American Life League: What else to oppose in the House healthcare bill
My friend Judie Brown of the American Life League has posted a chart listing just a few other problems with the House socialized healthcare bill:
While Judie’s premise is one on which we will likely always have to agreed to disagree, that attempting to place stopgaps against the culture of death in one area condones the culture of death in another, she is right: The healthcare bill in its entirety is an abomination against the sanctity of life that we must attempt to stop. I appreciate the research ALL has conducted and the work it is doing to stop the healthcare monstrosity.
Please read my earlier post for more of my thoughts on the Stupak/Pitts Amendment topic.
Nov.13, 2009 8:48 am |
Health care |
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.
Can we say “Trojan Horse”??
Did anyone really think Nancy Pelosi’s ongoing smile resulted from a Botox overdose?
That ALL ad is totally untrue. Take the first bullet. That is a reference to the separate ‘rider’ plans outside the public exchange. Pity these ‘riders’ do not exist, nor is it likely that private insurance companies will offer them. And even if they did, they would be outside the exchange. So what’s the objection? I think your side simply wants all private plans to drop abortion coverage, and force abortion to become a cash-only practice. At least some hospitals will get their family planning businesses back in the black should that happen.
Fourth bullet – the death panel / euthanasia claim has been debunked a thousand times over. It is Medicare reimbursement of end of life planning. If a patient creates a living will or a ‘do no resuscitate’ order for him or herself, Medicare can cover the administrative cost. We’re not becoming Switzerland, ever.
And the last bullet, section 304 with regards to abortion would be neutralized by Stupak-Pitts. Hence the outrage and shock coming from my side.
But no matter – the bill should be voted down because quite simply, it is too expensive for too little reform. The whole bill wouldn’t kick-in until 2013. There would still be at least 10 million uninsured Americans. Private companies would be more selective in who they allow to buy insurance (since once they accept a new customer, they cannot drop him). And the bill forces millions to buy private insurance. It’s not government-run healthcare. It’s a gift to the insurance companies, with the government unfairly taxing people who don’t budge.
Dhalgren,
This is not just about Euthanasia. Whether you use the term “death panels” or something else, the fact remains that healthcare is going to be run by bureaucrats who, with limit resources, are going to be forced to decide what care individuals are going to get. Some of these decisions may result in shortened life, or reduced quality of life. Socialized Healthcare will result in rationing. Look at what’s happening now- the government is in charge of distributing the H1N1 vaccination. They are already rationing that and people who want it can’t get it.
The Stupak Amendment was not “Fire Coming Down From Heaven To Consume The Enemies of God”. It was political hairsplitting in the bloody abortion arena. Sadly, the US Catholic Bishops are woefully naive about politics & legislation. The American Life League should be the ones teaching pro-life classes in all the seminaries & catholic colleges in America. Period.
Dahlgren, as I said, even with the abortion issue moot, the far right will oppose health care reform, because they want Obama to fail, and don’t care at all about the impact on Americans.
Bystander,
That post is so ridiculous I hope no one dignifies it by trying to argue with you.
Health reform has exposed the fraud of the “pro-lifers” Health reform would increase pre-natal care, and lead to greater survival of babies. About 90% of DS diagnosed pregnancies are terminated, due in substantial part to fear that health insurors will not payfor their medical needs.
Health reform would lead to greater survival of babies and decrease elective abortion. Nonetheless, the far right “pro-lifers” oppose health care reform because their hatred for Obama and the Democrats outweighs their purported concern for the unborn.
Again Bystander,9:55PM
I hope no one will dignify your post by arguing with you.
Mary, apparently no one disagrees with my post. It is clear that the opposition to health care reform has nothing to do with being “pro life”, it is just a reflexive response to far right propaganda.
Bystander,
On what are you basing your opinion that Downs babies are killed because of fears of health insurance denying coverage for their needs? Everything I’ve seen suggests that parents abort Downs babies because of supposed “quality of life” issues. In other words, someone whose life might be different than the “average Joe/Jane” must be defective, and so their lives are worth nothing. And then there’s the little bit of bullying that doctors have a bad habit of engaging in… “no quality of life”, “could have severe retardation/physical conditions/etc.” and so on, which completely disregards the fact that a) prenatal Downs testing is not a guarantee – false positives have resulted in many abortions of “normal” children or births of perfectly normal children who were “supposed to” have Downs, and b) there is a whole spectrum of severity with this disorder – many DS people are only mildly affected, and some are more so, but none of them deserve to be killed on the basis of disability… that’s highly discriminatory. Complicating all that are parents who just feel that they don’t want a child who isn’t “perfect” and they don’t *feel like* taking care of a special-needs child.
