Suicidal GOP

Now really, what are they up to with recent ambushes of seniors? AARP, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. As Digby says, is the GOP demonstrating suicidal tendencies?

Hearing Loss and Dementia

AARP reports that a new study links onset of dementia with hearing loss:

Researchers found that those with hearing loss at the beginning of the study were much more likely to develop dementia by the end, even after taking into account age and other risk factors. The risk of dementia only began to rise once hearing loss began to interfere with the ability to communicate — for example, in a noisy restaurant. The study also found that hearing loss increased the risk of Alzheimer's disease, but the two were not as strongly linked as hearing loss and dementia. The study was published in the medical journal Archives of Neurology.

AMA and AARP Speaking Out About Health Care Reform.

From Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic:

This just in, from AARP and the American Medical Association:

WASHINGTON--As health reform reaches a critical juncture in Congress, AARP and AMA are joining forces to cut through the noise and focus on the benefits of health reform for older Americans who depend on Medicare and the physicians who care for them. Today, AARP and AMA are launching a national television ad that separates fact from fiction and highlights how health reform will improve Medicare by lowering prescription drug costs and making certain that neither government nor insurance bureaucrats come between Medicare patients and their doctors when making important health decisions.

This may sound like just another press release about just another interest group, or groups, launching ads on health care reform. But it's far more important than that. No bloc of voters spooks reform advocates more than senior citizens. The polls have shown seniors to be the most suspicious of reform. And with hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare reductions on the table, confirming those suspicions isn't too hard for the opponents of reform to do.

That's why the White House and its congressional allies have worked so hard to court AARP and AMA (and why, at the end of the day, Congress will do something about the "Sustainable Growth Rate" adjustments to Medicare payments.) Interest group endorsements aren't always as important as they might seem, but veteran political operatives I know all seem to think these two groups really do have a lot of sway over the way seniors think.* Having them vouch for reform goes a long way toward undermining the death panel talk.

*Why? I'm not sure, but it may be that older Americans are from a generation more accustomed to taking political cues from elites and organizations they know.

Understanding Health Care Reform Requires Compassion and A Clear Look at the Facts.

Here's a typical complaint about health care reform from A Conservative Teacher. The writer begs to understand how anyone would support health care reform, yet refuses to give credence to any supporter's views because they counter his own. Oh, and he fails to listen to the facts. If he were truly interested in understanding why others support the health care bill, don't you think he would have a comments section on his blog??

The healthcare debate frustrates me and confuses me because I simply don't understand why certain groups are supporting the drive for nationalized healthcare. The AARP is urging its dwindling members to back a proposal that will cut from Medicare, provide funds for assisted suicide and death panels, and encourage the system to start rationing healthcare. Why would the AARP support this agenda? Why are you still a member of the AARP?

AARP has lost about 60,000 members since the summer but that's a drop in the bucket when you consider their overall membership is about 38 million members and growing thanks to boomers. Sadly, those seniors who left AARP were vulnerable; the "death panel" and rationing lies scared them away from a good program. The rationing of care is a myth, so too is the funding of assisted suicide and death panels.

Where aid in dying is a legal service, yes, that legal service will be noted in literature and covered by insurance, as all legal necessary services should be. The "cuts" in Medicare and "rationing" are simply proposed regulations that will prevent insurance companies from dropping patients when they feel like it and will prevent the medical industry from continuing to over-treat, over-medicate, and over-test Americans.

Why does the UAW support the healthcare plan by the Democrats? If I'm GM or Chrysler or Ford and I have two options of paying for healthcare for my employees or shoving them on the government plan and saving all that money, I'm shoving them on the government plan. The UAW is supporting a plan that would trade the quality coverage it has already bargained for with the government plan.

Although perhaps UAW understands that the fix is in- the government plan will a better plan than whatever the UAW has, because it will be funded on the backs of taxpayers to the cost of trillions of dollars over ten years, and trillions more over the next 10 years, if the United States lasts that long as a nation with that kind of spending and debt.

The Conservative Teacher failed to catch the fact that the health care bill is budget neutral. In fact, it will save American taxpayers in the long run by creating greater competition in the system and bringing down medical prices. Currently, we're the only country that doesn't barter drug prices with big pharmaceuticals, for instance. Cutting the fat, the UAW knows, will take some of the burden off businesses, will standardize care, and will bring in those citizens on the margins who don't have care now. There's no shoving going on here.

I don't understand the debate at all- there is no money for this program, it will raise costs, it will cause millions to be dropped from current plans, it will destroy the private insurance industry and lead to a loss in all of those tax dollars that industry provides, and it has many controversial and polarizing provisions in it like money for abortions (cut out of House version but in Senate version), money for assisted suicide, money for death panels, and many other controversial provisions.

