There was a moment this afternoon when it seemed that legalized assisted suicide might once again be prevented in the Vermont state legislature, but unfortunately this time the legislative chess match went to the proponents. The state Senate voted 17-13 to endorse a bill very similar to that of Oregon, but with a three-year “sunset” provision. Senators Galbraith and Hartwell, who had previously voted against such a bill because of their opposition to a state-run program, provided the crucial votes.
The Burlington Free Press reports:
With the Senate’s passage, the bill goes back to the House, where it is scheduled to hit the floor Saturday, the last planned day of the 2013 legislative session. House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said he expects the majority will go along with the Senate version, sending it to a supportive Gov. Peter Shumlin. It would take effect after the governor’s signature.
Opponents revived hope when Sen. Peg Flory, R-Rutland, found language in the bill that might place Medicare and Medicaid funding in doubt, but sponsors simply removed the sentence regarding advance directives, which by federal law cannot be required by insurers or medical providers. Stalwart opponent Senator Richard Sears, D-Bennington, tried to coax the Senate into sending the bill to conference committee based on this flaw and others not yet found. He predicted that the sunset provision of the bill, which would dissolve the Oregon-style public health program after three years, would be amended and eventually removed from the bill. This objection did not catch fire, as proponents assured senators that after three years, assisted suicide would just become part of physician “best practices.”
True Dignity Vermont, which coordinated opposition to the assisted suicide bill, wrote this evening:
Either form of the bill will hurt many people in order to fulfill the wishes of a few who could easily accomplish on their own what they insist they want to do. In particular, patients who have filled the lethal prescription will have absolutely no protection against being coerced or murdered by a greedy heir or an exasperated caregiver.
Anti-assisted suicide advocates continue to look over the bill for other flaws that might hold out hope of stopping the bill at the last minute. – John Kelly, Second Thoughts Massachusetts
Really BAD NEWS for the elderly/disabled who are NOW being subjected to unilateral overt and covert Do Not Resuscitate Code being placed in their medical charts because of the failure of the 1991 Patient Self Determination Act to clarify the right to die and the right to live –as well as the failure of the Congress to place physicians and for-profit clinics under the 1991 PSDA.
Why haven’t Compassion and Choices who have pushed the Assisted Suicide agenda to legislatures that gives physicians the power to write lethal prescriptions educated the public to the fact that Hospice/palliative care NOW is a legal means to shorten one’s life to shorten one’s suffering.
Anyone can commit suicide by refusing to eat and drink and will be eligible for “comforting” drugs under Hospice when their voluntary fast brings them closer to death. Not as quick and easy as the lethal prescription but certainly a cleaner expression of patient autonomy that doesn’t require the State to encourage assisted suicide as a quick and easy solution
for the patient and the state.
Apparently, those who push for Assisted Suicide Laws don’t think dying under Medicare Hospice/palliative care is fast enough or easy enough and want the taxpayers to underwrite assisted suicide laws by insuring patients for “assisted suicide” as as self-administered “treatment” that will be reimbursed with Medicare/Medicaid dollars. Can this be constitutionasl? Where are all of the attorneys who really work for the public good?
Assisted Suicide just coincidentally serves the interests of Federal Medicare and the State governments of encouraging patients to shorten their lives —even as the element of “medical futility” is not involved in the decision and is not invoked by the physician or the hospital.
Will patients who take these lethal doses be allowed to take them within a hospital or a norsing home or an assisted care facility, or their own private residence? Isn’t this insane —think of the possibilities for abuse?
Has any interested agency ever investigated the “funding” of these State groups who lobby for Assisted Suicide Laws but who have no duty to inform their members about the provisions of the 1991 PSDA that already allow legally asllow patients to elect to shorten their lives (a form of suicide) to shorten their suffering?
The American Bar Association has already provided an opinion to Congress/Medicare that Medicasre does NOT have to reimburse physicians who ignore patient requests made under the provisions of the PSDA and state law to shorten their lives to shorten their suffering –that coincidentally reduces the costs of end-of-life care for the growing elderly population of our country.
What is going on here? Why hasn’t Congress protected the elderly/disabled patients by clarifying the provisions of the 1991 PSDA —instead of encouraging states to pass state laws to allow assisted suicide that just coincidentally serves the fiscal interests of both state and federal government in capping the costs of dying of our growing elderly population by keeping them out of the ICUs and CCUs of acute care hospitals who receive public funds (taxpayer provided) —-
Lots of ugly stuff and dishonesty behind the scenes. Too bad! So Sad! NOT DEAD YET but SOON of the MBA’s and the CPA’s have their way with us.