which Public Funding Is Allowed. -- The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted..." As the Washington Times analysis says, "You can't get more explicit than that." But Obama calls a liar anybody who reads the bill aloud, verbatim.

Obama further accused as "bearing false witness" anyone who claims his plan will result in "death panels" that ration care to the young at the expense of the elderly. That must first include his own Democrat White House Health Policy Advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel.

In an article entitled "Deadly Doctors," The New York Post just confirmed from Democrat Emanuel's own writings, the White House plan prefers "communitarianism" which should guide decisions on who gets care. Emanuel says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (JAMA, Feb. 27, 2008). NY Post's translation: "Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy." Grandma's memory slipping? Obama's Death Panel convenes to de-fund her care. Emanuel said so, read his quote again, confirming Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich were right after all.

Emanuel explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31). EXCUSE ME? Obamacare funds 25 year olds, but excludes 65 year olds? RATIONING, DEATH PANELS, SMOKING GUN. Don't accuse conservatives of bearing false witness, Mr. Obama, until you first accuse your own Health Policy Advisor.

This quote is direct proof that Obama's COMMUNITARIANISM (like Socialism only bigger, on steroids, like Communism), favors treating the young at the expense of the old.

SELECT HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.


1) More Proof EUTHANASIA is pushed by Obama's socialist government "health" care.

President Obama had been confronted by a North Carolina woman asking if "everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told they have to decide how they wish to die."

In response Obama joked morbidly about euthanasia, that he hadn't yet hired enough bureaucrats to conduct such an operation, yet he could not deny the New York Post's discovery the House bill "compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care" (pages 425-430). In other words, your grandmother will be told, when insufficient resources are rationed to young people, that her duty to die begins with mandatory "end-of-life counseling," or as Obama explained, "encourage the use of living wills" that terminate otherwise salvageable lives prematurely through signed "do not resuscitate" (DNR) legal releases that authorize "pulling the plug" on Grandma.

The White House made a quick video to refute claims of euthanasia in the health care bill, but interestingly they deleted Obama's quote about living wills, and AARP sent emails claiming rumors about euthanasia in the bill were generated by conspiracy theorists. But then a respected bioethicist wrote a scathing editorial in the Washington Post, confirming that euthanasia is initiated by the government in the bill. Lane writes:

"Consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite 'purely voluntary.' To me, 'purely voluntary' means 'not unless the patient requests one.' Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that's an incentive to insist. Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit 'formulation' of a plug-pulling order right then and there."

Lane agrees the legislation mandates the doctor 'shall' discuss living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses: "Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party -- the government -- recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations. You don't have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach" says the Washington Post.

SELECT HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.

Bankrupt state can't afford to pay for grandma's hip replacement? Obama's plan turns her doctor into a lawyer, paid by Uncle Sam to persuade her to sign a DNR, explaining her hastened duty to die, and obtaining her signature legally absolving him of all guilt. Lane says he personally has a living will, but doctors shouldn't be paid extra by the government to push them on seniors. Euthanasia begins when socialism replaces capitalism.

AARP LYING TO SENIORS TO PROFIT FROM OBAMACARE?

The seniors advocacy group AARP defended Obamacare, stating in emails to seniors: "FACT #3: There is no provision of any piece of legislation that would promote euthanasia of any kind. The rumors out there are flat out lies...It is not mandatory and it has nothing to do with euthanasia." But since the House bill includes the legal term "shall," the Dean of Liberty University School of Law Mat Staver disagrees. "I just went back and re-read the bill. The end-of-life counseling is mandatory and there is a 5 year requirement that it must occur every 5 years. The bill is on our website and people can read it for themselves. It is not new that AARP favors killing their own members. They...do not have the best interests of their members in mind."

Attorney Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel had stronger words. "AARP is lying. See pages 424, 425 and 426 of HR 3200. The government 'consultation' that seniors 'shall' get if they have 'not had such a consultation within the last 5 years' is clearly designed to encourage them to get out of the way and to just go ahead and die already."

Widely respected Minister Rick Joyner wrote, after reviewing Mat Staver's detailed analysis of H.R. 3200 "Health" care bill, voicing his strong opinion that this bill "is about euthanasia, the power to determine who lives or dies in America. Hitler and Stalin would have loved to have had a means such as this for dispatching the millions they killed—it would have made their job much easier, and probably given them the ability to kill many more than they did. THIS BILL IS THAT SINISTER. This is not a joke."

