Doesn’t a stranger deciding you can’t get what you need to live amount to a death panel?
I’ve heard it said the fears you obsess about are the things you manifest in real life, so be careful what you say, and who you say it about (you know, projections and all that).
I’m pretty darn sure this is what is happening with the fear-inducing concept of “death panels” that was created by the GOP as something they said their liberal counterparts wanted to enact. It scared a number of people, who in turn more voraciously supported the GOP, who in turn, seem to have made this into a real thing.
Here’s what seems to have happened
Back in the day, when the concept of “Death Panels” was introduced, the ACA – Affordable Care Act (also know as Obamacare) legislated brand new protections for people with pre-existing conditions.* This allowed for people with any chronic or life-threatening conditions to continue to be covered by health insurance (and thereby pay for expensive health care), regardless of employment status, or other factors.
Obamacare also prohibited caps* on insurance payouts, by eliminating lifetime dollar limits, and annual dollar limits on the essential health care benefits one can receive under any healthcare insurance plan.
These provisions have been utilized by millions of people who otherwise would not be able to get insurance coverage and would need to pay for their health care out of pocket. Think chemotherapy, cortisone shots, pharmaceuticals, chronic condition & pain care, birth defect surgeries, mental illness, diabetes, asthma and auto-immune conditions, arthritis, heart disease, etc… Pay out of pocket, or you can’t get it, and suffer the health consequences. Could this result in death? For some of the tens of millions, nearly certainly.
So what does this have to do with death panels?
The GOP wants to overturn the ACA, which would undo these protections for tens of millions of Americans. They have been fighting hard for many years and may finally have their way as a conservative court will likely have many more goes at doing just that.
Let’s see what a common-sense outcome of this action could be:
A 9 year old child, born with a birth defect that made her trachea work improperly, has 3 million dollars in surgery, life-saving interventions and specialized care, and is now living a normal healthy life. She would be denied health care insurance for the rest of her life, being forced to pay for even annual physicals and maternity care out of pocket. Why? because she hit her lifetime limit at the age of four years old. Her attempts to get another, new plan and reset her lifetime limit payout would also be denied. Why? because she has a pre-existing condition.
Q: Who’d be deciding about her care? A: Insurance Company CEOs
Here’s another: a healthy person who once had a case of depression, is denied coverage. Why? Pre-existing condition of mental illness. They grow older, find themselves in need to medicine for Lyme disease but cannot afford it, or get coverage to help them afford it.
Q: Who’d be deciding about her care? A: Insurance Company CEOs
Here’s another: a cancer survivor, now 10 years post-chemo, holding strong without any signs of the disease, would be denied life-protecting treatments like biologics that keep the cancer it at bay. Why? Because the ACA was overturned and he had hit his lifetime limit on coverage. What’s more, he cannot get any insurer to cover him because it is not profitable to do so.
Q: Who’d be deciding about his care? A: Insurance Company CEOs
And on another, most pertinent note…
It’s hard to deny, the current GOP-led administration has taken a general tact during the COVID pandemic of “we can handle it, let it run it’s course.” “masks are unnecessary” “the economy is more important.” The result is poor mitigation, and hospitals in dozens of counties across the United States finding themselves at capacity. Doctors and nurses are finding themselves short-staffed, and routinely short on supplies and space. This means rationing (and at a minimum denigrating the quality) of care against a disease with at 2.9% mortality rate. In a real, measurable sense, some people will not get all the care they need to keep them alive. COVID is now having a huge uptick, and over 11 million* people have been diagnosed and 245K have died. Let’s be clear, this is not the fault of the health care heroes, as this was foreseeable, preventable, and overrun hospitals is NOT happening in other places. They are doing everything they can as well as they can.
My question is this: if someone were really agast and against “death panels” wouldn’t they be doing everything they could to protect the most vulnerable to dying from dearth of medical care? Wouldn’t they make sure no non-family member EVER has to make the decision about denying health care for any other person? Doesn’t a stranger deciding you can’t get what you need to live amount to a death panel?
Wouldn’t they want to remove obstacles to health care, and remove third parties deciding about an individual’s life support? Isn’t this what Obamacare did: put health care in the hands of individuals?
Wouldn’t someone afraid of “death panels” also use science, encourage masking, and support governors of every state to mandate behaviors for pandemic mitigation, even if detrimental to the economy?
So in hope you see the manifestation-train here: who has done the work to protect people’s access to health care, and who has not? Who has actually made health nightmares come true?
Please, don’t be swayed by alarming accusations, open your eyes and see by whose hands the worst accusations have come true.
Support the ACA, support your neighbors by wearing masks, and please, for the love of God, please don’t make a world where the GOP gets to handle mortality decisions for all of us.
* Please, look it up! And this. Hey, this too. Where are we at today with this? Click here.
Please also do everything you can to protect the ACA and our health care workers from being overrun. See, the people I wrote about, they are my family, and cannot survive macabre GOP behaviors. How about yours?