Last month, we shared a press release issued by Colorado activists from Not Dead Yet and ADAPT protesting an appearance by Compassion and Choices CEO Barbara Coombs Lee in Boulder, Colorado.
Since then, it’s become apparent that Colorado is indeed one of the states being targeted for legalization of assisted suicide. KUSA Channel 9 broadcast a story about proposed legislation that featured parts of an interview with NDY board member Anita Cameron.
Unfortunately, the video isn’t captioned, but there’s a print story underneath the video on this link.
Here’s an excerpt covering Anita’s part in the story:
But it’s not just religious groups who want to keep doctors from having the ability to end a life. Disability advocacy groups across the country worry about the implications of these laws. They fear those with disabilities will be coerced into using the law to end their lives early.
Anita Cameron is nearly blind, has multiple sclerosis and suffers from a condition called cerebellar ataxia. She sits on the board of a national disability organization called “Not Dead Yet.”
“This right to die is going to turn into the duty to die because people will be coerced,” Cameron said.
It’s a concern often voiced by groups like “Not Dead Yet.” They fear that people with disabilities and the elderly, with worsening conditions, may be pressured into seeking life-ending medication even if they do not really want to die.
“As your condition progresses, you require more care or more services, you are more apt to feel, I don’t want to be a burden to my family,” Cameron said.
These are excellent comments. Like many of us who have gone through interviews in which only a statement or two get broadcast or printed, Anita reported in a Facebook post that she felt other points she made were stronger ones. That’s one of the tricky things about edited interviews – you have to make sure you stick to strong and valid points since anything that seems fuzzy or weak will be the one the reporter most often uses. Obviously, if Anita thought the above remarks weren’t her strongest points, she succeeded (and better than I have in many instances) in making only strong points and statements.
We also must expose in 10 words or less the fallacies of this notion of “safeguards.” People put too much trust in that word and have a false sense of security.
Anita Cameron was very articulate in here interview with the Press and she tells HARD TRUTH about “assisted suicide: and the state sanction of the “lethal” prescription that emboldens Insurance Companies, etc..
But the Press misunderstood what Anita was saying which is not surprising! Maybe the Press and even the legislators in Colorado don’t understand that private BIG Insurance often contracts with the States at great PROFIT to deliver the State Medicaid benefits. (Read on the Center for Public Integrity Website, by Wendell Potter, about the OBSCENE profits private insurance CEOs are making off of the safety net of Medicaid –and Medicare!) Millions and Millions of dollars in annual compensation!
What Anita is worried about is that “assisted suicide” is the cheapest and easiest solution for the patient, the Insurer, Medicare/Medicaid. and Big Advantage Insurers, and the family and heirs. Will Medicaid and Medicare, both of which are transitioning away from “fee for service” to “managed care” and “managed death(Hospice” refuse wanted “curative” care and offer “assisted suicide” and hospice as the only solution? This, of course, will sustain or raise the profits of Big Private Insurance who deliver Medicare/Medicaid benefits under lucrative contracts with the State and Federal government.
The people from the Press who do these interviews don’t have a CLUE as to what is really going on in health care but hopefully the Colorado Legislature will investigate the TRUTH of Anita’s comments about BIG INSURANCE but, of course, Big Insurance has “bought” a lot of the State Legislatures.