SELECT HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.

2) Tax-payer funded ABORTION on demand is another guaranteed result.

Last week several so-called "pro-life Democrats" executed a bait and switch that will fully fund abortion on demand in the new Obamacare "health" bill. Led by compromiser and ex-pro-life Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), who was recently booted as an advisor to Democrats for Life of America for his lack of principle, the liberal House Democrats overruled conservative Republicans 30-28 to pass the hideous "Capps Amendment" to H.R.3200 in the Energy and Commerce Committee. This amendment now deceptively creates a phony accounting scheme that gives the false impression your tax-payer dollars will not subsidize abortion, while it simultaneously nationalizes free abortions for low-income urban neighborhoods, fulfilling the dream of Margaret Sanger (and her protege Ruth Bader Ginsburg) that African American babies will be the first exterminated in the government funded ovens that weed out "Populations that we don't want to have too many of."

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) explained the Capps Amendment: "It's one of the most deceptive amendments I have ever seen. The bottom line is that money is fungible, and the plan itself will be subsidizing abortion-on-demand, with taxpayer funding commingled, and the numbers of abortions will go up significantly."

SELECT HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.

3) Obama will REMOVE Christian prayers and symbols from Government-run hospitals

The hostile socialist government takeover of Catholic or Christian hospitals will eventually result in atheistic silencing of religious expression (and removing all Christian symbols) from the very place where faith in God is critical to sick and dying patients. For example, look at the Veterans Hospitals, already government-run, who are busy removing crosses and Christian symbols from their chapels (like in Iowa), because easily-offended atheist complainers have successfully intimidated hospital administrators with threats of lawsuit, by demanding separation of church and state. Just imagine more atheist lawsuits, when all Catholic and Christian hospitals are seized in the same way Obama took control of General Motors, inviting easily-offended atheist complainers to demand we change the name of the hospital from "St. Luke's Memorial" to the "Obama Government" hospital, falsely claiming tax-dollars cannot subsidize religion. But if St. Luke's refuses government subsidies, they will be drummed out of business, and Christian doctors' licenses revoked.

Can a government-run hospital still allow Christian chapels, or pay Christian chaplains, or permit Christian doctors to pray Christian prayers with their willing patients, or even allow Christian parents to control the health care options forced upon their dying children? Just ask Florida Hospital Chaplain Danny Harvey, fired last year from Leesburg Regional Medical Center because he prayed "in Jesus name" at a public memorial service. Ask Christian Pharmacists who Washington has already forced to dispense "Plan-B" abortion pills against their conscience, or doctors denied a "conscience clause" to opt out of abortions when Obama refused to renew Bush's pro-life executive orders. Ask Nurse Catherina Lorena Cenzon-DeCarlo, who recently was forced to participate in a second-trimester abortion against her will, and is now suing Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan for "blatantly" violating her rights under a 35 year old federal law that protects health care workers with religious objections from being forced to assist in murderous abortions. Ask Pentecostal Ministers Dale and Leilani Neumann, who were charged with second-degree murder of their 11-year-old daughter, because they refused to trust the power of a government hospital to heal their little girl who tragically died with diabetes. Can you say mandatory godlessness in "health" care? If government has power to dictate your health care options, they also have power to seize your children when you refuse. Think about it. Will you dare refuse the H1N1 vaccine when ordered to poison your children? No religious exemptions for doctors, patients, or parents are readily apparent in the current Obamacare bill. So take action with me...
So let me summarize Obama's health care plan: 1) Euthanize grandma and veterans, 2) Mandate funding murder of innocent children, then lie about it in denial, 3) Empower atheist litigants to outlaw the healing power of the Christian faith.

SELECT HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.

We all gasped when the federal government seized control of General Motors, and Obama effectively fired the Chairman and replaced the board with government bureaucrats selected by Treasury Secretary Geithner. Now Obama and his liberal Democratic House allies want to replace your doctors with bureaucrats, hasten grandma's demise, abort and kill children in urban neighborhoods, cut doctors' pay and control their religion, and transform Christian hospitals into government-controlled atheist bureaucracies. Does any of this remind you of Communism? I won't stand idly by to allow this. I will fax Congress to say, "no to Obamacare." Will you? Please sign our petition and I'll send your faxes now. Then please forward this email to all your friends who care about our beloved country, especially those senior citizens who may be at greatest risk.




