A word on health care reform...

I was disturbed by a bit of news that came across my desktop this past week. It had to do with the Health Care Reform bill that President Obama is pressuring Congress to pass.

Hidden within the thousand-plus-page document is a requirement that those who receive Medicare benefits undergo end of life counseling at least every five years. A repeat session would be required of those who get sick in between their regular meetings.

What is end of life counseling, you ask? It is, at best, a “you don’t really need life-prolonging medical care because it’s too expensive to sustain you” pep talk. At worst, it is a “you need to take action to end your life soon so you won’t be a burden to your children or your government or your friends” browbeating.

Government employees encouraging suicide! How crazy is that? In my wildest dreams, I never imagined a day when such morally reprehensible nonsense could be given serious consideration by elected officials in America.

Our own Declaration of Independence shouts foul in the face of such lunacy. “We hold these Truths to be self-evident,” Thomas Jefferson penned, “that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”

Whether all three of these rights have biblical backing is debatable, but the one Creator-endowed right that is clearly scriptural is the right to life. All men are created equal and have the right to life which includes the preservation of life! Ignoring this, the Supreme Court in 1973 denied the right of unborn children to be protected in the womb. In 2009, will Congress and the President deny this right to the elderly of our land? I pray not.

Now, let me make this personal for all of you. Look around you. Everywhere you look, there are people whom you love who will, if this bill passes, be receiving end of life counseling. People you love will be told that their life isn’t as valuable as a healthy young person’s life. Unrepentant Uncle Scrooge, er, I mean Uncle Sam may say to your friends, your loved ones, “Die…and decrease the surplus population.”

And what happens if this way of thinking continues on to its logical conclusion? Denial of life-sustaining care will come and not just to the elderly. Government execution of the elderly and disabled – they’ll call it physician-assisted suicide – is not out of the question. Call me alarmist if you like, but I don’t think either of these scenarios is all that outlandish or far fetched.

Now, please understand. I’m not trying to be political here. All I’m doing is stating the truth as I see it about this particular part of the health care reform plan. Though I freely admit that modern medicine and technology has forced us to face difficult questions and ethical dilemmas that we were likely not intended to face, I believe that denying life-sustaining medical care is morally questionable. I further believe that encouraging or forcing suicide on a person because of age or disability or disease is, without question, an immoral assault on that person’s right to life, a right that God has given to all.