AlchemyToday

Betsy McCaughey was on the Daily Show last night explaining her contention that the House health bill, HR3200 (PDF here), will lead to people being denied medical treatment against their will at the end of their life because they were forced into making living wills before that moment:

John Stewart does a decent job pointing out that, of course, the bill doesn’t actually do that. But he doesn’t recognize the main lie that McCaughey’s employing here. Here’s the relevant text of the bill:

McCaughey claims that doctors will be penalized if patients don’t adhere to their living wills, and that doctors will force patients to stick to their previous decisions and deny requests for life-sustaining care.  That’s her lie.  ”Adherence to orders for life-sustaining treatment,” refers to adherence by the health care provider, not adherence by the patient to previous plans.  If the patient is able to communicate, they can make their desires known and direct their treatment.  This will still count as adhering to the patient’s will, and doctors will still be credited for doing the right thing.

McCaughy says she’s on the side of doctors, but seems to be willing to assume that doctors are so evil that they’ll pretend they’re not hearing a patient’s call for help as they’re pulling the plug.  This section requires measurement of quality of end-of-life care based on whether doctors do what you asked them to do.  If you are able to ask them to do something else, they have to do that.  If you are unable to direct your own care, doctors will be judged on following the directions you laid out instead of the emotional (and often conflicting) pleas of your family members.  Pretty simple.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 10:01 am and is filed under Permanent Decline.