God Bless you, in Jesus' name,

Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt

_________________

When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose[/size]


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Sunsilver
Post subject: Re: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sat 29 Aug , 2009 8:25 pm
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Here is a link to a PDF file of the booklet they're calling "The Death Book For Veterans":

http://www.rihlp.org/pubs/Your_life_your_choices.pdf

Gee, seems to me to be some pretty good information there. And the Hemlock Society doesn't even merit a mention in the reference section at the back of the booklet....
:roll:

Comments? Thoughts? Relevant links to debunk these idiots?

I've tried until I'm blue in the face to explain to her that 'end of life care' 'living wills' and 'euthanasia' are totally different things, but no luck. She's hung up on the Terry Schiavo case, which seems to have been the thing that kick started the debate.

I do have to tread carefully here, as I value her friendship, and don't wish to upset her too much.

BTW she belongs to the same denomination as Mel Gibson.... :roll:

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When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose[/size]


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ToshoftheWuffingas
Post subject: Re: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sat 29 Aug , 2009 10:43 pm
Filthy darwinian hobbit
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Sunsilver, there is nothing you can do. People like that want to believe it.

Can you just imagine the morality of Christians who depend on spreading lies to defeat their fellow citizens from getting health care? Can you just imagine the mentality of the people behind them who manipulate them with lies?
You know of course that the Canadian health system is a total failure verging on bankruptcy?
All this doesn't make me sad. It makes me angry. I'm currently sticking up for UHC and the people who want reform on a FB quiz/discussion. The attitudes you hear are frightful but there are sensible people who refuse to be howled down.

My response to the right wingers who make the death panel accusations is to say I hope they criminalise death panels as premeditated murder but first they have to prosecute the health insurance excutives who offer bonuses to staff to deny coverage to their customers just when they need it most. For the US insurance industry already operate death panels.

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sat 29 Aug , 2009 11:21 pm
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Sunny,

I agree with Tosh on this. I said in a post over in the health care thread that I had a conversation where I was at the point of making up country names. I'd name a country, starting with Canada, and worked my way through other countries trying to see if the person I was talking to would even listen......at about the 15th country (all of which she said were Commies) I just started throwing out made up country names. All of which were Commies and Sociolists. At which point I just said to myself this is not about health care at all for her.....it's about being afraid and acting like a 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

Having a logical discussion is beyond possible. They don't have any suggestions, just Obama is the Devil and we who support any type of change, even change different from Obama's plan are all communists and hate America. Therefore my logical conclusion is these people truly believe that having a healthy citizenship is un-American....and bad for the nation.

:shrug:

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sat 29 Aug , 2009 11:23 pm
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And what ever you do don't mention the French System, since it is apparently far more Sociolistic than either the Canadian or UK's. Which I am sure is news to the French. I damn near got hit for suggesting looking at the good points of the French system. I guess this person is still holding a grudge about the French thinking GWB was full of crap.

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Sunsilver
Post subject: Re: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sun 30 Aug , 2009 1:57 am
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Ara, she's not as far gone as that! :Q She's a smart lady, and if I can just find the right links to debunk this stuff, I think she'll listen. I hope she reads the link I sent her to the "Your Life - Your Choices" booklet.

If I'd had a booklet like that when I was doing nursing, I would have been distributing it to my patients! It makes it very clear the need to discuss this sort of choice with family, so that YOUR wishes are carried out. The right-wingers seem to want to deny you the freedom to make those choices. Why they'd want this, I haven't a clue! :roll:

The whole thing just seems SO idiotic. I can't believe she is so naive she can't see through it!

Oh, and she's CANADIAN, by the way. Lives not far from Barrie, Ontario.

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When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose[/size]


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Wilma
Post subject: Re: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sun 30 Aug , 2009 12:31 pm
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THis lady is Canadian!!! WTF. We don't have "death panels" here. How the F did they make up this garbage and people actually believe it. For goodness sakes It's like American companies and the right are experts at obfuscation. It's like people don't even see the point anymore. *frustrated*

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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Arguing With A Friend Over U.S. Healthcare Bill
Posted: Sun 30 Aug , 2009 1:11 pm
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tosh said
Quote:
People like that want to believe it.
That says it perfectly. For many, their political and societal beliefs are an article of faith. They have consumed the holy kool-aid of a particular philosophy and no amount of facts or data or common sense can deter them.

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