If my husband lost a few limbs in combat, would you want to euthanize him? After all, with a disability like that, he won’t be able to completely live as a “normal” person. His life wouldn’t be worth living, right?
How about me? I was born in the early 1980s at 28 weeks gestation. I weighed less than three pounds. There was a possibility of all kinds of complications… brain bleeds, neurological or physical impairment of one kind or another, and so on. Since I “might” be retarded due to complications of prematurity or “might” need physical therapy to walk or “might” need speech therapy to speak, then I guess they should have left me to die, right? Because my life “might” not be worth living. Guess what? I have no major problems. I didn’t need any kind of physical/speech therapy. My IQ is NOT below “normal”. I’m a healthy, functioning adult. But things didn’t look so good when I was born – it would have been a travesty if they were so narrow-minded as to not concede the fact that NOBODY knows what the future holds for anyone, except God. The circumstances of one’s birth is not a guarantee of what their life will be in the future.
Health care reform in its current form is a. completely unaffordable; b. a vast overreaching of the government, which is too big already; c. does not provide prenatal care that is not already covered under Medicare and similar programs; and d. is a human-rights nightmare. This isn’t about “far-right propaganda”, “making Obama/the Democrats fail”, or “religion”, it’s about human rights/dignity, the government overstepping its bounds, and the fact that this country is completely over its head in debt.
The government can’t even keep a vast amount of fraud out of Medicare… what on earth makes you or anyone else think they can do better with a MUCH LARGER program?
Bystander 7:52am
Looks like you spoke too soon.
“Health reform would increase pre-natal care, and lead to greater survival of babies.” Bystander, you are extremely misinformed on two important points, reflected in this statment.
Back in the 1980’s, as a newly graduated M.D., I helped out as a volunteer at a pro-life pregnancy resource center. Pregnant young women in our community were always accepted as patients at the county health department, where all of them obtained free prenatal care. My understanding is that at that time they were not eligible for Medicaid till the baby was delivered, but when the baby was born, Medicaid was retroactive to cover also the prenatal care.
More recently, under the Bush administration, pre-born babies were defined as Medicaid eligible patients to assure that prenatal care was always available to moms carrying babies. The pro-abortion community protested vigorously that this right should not be extended to preborn babies, but it happened. So, in America, there should not be any babies not receiving prenatal care.
However, the idea that the currently proposed health care reform is going to lead to less infant mortality is not correct.
The biggest cause of infant mortality is prematurity. We all know that some babies come so early that they are barely able to live, and end up in expensive newborn intensive care nurserseries, connected to tubes and fancy equipment. Many of these babies don’t make it, while many others end up with cerebral palsy, mental retardation and/or multiple handicaps as a consequence of being born too early, or from the treatment that was necessary due to being born so early.
There is a huge body of research on preterm birth, with more than 60 studies from more than 20 countries all showing that abortion is a risk factor for preterm birth. These studies are statistically significant, and the studies are large, some with hundreds of thousands of case, and one with one million cases. This is so widely accepted that the prestigious Institute of Medicine, in a 2007 book, listed abortion as an “immutable risk factor” for preterm birth. No one familiar with the research on this questions this, though many people don’t like to talk about it–abortion increases the risk of preterm birth, and even more particularly increases the risk of extremely early preterm birth.
Many experts who study this believe it is a case of cause and effect, because there is a dose-response effect, that the more abortions you have, the more steep the increase in risk. Several other criteria for causation have been met; you should be able to read more on this topic at http://www.aaplog.org (The cause of the premature birth may be from cervical damage, from infections or from inflammation following the abortion, leading to premature birth in subsequent pregnancy.)
It has already been well known that prematurity is a cause of infant death. It is also very well established that prematurity is a risk factor for cerebral palsy and numerous other disabilities.
So, if we can somehow reduce the desire for abortions in the U.S. and reduce the numbers of abortions, we can achieve a decrease in premature births and a corresponding decrease in infant mortality. Plus we will have fewer babies with disabling conditions such as cerebral palsy.
Since abortion is currently a legal right exercised by about 1.3 million U.S. women every year, and since the health bill passed by the house does nothing to change the legeal status of abortion, there is no reason to think that the number of abortions will go down under health care reform, and there is no reason to think that health care reform will be able to do anything to decrease the ever increasing numbers of premature babies.
Basically, we already have availability of prental care for preborn babies with or without any new health care “reform” bill being passed today or next month, and in any event, whatever bill is passed will do nothing to decrease infant mortality.
