Battle of the Bilge

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. – Bertrand Russell

Background Information

On August 18th, Jim Towey, former Director of Faith Based Initiatives at the White House between 2002 and 2006 wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he claimed that the Obama administration had ‘resuscitated’ a VA pamphlet called ‘Your Life, Your Choices’, which he stated was suspended under the Bush administration. The opinion article, which can be read here, went on to assert that the book, which is a guide for veterans to help with end of life decisions and living wills, is actually more of a ‘push poll’ that was meant to guide severely injured service personnel towards signing ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ orders.

The story was picked up on FoxNews and presented as a ‘VA Death Book’ and continued the inaccurate assertion that this was a new policy put in place by President Obama and the VA and linked the issue to the prevalent and false talking point of ‘Death Panels’ in opposition to the National Health Care Reform bill. The hubris surrounding the issue became a viral e-mail that went even farther, accusing the administration of advocating veterans to be euthanized. There are a good deal of inaccuracies in the email, and it is from a familiar source to Battle of the Bilge.

With tensions and emotions so high right now and town hall meetings producing raucous confrontations, this type of fear mongering is not uncommon. Bringing veterans into the equation and stating that the President wants to pressure them towards suicide is unconscionable. The bottom line is that the pamphlet has been used since the Clinton administration and was not suspended under President Bush. There is an evaluation of the book underway, but it was never removed from VA guidelines for veterans. And the contents of the book is really not all that different from other handbooks on life planning, such as those offered by MOAA in its Help Your Survivors Now, Estate Planning and Survivor Checklist booklets. Click here for a full list of MOAA publications (some require member login to download, so if you are eligible, remember to join MOAA first).

The E-mail from Chaplain Klingenschmitt

WSJ: Obama and Shinseki now pressuring Veterans toward Euthanasia
The Wall Street Journal just published a shocking editorial written by a respected University President, confirming the Obama Administration is now using VA hospitals to order doctors to pressure all military veterans to sign “pull the plug” do-not-resuscitate orders, hastening their premature deaths through mandatory “end of life” counseling.
President Jim Towey of Saint Vincent’s College, founder of the non-profit “Aging With Dignity” and former White House Director of faith based initiatives, wrote a blistering expose entitled “The Death Book For Veterans,” revealing President Obama’s new Veterans Administration (VA) directive, presumably signed by VA Secretary, General (ret.) Eric Shinseki, which mandates all veterans’ primary care physicians must graphically discuss “end of life planning” with all VA patients (not merely those nearing death), and must refer them to “Your Life, Your Choices,” a book that openly encourages Euthanasia and was written with guidance from the group formerly known as the Hemlock Society. That same pro-suicide group now boasts on their web-site of directly leading the charge to ensure “end of life counseling” is mandated in the Obamacare bill, HR 3200.
On page 21 of the Shinseki-mandated Veteran’s Euthanasia book, all military veterans are encouraged to complete a checklist of various scenarios, to decide whether their own life would be “not worth living.” For example, the booklet asks veterans 7 questions pressuring veterans to sign a “living will” that authorizes doctors to terminate your life, if you are:
1) Living in a nursing home?
2) Being in a wheelchair?
3) Not able to “shake the blues?”
4) Ever heard anyone say, “If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug?”
5) No longer able to contribute to your family’s well-being?
6) Are you a severe financial burden to your family?
7) Do you cause severe emotional burden for your family?
“This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable,” says Towey, “Worse, a July 2009 VA directive [presumably signed by Shinseki] instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to ‘Your Life, Your Choices.’ [the Euthanasia booklet.] Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition-all patients. America’s 24 million veterans deserve better.” Towey recommends a “five wishes” living-will document that does not pressure suicide.
But instead the Hemlock Society booklet is now MANDATED for doctor referral to all patients in all VA hospitals, heaping more evidence upon the growing list of proofs that the Obama Administration is LYING TO THE PUBLIC by denying their health care plan pushes Euthanasia on the elderly. They already do it today. Just imagine if ALL hospitals become government-run like the VA.

