Who Needs Death Panels? Just Use Government's VA Checklist.

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Who Needs Death Panels? Just Use Government's VA Checklist.

Posted By Bobby Eberle On August 25, 2009 at 6:58 am

Much is being made about provisions in Barack Obama's health "scare" plan which suggest that seniors be denied care and be given counseling to prepare for the end of their lives. How scary is it that a government bureaucrat or panel could decide if your life is worth living?

Well, the Obama administration continues its effort, but this time the focus is a "do it yourself" checklist that is being provided to veterans to "help" them determine if they just don't want to go on any more. The checklist works as a political push poll, steering veterans toward conclusions that normally wouldn't be chosen. If this kind of practice is acceptable at the VA, just think what will end up in Obama's health care laws if they pass!

The document in question is a 52-page publication titled Your Life, Your Choices and it is being promoted by the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care. As noted in a Wall Street Journal article by former Bush advisor Jim Towey, "If President Obama wants to better understand why America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care."

According to Towey, the document was originally published in 1997. However, after the Bush administration "took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use." Towey also notes that the primary author of the publication is Dr. Robert Pearlman, "a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing."

On page 21 of Your Life, Your Choices is a checklist designed to help you figure out whether your life is worth living. One would think that such a "checklist" might deal with end of life situations such as being in a coma or being alive but considered "brain dead" my medical professionals. This checklist contains questions such as whether you are a "financial burden" on your family or whether you "cannot seem to 'shake the blues.'" With each item, the veteran is supposed to evaluate whether that condition contributes to feeling that his or her life is not worth living.

As Towey notes:

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

One can only imagine a soldier surviving the war in Iraq and returning without all of his limbs only to encounter a veteran's health-care system that seems intent on his surrender.

Here's an interview with the VA's Tammy Duckworth regarding the document:

At the heart of the discussion is not only the document, but a VA directive distributed in July of this year which "instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to 'Your Life, Your Choices.'" Duckworth denies such emphasis on this end of life document, but the directive is cited directly by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and by Towey in his column.

Obama is facing increased criticism of a health care plan that takes away power from individuals and places it in the hands of government officials. Then, he goes around the country denying he's going to do what the bill says it will do. If he wanted to send a message about the value of life, then he surely should not sit still while the VA brings back such a controversial document. Just what does Obama and his team value other than a bigger, more powerful government?

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