The bill passed by the House does nothing to prevent women from obtaining abortions, and it doesn’t change funding for abortions since the government has never before covered abortions. Indeed, I have read that the House bill
gives Planned Parenthood permanent federal status and increased funding. Since Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortion in the U.S., one might expect they will use this increased funding to make sure that no one desiring an abortion fails to receive one.
I cannot see any reason that pro-abortion people should be upset with the bill, because Stupak notwithstanding, abortions are still legal as before, and Planned Parenthood gets more funding than ever.
In addition, it seems likely that Stupak will not survive the Senate and then the conference committee. I think it was a calculated political move to try to placate pro-life voters with an amendment that had the appearance of being pro-life, without in fact actually doing anything pro-life… a shell game.
A pro-life physician recently went through the bill point by point, and it appears to be eerything that extreme liberals have ever hoped for. It is nothing at all for pro-lifers to celebrate.
But it was not intended to change anything about abortion and it doesn’t… 1.3 million women got abortions last year without federal funding, and another 1.3 million women should be able to do it again next year, because nothing in the bill interferes with their legal right to abort.
Apparently “army wife” enjoys the government provided health care available to the military and their families, but would deny it to others.
Martha repeats the right wing talking point that “everyone” gets free comprehensive health care, including prenatal care, a dream which exists only in the Fox News fantasy world.
Recently in well publicized cases, a perfectly healthy 7 month old boy was denied coverage because he was “obese” and a perfectly healthy
infant girl was denied coverage for being “too thin”. If you think a DS child is going to be able to get and keep medical coverage under the current system, I want what you are smoking. Not a lot of people want to file bankruptcy and go on Medicaid as the price for a disabled child.
I do find it interesting that you believe Stupak does nothing. What was the big fight all about, if that is the case?
Bystander,
Do the job the military does and make the sacrifices they do and you can get “free” care as well.
I think the very least we can provide our military and their families is “free” care.
Mary, I totally agree that the military and their families are entitled to the best government provided health care. I just find it ironic that someone enjoying that free government health care, like army wife (and every Republican in Congress), does not want anyone else to have it at any price. Pretty selfish, I would say.
BTW, Mary can you name a single GOP member of Congress who rails against “socialized medicine” who has given up their own “socialized” health care? The answer is “none”.
Why not ask Michelle Bachmann and Steve King why they don’t give up their “socialistic” health plan and go out and purchase insurance for $20,000 a year in the private market, that is, if neither they or any member of their families have ever had any medical treatment, in which case they are uninsurable for life. What hypocrites!
Bystander, can you name any democrats in Congress who have agreed to open their cushy private policies to the general public? Who have agreed to put THEIR plans in the same exchange you and I will use to buy plans? Can you show where republican members of congress get insurance cheaper than their democratic counterparts?
Bystander,
What “free” care our military and their families get has been bought with sacrifice. These are not people getting something for nothing.
I wholeheartedly support all of us having the option to pick and choose our insurance coverage from a variety of companies competing for our business, which is not the situation now. I support Americans having a smorgasbord to choose from. The type of coverage, what they want covered, etc. at competetive prices. I support tax cuts to enable people to buy insurance or set up medical funds. Free market forces and competition is the answer, not government involvement. In some states insurance companies have a monopoly. This creates a problem. Competition should be across state lines.
Also, free market forces in the medical area mean more competition, better prices, and medical advances that cut down patient stays in hospitals and costs.
BTW, did you hear that in one city in England “fat” pregnant women are not permitted in a certain hospital and must go to one several miles from their homes? Apparently the structure of these gov’t run hospitals is so poor they are concerned about “fat” women who are on the second floors on up. Also, they are concerned about the quality of the care “fat” pregnant women can get in this wonderful government run hospital.
Why is that? I work at a hospital that does not treat high risk maternity patients but we certainly treat “fat” ones. Also, we don’t worry that “fat” patients will crash through to the floor below. But then we aren’t a government hospital.
Speaking of hypocrisy Bystander, find out how many of those congresspeople who want to subject you to government run health care would sign themselves and their families up for it. How about Obama? Think he’ll give up the care he and his family get for what he wants you to have??
Bystander,
In fact, I can recall over the past 40 years that obese pregnant patients were safely cared for in the maternity wards of the hospitals I worked in.
I also routine see 300lb+ non-maternity patients cared for and we don’t worry they will crash through the floor.
Mary and Fed Up, I believe Congress should have EXACTLY the same coverage as the rest of us. You can stop arguing, because I agree with you. :)
Bystander, the issue isn’t identical coverage. That’s part of the problem. Congress has no business telling me my insurance has to cover a certain set of benefits when I am perfectly capable of determining what benefits I need.
