{"id":33276,"date":"2009-08-24T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:00:28","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:00:28","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:00:28","slug":"administration_forces_duckworth_to_defend_death_book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/08\/24\/administration_forces_duckworth_to_defend_death_book\/","title":{"rendered":"Administration Forces Duckworth to Defend Death Book"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: This VA Death Book, we had this for you from Los Angeles on Friday. All 52 pages of it, we posted it at RushLimbaugh.com. We went to page 21, all these end-of-life questions you\u2019re supposed to ask yourself, and just to set this up — because they trotted out poor old Tammy Duckworth over the weekend to try to defend this thing. Tammy Duckworth, of course, the disabled Iraqi vet, big liberal Democrat supported Obama and so forth, they trotted her out to defend this. This administration, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s their health care plan, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s their VA Death Book, we\u2019re looking at it. We look at the plan and we look at the VA Death Book and they say, ‘No, it doesn\u2019t say what you see,\u2019 but it does, we\u2019re looking at it and they try to tell us that it doesn\u2019t say what it says. <\/p>\n

Next they\u2019ll tell us we can\u2019t read. I mean this administration is just amazing. Oh, no, it doesn\u2019t say that, doesn\u2019t say this. It does! Twenty-one things here to check off, ‘My life isn\u2019t worth living ‘if.” Here\u2019s Obama taking to the airwaves to sell this now. <\/p>\n

(playing of Obama spoof) <\/p>\n

RUSH: And so now we go to the audio sound bites. Yesterday on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, he talked to the VA Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, Tammy Duckworth. Now, she\u2019s a disabled Iraqi vet, an amputee, and they\u2019ve given her this position, basically a spokesman. So they send her out there to defend the indefensible, the VA Death Book. And Chris Wallace says, ‘Do you have any problem with the VA asking elderly veterans whether life is worth living if they have a disability, if they live in a nursing home, if they\u2019re unable to shake the blues?\u2019<\/p>\n

DUCKWORTH: When I was in Iraq and I was injured, thank goodness I had an advance directive, that I had both a living will and a medical power of attorney that my husband was able to use to really execute my wishes. I think any worksheet that any veteran wants to use that helps him make those decisions in advance for his family members so that they know what your wishes are, that you do want your life prolonged, that you do want to be resuscitated, those are all important.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. So then Wallace says, ‘When you look at the workbook, Your Life, Your Choices, there\u2019s a disclaimer. It says the document is currently undergoing revision for release in the VA. The revised version will be available soon, but when the VA first reinstated the document six weeks ago, why did the disclaimer about the book only appear this week after Mr. Towey\u2019s article appeared in the Wall Street Journal?\u2019 <\/p>\n

DUCKWORTH: Actually that disclaimer has been there since 2007 when we pulled —<\/p>\n

WALLACE: It wasn\u2019t there before August 20th of — between July 20th — July 2nd and August 20th, the disclaimer was not on the website, because we checked.<\/p>\n

DUCKWORTH: Chris, the disclaimer has been at the beginning of the Your Life, Your Choice booklet since 2007 when the Bush administration decided to pull it off and revise it on an — on an established time schedule.<\/p>\n

WALLACE: The record doesn\u2019t show that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Chris Wallace says, ‘Your website doesn\u2019t have a disclaimer.\u2019 ‘Oh, the disclaimer\u2019s always been there.\u2019 ‘No, we checked, the disclaimer wasn\u2019t.\u2019 ‘Yes, it\u2019s always been there, ever since the Bush administration.\u2019 The Bush administration pulled this Death Book. The Bush administration yanked it. It\u2019s the Obama administration that put it back on there. We linked to it at RushLimbaugh.com on Friday, it\u2019s there. And the disclaimer was and wasn\u2019t there. This poor Tammy Duckworth, I actually have some sympathy for people that have to go out and represent this administration. So Wallace finally says, ‘If you feel so strongly about the value of life, although the disclaimer is on there, this document, Your Life, Your Choices, is still on the VA website. While it\u2019s supposedly being revised, it\u2019s still up there. Can you promise us that this will be taken down today?&rdquo;<\/p>\n

DUCKWORTH: It is still up there with the disclaimer that it\u2019s under revision and do not use it.<\/p>\n

WALLACE: It doesn\u2019t say don\u2019t use it, but why have it up there at all? Why not just say, ‘We\u2019re going to take it down\u2019?<\/p>\n

DUCKWORTH: Because we are bound by federal law. It was developed with federal research grant monies and most of you our — all of our programs as a result of federal research grants are online for people to use for research purposes. The checklist that we\u2019re actually using is a completely different checklist from this one because this one has been taken off for revision.<\/p>\n

WALLACE: Well, it hasn\u2019t been taken off. It\u2019s been revised but it\u2019s still on the website.<\/p>\n

RUSH: It\u2019s still up there! You can still go to the VA and get the Death Book. This is incredible. She\u2019s trying to say the VA doesn\u2019t recommend it even though it\u2019s still on the website. What happened, they got caught. They of course recommend it, they of course want veterans to start asking themselves, ‘I\u2019m depressed today, is it really worth living? I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m living in a nursing home. Is it really worth living?\u2019 They want this. There will be rationing of health care for seasoned citizens in the Obama health care plan. There\u2019s nowhere else the rationing can take place. Well, seasoned citizens and people who have very, very serious accidents or illnesses at whatever age, but primarily seasoned citizens. So it\u2019s there. ‘But we don\u2019t want people to look at it.\u2019 Well, then take it down. ‘Well, it\u2019s under revision.\u2019 If it\u2019s under revision take it down to get the revision. ‘Well, we can\u2019t, because we\u2019re obligated. Federal monies were used to put this together. We\u2019re required by law to –‘ Well, the Bush people took it down, the Bush people didn\u2019t put it up there. ‘Well, that\u2019s different. The Bush people sucked.\u2019 That\u2019s about the only answer they have. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I know it\u2019s such a moot point. Obama himself favors end-of-life pain pills. He said this to the woman with the 100-year-old, now 105-year-old mother. She needed a pacemaker. ‘Does spirit of life matter when you make decisions, Mr. President, on who gets medical treatment?\u2019 ‘No, don\u2019t think pacemaker. (garbled) Costs too much. Take a pain pill!\u2019 So I mean he\u2019s in favor of end-of-life pain pills, end-of-life government counseling, all this is right in front of our eyes, and they want to deny it all they want, and all he\u2019s doing is destroying even more trust with people. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Conroe, Texas, Diana, hello, and welcome to the program. It\u2019s nice to have you here.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. Big Texas dittos. I\u2019ve been listening a long time. My dad turned me on to you, oh, gosh, years ago, and it\u2019s actually because of him that I\u2019m calling. I wanted to kind of give a firsthand account of our Death Book experience. He was diagnosed with cancer back in 2005 and did quite well with treatment from the VA hospital in Houston, and for about a year-and-a-half he was doing great with it, really no other health problems besides the cancer that he had. He became ill and started feeling poorly. We took him in, and within about two days they told us that his cancer had spread to his liver and reproduced his Death Book that we had gotten actually at the beginning of his treatment. Now, he and I had discussed for a long time what his wishes were. And his wish was to live as long as he possibly could. He\u2019s a very strong man. His wish was, ‘You treat me any way you can, I don\u2019t want to die. I want to be with any grandkids and with my daughter.\u2019<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, wait. You mentioned a Death Book. Did he come to that conclusion after looking at the VA Death Book?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, no, he didn\u2019t. Actually he was very incensed when he first saw it because he said, ‘I\u2019m coming in for cancer treatment and they hand me this before I even get my treatment.\u2019<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ah. I get it. I get it.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, when we were told the cancer had spread to his liver, we were told there really wasn\u2019t any more that could be done, and because of that information with the VA, the VA worked hand-in-hand with MD Anderson, biggest cancer research hospital there is, and so we\u2019re trusting the information that we were given. And so at that point we decided to take hospice care and he passed away about two-and-a-half weeks later. Fast forward, a friend of mine was starting an oncology rotation about a year later, and so I was talking to her. She was actually asking me about my dad\u2019s cancer and I told her, and she said, ‘Well, you know, do you have any of those testing and reports that — something that metastasized because there was treatment that they were doing at MD Anderson and at the VA for that type of cancer, for stage four metastasized cancer —<\/p>\n

RUSH: But your dad didn\u2019t get it, is that your point? <\/p>\n

CALLER: He never did. Not only did he not get it, he was not offered it, and I have no doubt, no doubt, when I heard Friday — I was listening to the way back, actually, from the Medical Center in Houston — when I heard what you were talking about I had to stop and pull over, and I just wept because there\u2019s no doubt that he would have said, ‘You give me what you can, and I\u2019ll try it.\u2019<\/p>\n

RUSH: But he wasn\u2019t given the option —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Never.<\/p>\n

RUSH: — because it was the VA, it was government, but there are other patients at MD Anderson which — it\u2019s in Houston, it\u2019s a tremendous cancer research center and hospital.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes. And he has supplemental insurance that said we could have gone to MD Anderson. He chose the VA initially because he was a veteran. To him, he served his country, it is what they owed him. And when we were told that they worked hand-in-hand with MD Anderson, most of the oncologists rotate through the VA that end up there, and so you\u2019re talking extremely good care, and we received good care while he was being treated.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I understand. I understand. At some point the care was terminated when additional treatment was offered to others. Well, that\u2019s a good story. This is a great story. You were not given the option to pursue the other treatment that MD Anderson was engaging in with other patients in similar circumstances to your dad and we can only assume it was because the VA is government and they just decided to shut it down even though you had supplemental insurance to cover it. So it\u2019s an interesting story. The point about this is, folks, is not that the treatment might have worked and who knows if the father might have lived another few weeks or months. The point was they got no say-so in the decision. The point is that Diana and her father had no say-so. They were just cut off. So hello, Obamacare. There might not have been a death panel that sat around and decided. There was a book policy that some panel came up with to come up with that end-of-life decision, money, is it worth it, no. But they were not given the option to decide on their own. And these are very personal questions and decisions that you want to make with your family and your doctor. You don\u2019t want to be just be told, ‘Sorry, hospice for you over there, pal. That bus will take you there.\u2019 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: This VA Death Book, we had this for you from Los Angeles on Friday. All 52 pages of it, we posted it at RushLimbaugh.com. We went to page 21, all these end-of-life questions you\u2019re supposed to ask yourself, and just to set this up — because they trotted out poor old Tammy Duckworth over […]<\/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":"\nAdministration Forces Duckworth to Defend 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\/24\/administration_forces_duckworth_to_defend_death_book\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Administration Forces Duckworth to Defend Death Book - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: This VA Death Book, we had this for you from Los Angeles on Friday. 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