Healthcare In Crisis: Grassley and Grandma

Friday, August 14, 2009

Grassley and Grandma

PANORA, Iowa -- A day after President Obama condemned conservative critics for suggesting that a provision in health-care legislation would "basically pull the plug on Grandma," controversy over the issue bubbled up at a town hall meeting here.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who was holding a series of such meetings across his state, was asked by a Democrat in the crowd in Panora if he would criticize conservatives who have inaccurately suggested that a provision in the House bill would effectively create "death panels" to determine when people should die. In fact, the provision would provide Medicare reimbursement to doctors who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical interventions they would prefer near the end of life and about how to prepare instructions, such as living wills. The sessions would be voluntary.

"If you've got a government-run health-care program and you have crowding out, and then you go to a Canadian-style plan and everyone starts studying what England does ... when you couple this with all of other fears people have and what they do in England, then you get the idea that somebody is going to decide Grandma has lived too long," Grassley said in response, not quite batting down the inaccurate claim, nor backing it.

The questioner, Cheri Heiland, persisted, telling Grassley, "You know there is nothing in the House bill that will require any elderly person to stand before a committee and decide whether or not they are going to live or die." Much of the crowd booed and said she was wrong.

The senator instead went on to condemn the idea of end-of-life counseling, no matter how it is structured.

"I think the best thing to do is if you want people to think about the end of life, number one, Jesus Christ is the place to start, and after that, in the physical life, as opposed to your eternal life, it ought to be done within the family and considered a religious and ethical issue and not something that politicians deal with," he said.

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Statistics Collection

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In 2007, 75 million working-age adults were either uninsured or underinsured, up from 61 million in 2003.
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47 million uninsured in 2006 up from 44.8 million uninsured in 2005. 17.1 million people under age 65 were underinsured in 2003, including 9.3 million people with employer-based insurance.
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15.8% of Americans are uninsured, that's one in 6.
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From 2003-2005 there were 247,662 potentially preventable deaths in U.S. hospitals.
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