Parents of children with disabilities tell Congress: “No rationing for our kids”
UPDATE, 4:55p: Here’s an Associated Press story on the press conference.
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Over a dozen parents with children with disabilities joined Congresspersons Cathy McMorris-Rodgers and Trent Franks today in a press conference to reveal rationing in healthcare bill.
The group came together under the Healthcare For Gunner coalition to educate President Obama and Congress know that it will be their children and families who suffer the most and be denied critical care under current health care reform plans.
According to the press release:
“I want my family and my doctor to control my son’s healthcare decision, not a government-appointed committee,” said Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America and founder of Healthcare for Gunner. “Should President Obama get his way, the life of my son, and millions across the country who are elderly, chronically ill, or require expensive medical treatment, will be at the hands of some bureaucrat in Washington.”…
The parents issued a white paper on the effects of rationing as well as a letter to President Obama and House and Senate Leadership, detailing the severe repercussions of comparative effectiveness and Washington bureaucrats deciding who gets to live and die.
To see how rationing of health care would work for the disabled, look no further than other countries that have similar systems, like Canada and the United Kingdom. Just last week, a baby in the UK was born prematurely and the doctors refused to provide medical care because the government would not allow it. The mother said she was shocked “to discover that another child, born in the U.S. at 21 weeks and six days into her mother’s pregnancy, had survived.”
Barb Farlow spoke today about her daughter, Annie, who was born with a genetic condition associated with grim statistics and serious disabilities. Annie died in a Canadian hospital 80 days after her birth. Barb investigated and was horrified at the results:
“We later discovered that no diagnostic tests had been done and a “do not resuscitate order” was written before we had provided consent,” said Barb. “The discovery that our fundamental, parental rights had been violated in such a manner without cause has left us shocked and devastated. Sadly, we believe that to our medical system Annie was not a child but a label with associated statistics and a price tag. We will never know Annie’s potential and so we grieve her death and the life she might have had.”
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
readers might also find this story of interest in terms of healthcare rationing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8257686.stm
it seems unbelievable that there are only 5 lung bypass machines in all of Britain?
at least they flew this woman out of the country and didn’t let her die.
From the TownHall article:
“Sell, whose twin 14-year-old sons have autism, said the bill would improve care by eliminating annual and lifetime limits on coverage, as well as coverage exclusions for pre-existing health problems.”
Okay, these two limits that insurance companies currently employ are ways to control costs. So if you eliminate these two methods, other methods to control costs will need to be found.
I’m not saying those things should be kept, but be honest about where the funds will come from. It seems like people don’t understand how insurance works.
There are too many doctors in the world who think that just because they are smart and well accomplished that this means they should have the right to decide life and death for the rest of us.
Regardless of the medical system, these people can wreck havoc. They need to be put in their place. The fear of lawsuits needs to hang over their heads when a patient is deliberately killed without any consultation with the family. A Do Not Resuscitate Order can also be grounds for a lawsuit if neither the patient or the family has consented to it.
This doesn’t nearly give the protection that patients deserve, but it’s a start.
Want to know the lowdown on ObamaCare?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f19HjjDjbNk
I have said this before. My lefty sister doesn’t refuses to believe that the plan the person she voted for want to put in place will kill her son. He has down syndrome. That puts him in the “not economical to repair” column on day 1 of the plan. Had he been born after Zeke the Freak starts making the calls, he would have been called a “miscarriage.” He was born about 6 week early and needed open heart surgery to repair a hole in his heart. He would have gotten the “Annie” treatment option.
But Conor is alive and well today. And today his mother and father make the final treatment decisions if he gets sick.
Not so if she gets her way on “health care reform.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAQNEtVp2oM
mods… I’ve got a post with a link stuck in pergatory….