Origins

The email above was written by the founder of The Pray in Jesus Name project, Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who has been an unrelenting critic of the Obama administration and has been the source of several Bilge articles in the past (such as Bible Burning in Afghanistan and the row over military chaplains between Military Religious Freedom Foundation and CFGC).

Specific Exaggerations or Inaccuracies in the Email

The July Update of the VHA Handbook 1004.01 was not a Directive and did not change any substantive features of the original Directive, which was issued by President Bush in February 2007. The update added ‘close friend’ as an option for decision making surrogates and defined that concept. It also attempts to resolve conflicts that have occurred on the local level by making VHA facilities consult with the National Center for Ethics in Health Care, an entity created in 1991 after Desert Storm.

The VHA Handbook’s life planning portions, which is referred to in the email as the ‘Shinseki-mandated Veteran’s Euthanasia’ is not a required program. It is a book that contains guidelines on how VA patients should approach the difficult decisions facing them and the only mandatory part of the update is that local facilities must make this information available to all veterans. Klingenschmitt’s accusation that this is part of a growing mountain of evidence that President Obama’s health care reform bill ‘pushes Euthanasia on the elderly’ and fuels the fires of fear in a blatant effort at fear mongering.

Whatever Jim Towey’s intentions were with his opinion piece (beyond pushing the use of his own handbook), he didn’t get all the facts straight either. Stating that the Bush administration abandoned the booklet’s use by the VA is in direct contradiction with a July 2008 Directive, which can be read here. There are many other instances of the VA under President Bush using the ‘Your Life, Your Choices’ handbook as a guide for end of life decision making:

• December 2006 VA Pamphlet on Living Wills
• August 2006 VHA eHealth University Training Course on Life Planning
• February 2007 Directive on Advance Care Planning and Management of Advance Directives
• December 2008 Push on VA Website for Establishing Living Wills

VA Response

The following was sent by the VA’s senior advisor on relations with major veterans groups, Kevin Secor:

Recently, some folks have been distorting the purpose of a Veterans Affairs planning tool called ‘Your Life, Your Choices.’ The booklet is designed to help Veterans deal with excruciating questions about what kind of health care they would like to receive if they are unable to make decisions for themselves, a topic that Secretary Shinseki takes very seriously as we continue to create a 21st Century Department of Veterans’ Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation’s veterans have earned. The document was developed under a federally funded research grant over a decade ago and in 2007, the Veterans Health Administration convened an outside panel of experts to review the tool and assess its merits. Overwhelmingly, the panel of experts, which included a diverse group from the faith based and medical communities, praised ‘Your Life, Your Choices’ and endorsed its use in the Veterans Health Administration. Your Life, Your Choices’ is not an Advance Directive or Living Will, it is an educational resource. The National Advance Directive that the VA utilizes today is the same document that was authorized by the Bush Administration in 2006.

Secor, who retired as a master gunnery sergeant after serving in the Marines for 29 years, was appointed in January of 2006 and has stayed on at the VA in the new administration.

More Health Care Misinformation

Today, MSNBC is running an Associated Press story that states that the national Republican Party has sent out letters telling people that if health care reform passes, Republicans could be discriminated against when pursuing medical care. The letter stated that the government could check voting registration and use that when determining services. A snippet of the reaction to the letter:

Jon Vogel, executive director of the Democratic House campaign organization, called the GOP letter “shameless fear-mongering.”
In a fundraising e-mail of his own seeking to raise $100,000 by Aug. 31, Vogel wrote the Republican accusation was “just a preview of the falsehoods, fabrications and outright lies Republicans will be pushing when Congress returns in September.”

There seems to be no let-up in the passion and misinformation clouding the health care reform issue.



Discussion
Posts are not held for moderation so your comment will appear immediately, but may be modified if it violates our Community Standards.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS