[Editor’s Note: The PRWeb version of this release in pdf format with a photo of John Kelly is available here.]
In a stunning defeat today for proponents of assisted suicide, the New Jersey assisted suicide bill A2270 was pulled from the floor and tabled until September for lack of votes. Not Dead Yet applauded New Jersey disability advocates as press reports credited disability rights opposition for the defeat.
“The bill was shown to be extremely controversial,” said Marilyn Golden of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. “It has bipartisan opposition and is widely opposed by a diversity of groups, including the disability community.”
In the June 26, 2014 Star-Ledger postmortem, Statehouse reporter Susan K Livio reported that disability advocates “turned out in force” to testify at the bill’s hearing.
“We have a lot of reasons for concern about legalizing assisted suicide,” said Diane Coleman of Not Dead Yet. “One of our biggest concerns, given the rising tide of abuse of elders and people with disabilities, is that no law can prevent assisted suicide coercion behind closed doors.”
Reports from the state house had sponsors two votes short of a majority. The bill has been shelved until September, when Assemblyman John Burzichelli hopes to bring it back.
“The more legislators learn about the details, the more they turn against an assisted suicide bill,” said Not Dead Yet regional director John Kelly, a New Jersey native. Kelly is also director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts.
“We are 4 for 4 this session – New Jersey joins New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut in having ‘second thoughts’ about assisted suicide,” Kelly added. “We also know that we need to be prepared for ongoing advocacy, and we’re ready for that.”
Kelly joined disability rights advocates from New Jersey along with the Medical Society of New Jersey and faith-based groups in bringing the opposition to the legislature.
Such good news! I know you will keep up the good work. Congratulations to John Kelly and you and the others in the Disability Community for always getting out ahead of these misguided or “guided” bills to make assisted suicide legal. Obviously! assisted suicide is the cheapest option for everybody, the patient, the state, the family. Fast and easy sounds good to the public who don’t understand what is at stake and think that this sounds good because it provides “control” and an easy way out of the world.
When assisted suicide is sanctioned by the State, this endangers the elderly/disabled on Medicare/Medicaid who are ALREADY targeted for End-of-Life Savings by CMS Reimbursement protocols that discriminate against the elderly/disabled and result in disparate discrimination. It is obvious that the elderly/disabled on Medicare/Medicaid are more prone to suffer from one or more of the 27 adverse hospital events that are NOT reimbursed by CMS and Advantage and Gap insurers. Additionally, and since 2006, at least, CMS and the private Advantage and Gap Insurers have not been reimbursing Hospitals/physicians for patients who have exceeding the DRG Caps or for non beneficial over treatment and complications that will not be reimbursed under P4P protocols.
The unilateral covert and overt (default) DNR code status that is extrapolated into the hospital charts of these patients whose life-saving and life-extending treatments will not be reimbursed is a direct reaction of the Hospitals to the covert rationing by CMS and the Advantage and Gap insurers.
If we follow the money, it becomes so obvious, in my opinion, that The Congress of the United States, both political parties, have let the American people down because they couldn’t resist the influence and the Lobby $$$$$ of Big Insurance.
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The discrimination leads to a direct response by the Hospitals who are not being reimbursed and who are not required to .
PS —-typing error! This discrimination leads to a direct response by the Hospitals who are not being reimbursed so often and who are NOT required to inform the patient when the patient is a victim of error or treatment that will NOT be reimbursed. It is easy, therefore, for the hospitals to unilaterally determine that the lives of these elderly/disabled patients are of low quality and that sending them to eternity earlier rather than later serves fiscal expediency and serves the public good.
The unilateral covert/overt DNR Code status is not punished as a crime or a tort under the law and is merely an “ethics lapse” in the real world out there.