OBAMACARE TO INCLUDE HOSPICE CARE !

As if it couldn't get any worse .... Reaching retirement age is supposed to be a point in life where one can enjoy the fruits of their labor. We have spent a lifetime providing for our family, worked hard, paid taxes, reached out to help our fellow man, and most important raised our children to respect life.

At what point does it become ANYONE'S right to decide when to end it? Rather than losing my cool, I will let Erick Erickson's piece in RedState take over:


The Future in Rep. Tonko’s and Barack Obama’s America

It’s always great to hear liberals speak when they think no one is listening.

Rep. Paul Tonko is a freshman Democrat from Albany, NY. He’s a typical non-descript eastern machine politician who is a robot for Obama and Pelosi and doesn’t have too many original thoughts. Earlier this week one of his top aides was flying to Washington from the district. She was accompanied by what appeared to be a special interest Washington DC lobbyist, who probably came to Albany to attend some type of big money golf, gambling, and cigars fundraiser for Tonko.

Anyway, unbeknownst to them, a hero of the conservative movement sat quietly behind them. It was impossible to avoid listening to their boisterous conversation, and Tonko’s aide didn’t disappoint.

Naturally, most of the banter dealt with the health care bill, and here are a few of the gems:

The two were talking about whether Tonko would even be given time to read the bill. She told the lobbyist, “well he pays me to read it for him”.

“[The] costliest part [of the Obama healthcare bill] will be the physician’s rate cut,” she said. Lots of political capital is going to be spent to get that through.

And, for the crowning glory, the aide feels that “probably the best part of the bill is the increase in Hospice care which will solve the prolonging of life issue.”

This seems to prove the argument that the Obama bureaucrats will eventually decide who lives and who dies.

Remember, the Democrats have already put in their legislation a requirement for senior citizens to, every five years, learn how to die with dignity.

Also remember that hospice care is for the already terminally ill. So how will increasing hospice care funding solve “prolonging of life issues” unless the government is going to start putting people who are not terminally ill into hospice after they’ve had their mandatory “how to kill yourself” training.

Isn’t “hope and change” wonderful?

ADDENDUM:
We’ve noted remarks by a senior aide to Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) that “probably the best part of the bill is the increase in Hospice care which will solve the prolonging of life issue.”

That does not tend to make sense because hospice care is for people already at the end of life who need to be kept comfortable. How on earth does more hospice funding solve “prolonging of life issues” when people in hospice already know they are about to die?

Well, it doesn’t until you consider stories like this:

Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a “chilling” corruption of medical ethics.

Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon’s state-run health plan for help.

Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup’s request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup’s pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.