Stealth Euthanasia

Not surprising, of course, considering the fetid stink of the dying American empire. But this article by Ron Panzer is very much worthy of a good, careful read.  It tells the grim story of so-called "hospice care" like you probably have not seen before. It begins thusly:

Selected excerpts, along with bracketed comments by Donald W. Miller, Jr., M.D.

(The bold, italic, and red font text that the author uses in Stealth Euthanasia are copied as is here.)

When the federal government becomes the big HMO itself, test and treatment denials will be the equivalent of death sentences for some, even many. The new health care reform law creates several methods that are likely to result in rationed care under the guise of “limiting expenditures,” or “keeping costs down.” [The power elite’s 2010 “Affordable Care Act” is a giant step towards their goal of installing a government-controlled and run, centralized, single-payer health care system — “the big HMO itself.”]

About 40% of all American deaths now occurring in hospice. [The new politically correct American way to die.]

This book provides a rare glimpse of the realities of health care in America that you will find nowhere else [This is not true. See my 2015 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeonsarticle “Modern Medicine at the Crossroads,” also on LRC, and other articles and books on these realities by other investigators.]

Because of the HIPAA privacy regulations, nobody interested in researching what is actually going on in hospice can get access to the data, so hospices that have an agenda can act without any outside interference or supervision. [This is a key point in the book and an important insight by the author.]

Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, who our President appointed Health Advisor, promotes the “Complete Lives System” that is being implemented to ration care. Donald Berwick, who our President appointed administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is a strong proponent of Comparative Effectiveness Research which will also be used to ration care. Under the new law, “Accountable Care Organizations” [ACOs] are set up which will force very aggressive rationing practices by medical groups. [Despite substantial effort the “Complete Lives System” could not be incorporated in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Furthermore,ACOs are fast going bankrupt.]

Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research institute (PCORI), whose main activities will result in rationed care. [After considerable opposition the IPAB was also removed from the ACA.]

Palliative care (symptom management).

There is one practice that is sweeping through hospices and being very widely used: terminal or palliative sedation. This involves permanently sedating the patient, allowing the patient to dehydrate and die. It looks outwardly peaceful as the patient is made to sleep in a medically-induced coma, but the patient’s death is the result. [Sad. But true.]

The top level policymakers have decided that people will die in hospice or palliative care units and that they will be pushed into hospice through a wide variety of means. $3.6 billion saved in one year. Think that motivates the government? That’s nothing compared to the savings when the people placed into hospice doubles in the years to come. That’s the plan. If patients are hurried along toward death, the savings skyrocket! [To make matter even worse, it will not make much difference in ever-rising medical care costs.]

The “culture of death” that promotes imposing death through euthanasia, assisted-suicide or the Third Way in hospice (terminal sedation) views the pro-life movement as “the enemy.” In fact, they view traditional American society as “the enemy,” something to be manipulated and defeated so that their goals can be achieved. It is clear that traditional American values are pro-life. The Declaration of Independence mentions specifically the right to life!

Its 1994 Charter for Health Care Workers specifically warns against depriving the dying of the “possibility of living his own life, by reducing him to a state of unconsciousness not worthy of a human being. This is why the administration of narcotics for the sole purpose of depriving the dying person of a conscious end is a truly deplorable practice.” [This brings to mind the spirited 2006 movie Two Weeks with Sally Fields, which my wife and I saw recently, from Netflix, which I highly recommend.]

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider and 96% of its services for pregnant women are abortions.” [The author describes how a fetus, viewed on ultrasound, even in its first three months of life reacts and fights to keep from being aborted by an abortionist.]

But withholding the patient’s regular medications, way before the patient reaches the end, active phase of dying, pushes the patient into a crisis. The patient then appears to be “actively dying” and is then either sedated, given morphine and other opioids, or both, and that un-needed cocktail of medications completely destabilizes the patient, who then dies. The trusting family doesn’t know what happened. Sometimes unneeded laxatives are given to promote uncontrolled diarrhea and contribute to life-threatening dehydration. [Pretty sickening.]

Read the rest of the article.