Several provisions in the health care reform bills currently working through Congress have raised concerns about rationing of medical care and pressuring seniors and the disabled to deny care that could prolong their lives.

Right to Life of Michigan opposes any attempt to deny care to the vulnerable or laws that put us on the slippery slope to euthanasia. Real compassion for the sick and dying comes through meeting all needs: physical, emotional, and spiritual. The goal must be to eliminate suffering, not the persons who suffer.

Health Care Rationing

The U.S. House health care bill (H.R. 3962) empowers the Commissioner of the Health Insurance Exchange to enact price controls on insurance in any health exchange. This in effect could deny people the ability to pay more of their own private money for an insurance plan that would be less likely to reject certain treatments. Insurance plans could be forced to submit to unelected bureaucrats' demands to be allowed in the exchanges to remain competitive. The bill allows several federal agencies to evaluate the cost effectiveness of medical treatments and insurance coverage. These agencies will be making binding decisions on "best practices" in medicine and Medicare reimbursements that would go into affect automatically unless Congress specifically vetoes them. There is great concern that the result of this comparative effectiveness research could be to restrict funding for expensive or experimental medical treatments.

The U.S. Senate health care bill (the Reid bill) also includes the use of comparative effectiveness research, but does have a provision barring discrimination against patients by the basis of age, disability or illness. It's not clear though if the protections apply to other sections of the bill or bars the Secretary of Health & Human Services from denying care through "quality" measures. The Senate bill similarly would allow price controls on private insurance plans.

The Senate version creates an advisory board that would be tasked with making sure Medicare meets budget goals that will tighten every year. In order to reach these goals, cuts in Medicare benefits and payments to doctors is likely, thus rationing medical care by limiting access for seniors.

Both the House and Senate bills could also restrict the ability of seniors paying for part of their own care with their own money through Medicare Advantage plans by allowing the federal government to exclude any bids for plans they don't like. President Obama's proposed changes to the Senate bill announced on February 22 would impose price controls on all insurance plans. This will also restrict the ability of all Americans to pay more for insurance plans that offer more coverage options. This will put insurance coverage under the control of bureacrats whose principle duty is to hold health care spending down.

The plans do not have sustainable funding. Medicare for seniors today is not paid by their past contributions but taxes from workers today. With the large baby-boom generation population approaching retirement and the 50 million taxpaying citizens missing from today's generation due to abortion, deficits in Medicare will continue to increase as expenses grow quicker than revenue. Without sustainable funding for any new health care plan on top of the current Medicare obligations and planned cuts in the bills, the only two options are tax increases or further rationing by reducing payments for care as the system moves closer to financial crisis with each new day.

Action Item

There are many troubling questions that must be resolved before any health care reform legislation is passed by Congress and signed into law. Please call, fax and e-mail Senator Carl Levin, Senator Debbie Stabenow and your U.S. House Representative and let them know that you don't support any attempt to ration or deny medical care, and that abortion and abortion funding must be "explicitly excluded " from any health care/insurance reform legislation.

Congressional Contact Information

End of Life Care

The House Bill (H.R. 3962) requires all private health insurance plans participating in the Exchange to provide patients with information about various end of life care options including advanced directives, hospice care, and palliative care. The section specifically prevents the promotion of suicide or assisted suicide, but fails to define the terms. Both Washington and Oregon have legalized assisted suicide with laws that specifically state in Orwellian fashion that assisted suicide isn't really suicide: assisted suicide "shall not, for any purpose, constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing or homicide, under the law." The wording also does not restrict the discussion of assisted suicide as an option in states like Oregon and Washington where it is legal, merely the "promotion of it." The bill fails to address concerns for protecting the conscience of health care workers who refuse to promote assisted suicide.

The Senate bill does not contain this provision, but contains Section 396 that promotes “shared decisionmaking." The section authorizes the creation of patient decision aids to help patients decide on treatment options. The section is silent about assisted suicide and vague about what exactly would be included in any "decision aids." This version of the bill also stripped language passed by the Senate Finance Committee that would bar government funding of assisted suicide.

While any consultations seem to be voluntary on the patients' part, there is concern that practitioners could use their positions of authority to "nudge" patients into signing advanced care directives or making decisions about end-of-life options that would help save the federal government money. Will practitioners seeking to cut costs use their influence to counsel patients to deny life-saving or life-prolonging treatment? In states where assisted suicide is legal, will taxpayers be paying for patients to be referred and counseled to commit suicide?