With the increasing anxiety over the government shutdown and looming deadline regarding the funding of our government, let us remind ourselves what this is all about. Make no mistake. This time the battle is not over some bucks for the military or pay raise for congress as it once was. It is whether we are going to allow the government to cut short our lives and the lives of our loved ones. To reassert this position I bring you these two stories.
NIH Offering Grants to Study ‘Palliative Care’ for the Elderly – CNS News. Now this is not Palliative care as generally understood. The common understanding is End of life care during one’s final days.
But researchers will not be studying the use of palliative care to relieve the suffering of dying patients. “Hospice and end-of-life settings are not included within the scope” of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the grant notices specifically state.
Instead, they will be looking at new ways to provide elderly patients with palliative care long before they are at death’s door.
The palliative care will be provided in “a variety of settings, including ambulatory care, hospitals (and specific sites within hospitals including specialty wards, intensive care units and emergency departments), assisted living facilities, and short- and long-term care facilities.”
The federal money will be used to “advance [the] science of geriatric palliative care… in settings and at time points earlier in geriatric patients’ diseases or disability trajectories,” according to the grant notices (PA-13-354, 355 & 356).
One of the grants is categorized under NIH’s R21 Exploratory/Developmental grants, defined on the agency’s website as “novel studies that break new ground or extend previous discoveries toward new directions or applications.”
However, the FOA’s definition of palliative care as “care delivered at any stage of illness” is hardly a new concept.
Researchers will also be looking at the “cost-effectiveness” of introducing palliative care earlier for geriatric patients.
Noting that the “American population is currently experiencing unprecedented growth in numbers and in age,” the FOA encourages grant applicants “to include patient-centered outcomes and, when possible, cost-effectiveness analyses” in their research.
ED: Please define “Elderly and “Geriatric” just asking.
And if this is not enough to put your teeth on edge, try this one out:
Change The Definition of Cancer To Reduce ObamaCare Costs? Asylum Watch brings us this. Wander over for the full read but let me cut to the chase.
As reported by Poor Richard’s News one of the ways they plan to reduce ObamaCare cost is __ Are you ready for this? __ is to change the definition of cancer. They have decided that those types of cancer that aren’t immediately life threatening should be called something else and patients that want treatment for those types of not really cancer cancer will have to wait and/or pay more out-of-pocket to get this now unessential health care service. Poor Richard’s News quotes from this Forbes article:
The federal government wants to reduce the number of Americans diagnosed each year with cancer. But not by better preventive care or healthier living. Instead, the government wants to redefine the term “cancer” so that fewer conditions qualify as a true cancer. What does this mean for ordinary Americans — and should we be concerned?
On July 29, 2013, a working group for the National Cancer Institute (the main government agency for cancer research) published a paper proposing that the term “cancer” be reserved for lesions with a reasonable likelihood of killing the patient if left untreated. Slower growing tumors would be called a different name such as “indolent lesions of epithelial origin” (IDLE). Their justification was that modern medical technology now allows doctors to detect small, slow-growing tumors that likely wouldn’t be fatal. Yet once patients are told they have a cancer, many become frightened and seek unnecessary further tests, chemotherapy, radiation, and/or surgery. By redefining the term “cancer,” the National Cancer Institute hopes to reduce patient anxiety and reduce the risks and expenses associated with supposedly unnecessary medical procedures. In technical terms, the government hopes to reduce “overdiagnosis” and “overtreatment” of cancer.
How clever is that? By changing a definition, the administrators of ObamaCare are making a decision that should be made between the patient, the doctor, and the insurance company. And, if they can change the definition of cancer, how many more ailments can they redefine? I agree with the author of the article:
And why would the Obama administration want to re-define cancer? Because starting tomorrow, Obamacare will begin subsidizing millions of Americans’ health insurance, and cancer tests and treatments are expensive.
This is nothing more than a back-door, roundabout form of rationing. It has nothing to do with improving health care or saving lives and everything to do with bureaucrats picking and choosing who gets what tests and treatments.
Fabian Socialism revealed for what it is. This is what our children are learning in college.
BUNKERVILLE | God, Guns and Guts Comrades! 