AARP Loses 60,000 Members by Supporting Pro-Rationing Health Care Agenda
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 18, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The nation’s largest organization for seniors is losing members thanks to its support of a health care agenda that includes rationing health care.
Although the group has not technically endorsed the House and Senate bills specifically, it has put enough of its imprimatur on them that President Barack Obama wrongly said AARP endorsed the bills in a recent town hall forum.
In materials provided to CBS News on Monday, AARP said 60,000 citizens have left its membership rolls in protest over its general support for the government-run health care plan.
AARP spokesman Drew Nannis said it is not unusual for the group to lose members when it advocates controversial positions on issues.
"We take stands on issues that are contentious, it’s part of what we do," Nannis said. "And because we have so many members we’ll always have a small percentage that disagree with us so strongly they feel they need to cancel membership."
But its support has gone beyond that, as AARP hosted an event for Obama and the bills present a host of concerns about rationing and assisted suicide.
The National Right to Life Committee says the advanced care planning provisions in HR 3200 are problematic enough to oppose them. Section 1233 of the bill would pay physicians to give Medicare patients end-of-life counseling every five years or sooner if the patient has a terminal diagnosis.
NRLC executive director David O’Steen says the section of the bill could unduly influence patients to make decisions that would result in revoking lifesaving medical treatment or something as basic as food and water.
"But we are concerned … it doesn’t take a lot to push a vulnerable person — perhaps unwittingly — to give up their right to life-sustaining treatment," he explained.
Jennifer Popik, a medical ethics attorney with National Right to Life, offers additional explanation of the concerns.
She says "the pro-life fear is that efforts to push patients and prospective patients to prepare advance directives may in practice become a means of persuading or pressuring them to agree to less treatment as a means of saving money."
Popik points to a 2008 JAMA study that concluded: "On the other hand, patients who reported having end-of-life discussions received less aggressive medical care."
"What is particularly disturbing about this ‘cost-savings’ provision of the bill is that it appears to follow President Obama’s call this past spring for ‘a very difficult democratic conversation’ about ‘those toward the end of their lives [who] are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here,’" Popik says.
The pro-life attorney also notes that a pro-euthanasia group is responsible for some of the language that is causing controversy.
"It is also extremely troubling that Compassion and Choices, the principal group that promotes physician assisted suicide throughout the country is not only aggressively promoting these provisions, but claims responsibility for the inclusion of the main provision," she says.
She says the group is promoting it because the provision "allows assisted suicide and euthanasia to be promoted as an option in the places where it is legal (i.e. Washington, Oregon, and Montana)."
Popik says Section 1233 isn’t the only problem with the health care bill.
"There are also two other amendments, one requiring private and public health care plans to give potential enrollees the option to establish advance directive," she explains.
The other section, 1191, would, as Popik notes, "empower the Secretary to spearhead a public education campaign, toll-free telephone hotline, and clearinghouse to promote advance directives and other advance care planning."
The National Right to Life analysis is similar to that of Charles Lane, a member of the editorial board of the liberal Washington Post newspaper, who has written an analysis of the bill that makes it clear the advanced care planning provisions cause problems. https://www.lifenews.com/bio2913.html
The Senate bill also presents concerns as lawmakers rejected efforts to stop the use of comparative effectiveness research, which would limit health care for seniors by giving it more to people determined to have a better quality of life. https://www.lifenews.com/bio2875.html
Sign Up for Free Pro-Life News From LifeNews.com
Daily Pro-Life News Report Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here. Receive a free twice-weekly email report with the latest pro-life news headlines on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.