Again, The Conservative Teacher is buying the opponents' line that this will cost more. And he's got an impractical soft spot for insurance industry. Those in the public plan will pay premiums for their insurance that are much lower than standard rates. And the plan will primarily be supported by those premiums. The only polarization of abortion is contrived; the plan (without the draconian Stupak-Pitts) will maintain the same standard of funding as before, mandated by the Hyde amendment. In other words, if you want to end abortion, work at it in other ways, not via the health care plan. Get your own bill.

The way this bill is being sold is by having people each share their sob story- that's anecdotal evidence that is nice, but should not be determining whether the bill is passed or not. Senator Debbie Stabenow is running a special interest lobbying group on her official Senate webpage (is that legal?) called Health Care People's Lobby (people's lobby... paging Soviet Russia...) where she encourages people to email her their sob stories about dealing with the insurance industry. Almost 10,000 people have emailed her various stories of how they where not able to take more advantage of an insurance system and how they were not able to get someone else to pay for their health-related procedures. This is the kind of 'evidence' that is being pushed as a reason to nationalize healthcare? I just don't understand why people are falling for this garbage argument.

Oh god the Soviet accusations are so tired. If you have no bit of compassion in you, like The Conservative Teacher, you don't give two shits about the 45 million uninsured Americans, not the 25,000 who die each year because they are uninsured. If you understand how the insurance industry works, for profit, and why it exists, to cover catastrophic issues that no single person could ever pay for themselves, you will scoff his callousness as missing the "but for the grace of god" stuff.

Health care should be a basic human right. And that alone makes "this garbage argument" a sad example of how snowed some Americans are regarding health care.

Conservatives Targeting AARP.

Last week I wrote about the new focus of conservative ire on AARP because of the organization's support of the health care reform bill. (The bill has also formally been endorsed by the AMA.)

Yet LifeNews continues to misconstrue the contents of the bill and to rally "pro-life" advocates against "euthanasia":

The nation's most prominent organization for seniors is expected to formalize its endorsement of the House health care reform bill today. The backing from AARP for the bill, which includes massive abortion funding, comes despite concerns about death panels and assisted suicide.

The House is expected to vote Saturday on the bill and, when it does, it will have the backing of the powerful seniors group.

"We started this debate more than two years ago with the twin goals of making coverage affordable to our younger member and protecting Medicare for Seniors," said AARP CEO Barry Rand in a written statement.

"We've read the Affordable Health Care for America Act and we can say with confidence that it meets those goals with improved benefits for people in Medicare and needed health insurance market reforms to help ensure every American can purchase affordable health coverage," Rand added.

But, pro-life advocates can say with confidence that the bill also presents a myriad of concerns for seniors.

The new bill, H.R. 3962, contains the controversial "death panels" panned in the previous legislation and direct taxpayer-funded promotion of assisted suicide in the states where it is currently legal.

HR 3962 contains two clear end-of-life provisions -- including one that requires insurance companies to distribute advance directives and other planning tools to all who are insured on the new government-run exchange.

The other allows Medicare reimbursement for optional end-of-life planning consultation.

Both provisions appear to exclude assisted suicide from the consultations and advance directives, but those exclusions have no meaning in the Washington and Oregon (and possibly soon in Montana) where assisted suicides are legal.

There, state law says that "death with dignity," the legal terms in those states for assisted suicide, does not actually constitute assisted suicide.

In both states, state law says actions under the assisted suicide statute "shall not, for any purpose, constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing or homicide, under the law."

As a result, in Washington and Oregon, Medicare reimbursed consultations could involve assisted suicide planning and advance directives or other planning materials distributed by mandate could include assisted suicide options. Thus, taxpayer-funded information provided under both provisions will include assisted suicide options in those states where it is legal.

If Steven Ertelt or other conservatives were to read the Death with Dignity bills in Oregon and Washington, they would find that both require that the patient bring up Death with Dignity. Doctors are prohibited from doing so. And in my prior blog, I note some of the issues, using GeriPal's post, of how our current system locks the elderly and the terminal into methods of end of life care that they don't want, that are costly, and that are inflexible.

Best practice panels, so-called "death panels" guarantee a standard of patient care that is currently unregulated. We accept that the government protect us from unsafe work standards, water, manufacturing practices and other corporate excesses. Why not regulate health care? And elders are most susceptible to a bloated and paternal medical industry.

Flaming fear among elders by protesting AARP and other senior organizations and by denouncing a bill that will only improve senior care is wreckless, irresponsible, and inhumane. The use of lies to feed care concerns among seniors only hurts them.