The hypocrisy (by both parties) is that congress is isolating their plans in their own exchange, minimizing their risk pool. Do you support the general public having access to their insurance exchange or congress dumping their plans into the general public’s exchange? Or do you only support congress and the common folk having identical benefits?
Believe it or not, I’m not trying to be argumentative. I’m trying to get a handle on your viewpoint.
Hi Bystander,
On this we definitely agree! If congress is going to tell me what kind of coverage I must have, then they better be ready to sign up too :)
If they want to leave it alone as I think they should, I don’t care what kind of coverage they have and they are not to dictate to me what kind of coverage I must have. In fact, they can cut my taxes and everyone else’s so its easier to purchase insurance or establish medical accounts.
Fair enough!
Just a little clarification.
Members of the military do not receive ‘free health care’.
When people enlist in the military they enter into a contract with the citizens of the United States as represented by the federal government.
One of the benefits the members of the military receive in return for their service is health care for them and their dependents.
It is not a ‘freebie’.
And, unfortunately the healthcare the members of the military receive is at the very least administrated by the federal government which means it is almost always sub standard to what the private sector delivers.
yor bro ken
Excuse me, but we don’t have ‘government-provided healthcare’… we have an employer-provided health insurance plan. Civilians with employer-provided healthcare plans don’t get treated like freeloaders so where do you get off saying that about us? So what if my husband’s employer happens to be Uncle Sam? TriCare is NOT the same as socialized medicine (and even so, there are some unpleasant aspects of it). I’d prefer to have a choice of which insurance company we have insurance with, etc. but be that as it may… we settle for what we can get.
I am not a “selfish person” who wants to “deny healthcare to others”. On the contrary, I wish all people could have the freedom to choose their own healthcare coverage (or even to forego insurance and pay out of pocket if that is what they wish). I would be far more supportive of an income-based voucher system for people to use to purchase their own healthcare coverage with a few commonsense rules in place. I want real competition between insurance companies (as was mentioned by someone else in this thread already).
Want “free” healthcare the way we have it? OK, ignore the fact that your spouse works on average way more than full time with NO overtime pay. Ignore the fact that your “free” healthcare is actually part of your employer benefits package (you work hard for it, yet it’s FREE!). Send your spouse to heaven-knows-where to get blown up, shot at, and live in crappy conditions in a desert fighting for people who like to call us a bunch of selfish freeloaders. While he is gone, just try to deal with your “free government healthcare” office and all the attendant red tape, long wait times for certain appointments, referrals issues, and the occasional crappy attitude from the healthcare providers – but don’t complain, it’s FREE! Now imagine that a million times worse, with your wonderful government healthcare overlords trying to push you to abort your children for being “defective”, or abandoning you when you develop severe illnesses because your care is too expensive. No choices, no freedom, no nothing. Don’t want to participate? Great – see you in prison!
I have family and family friends in Canada and they say their healthcare system is great until you get sick. I’m pretty darn sure that it would be just as bad here.
army_wife, I really appreciate your commments, especially about the children with Down syndrome. I agree with you that the babies w/DS aren’t being aborted because of lack of resources; it is because our society has a very negative, and ignorant I might add, view of DS; women are fed messages through media, magazine articles, etc. that it is expected that they go through prenatal testing and abortion if Ds is diagnosed; and ACOG (Am. College of OBGyns) updated their recommendations a couple of years ago that ALL pregnant women (not just older moms) be offered screening for DS (thereby sending the message of the negativity of DS, as well as detecting the 80% that used to go undetected and therefore able to live).
Bystander, I happen to have a precious child with DS and have never been denied coverage for any of her medical care, including heart surgery.
Eileen,
I’m glad to hear from someone with personal experience loving a DS child. I personally don’t mind getting prenatal screenings because I know I would never get an abortion no matter what – I just view it as, “there may be a problem so now we know about it and we can be ready to help this child at delivery if necessary.” The problem I have with screenings is that they are used to bully/pressure/scare moms into thinking that their child will have “no life” and that they must abort as the “loving” thing to do.
I hate that these mothers are not told that DS folks CAN and DO have meaningful, happy lives. DS is not a death sentence or a guarantee that someone will end up an invalid in an institution for their whole lives.
army_wife, I really don’t have a problem with the testing either; it’s the abortion I have a problem with.
But with about 90% of babies who are diagnosed with DS in utero aborted when diagnosis was made mid-pregnancy with women over 35, I believe the percentage will climb even higher when ALL women are tested and the DS is diagnosed (or at least suspected by screening) much earier in pregnancy. More women are likely to have abortions earlier in the pregnancy when it is less complicated.
Bottom line is: An amnio can tell you a lot, but it can’t tell you the absolute joy your special baby will bring to you. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that; I am blessed.