Medicare and Advance Directives II

The Obama White House has again changed its mind and decided not to include language on the subject of end of life counseling. I believe that a rule that could help make it clear that patients have the right to this counseling under Medicare woulsd be good, but the rule should be made according to the rulemaking process which requires that the rule be open to comment from interested parties before it becomes law, while in this case the White House does not believe that there was "adequate space" in the public comment period, according to White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs. That being said, I do not believe that this change will have any effect on the paranoia of many of Obama's opponents, which was not made any LESS outrageous by the earlier decision to include this language in a regulation, but it is a good sign of a healthy respect for the spirit of the law.

Medicare and Advance Directives

In a recent post I included as an example of conservative American conspiracy theorizing the belief that Barack Obama was trying to create death panels to encourage euthanasia through the new healthcare law. Obama is now using the regulatory process to issue a rule that Medicare will pay for voluntary advance care planning annually, instead of the version proposed for but then dropped from the health care bill that would pay for it every five years. This does not make the conservative conspiracy theorizing any more outrageous. These visits do not encourage euthanasia. They do not let the government make decisions about the patient's end of life on its own as 30% of people (over 65 years old) believed according to a September 2010 poll. They inform people about their options. It is still inaccurate conspiracy theorizing, therefore, to insist that this proposal is an attempt to kill people.