{"id":33261,"date":"2009-08-21T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:00:32","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:00:32","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:00:32","slug":"obama_revives_va_death_book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/08\/21\/obama_revives_va_death_book\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Revives VA Death Book"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Now, folks, Obama says there aren\u2019t death panels. He pooh-poohs the notion that there aren\u2019t death panels here. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting report. ‘If President Obama wants to better understand why America\u2019s 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. Last year, bureaucrats at the VA\u2019s National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, ‘Your Life, Your Choices.” <\/p>\n

The VA has a 52-page end-of-life planning document. It has a name. It\u2019s called the ‘Death Book,\u2019 and what has happened here, George W. Bush suspended the use of the Death Books last year. Obama has reinstated the Death Book! ‘After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated ‘Your Life, Your Choices.” So it\u2019s called ‘Your Life, Your Choices.\u2019 That\u2019s what it\u2019s actually called. But it\u2019s a Death Book. And it ‘presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions … [A] worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be ‘not worth living.”<\/p>\n

I have page 21 right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. Page 21 from the Death Book, from the VA, reinstated by Obama. ‘What makes your life worth living? Instructions: This exercise will help you think about and express what really matters to you. For each row, check one answer to express how you would feel if this factor by itself described you,\u2019 and there are, you know, A through S here. Here\u2019s A. ‘I can no longer walk but get around in a wheelchair.\u2019 Life like this would be: ‘difficult, but acceptable; worth living, but just barely; not worth living; can\u2019t answer now,\u2019 and the people reading the book are supposed to check off which of these things apply. So, ‘a. I can no longer walk but get around in a wheelchair.\u2019 Eh, difficult. I could take it. It\u2019s worth living, but just barely. Not worth living. <\/p>\n

‘b. I can no longer get outside — I spend all day at home.\u2019 Can you…? You\u2019re asked to say, you know, to hell with it. I don\u2019t want to live that way. It\u2019s the it\u2019s not worth living if I can\u2019t leave my house. Hell! ‘c. I can no longer contribute to my family\u2019s well-being.\u2019 Eh, that\u2019s not worth living. ‘d. I am in severe pain most of the time. e. I have severe discomfort most of the time (such as nausea, diarrhea, or shortness of breath).\u2019 My God, that can happen when you\u2019re constipated! So you\u2019re sitting here saying, ‘Okay, I\u2019m constipated. Life\u2019s not worth living.\u2019 Well, you don\u2019t have diarrhea when you\u2019re constipated until you do the fix. <\/p>\n

‘f. I rely on a feeding tube to keep me alive.\u2019 Eh, that\u2019s not worth living. ‘g. I rely on a kidney dialysis machine to keep me alive. h. I rely on a breathing machine to keep me alive. i. I need someone to help take care of me all of time. j. I can no longer control my bladder. k. I can no longer control my bowels. l. I live in a nursing home.\u2019 I live in a nursing home. Yeah, that\u2019s difficult but acceptable. Worth living but just barely. Not worth living. ‘m. I can no longer think clearly — I am confused all the time.\u2019 That describes half the population. ‘n. I can no longer recognize family\/friends.\u2019 That sometimes could be a blessing. <\/p>\n

‘o. I can no longer talk and be understood by others. p. My situation causes severe emotional burden for my family (such as feeling worried or stressed all the time). q. I am a severe financial burden on my family. r. I cannot seem to ‘shake the blues,” and then there\u2019s a section, ‘s. Other (write in).\u2019 Here are the instructions: ‘To help others make sense out of your answers, think about the following questions and be sure to explain your answers to your loved ones and health care providers. If you checked ‘worth living, but just barely\u2019 for more than one factor, would a combination of these factors make your life ‘not worth living?\u2019 If so, which factors? If you checked ‘not worth living,\u2019 does this mean that you would rather die than be kept alive? <\/p>\n

‘If you checked ‘can\u2019t answer now,\u2019 what information or people do you need to help you decide?\u2019 What makes your life worth living, and here are the things they want you to assess in the VA Death Book, and Obama has the audacity to say that in his health care plan — and he reinstated this. Bush killed it. Obama reinstated it. He has the audacity to say that there aren\u2019t anything called death panels or such things in his health care plan, and he\u2019s asking veterans to basically say, ‘You know what? I want to check out. To hell with this! I live in a nursing home. Screw it! Pull the plug. Where is Dr. Kevorkian?\u2019 This thing is obsessed with death. It\u2019s obsessed with you deciding, or maybe some influence, that your life isn\u2019t worth living. There\u2019s nothing positive in this. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not, ‘In these circumstances, what would it take to make you want to live?\u2019 Nothing. It\u2019s all about: ‘What\u2019s it gonna take for us to get rid of you, with you making the decision?\u2019 And, by the way, regardless your decision, we\u2019re going to be making it for you because of money. You\u2019re going to become a budget statistic. People\u2019s fears are justified. You know, this is simple. This is not a complicated thing for people to understand, and that\u2019s why he\u2019s having major problems with this. The VA Death Book brought back to life by President Barack Obama. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Now, folks, Obama says there aren\u2019t death panels. He pooh-poohs the notion that there aren\u2019t death panels here. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting report. ‘If President Obama wants to better understand why America\u2019s discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nObama Revives VA Death Book - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/08\/21\/obama_revives_va_death_book\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Obama Revives VA Death Book - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Now, folks, Obama says there aren\u2019t death panels. 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