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California Signs Assisted Living Bill into Law - Dignity


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2015 Nov 5, 8:59pm   10,019 views  28 comments

by MMR   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

With the stroke of a pen, California Gov. Jerry Brown made it legal for physicians in the state to prescribe lethal doses of medications if their terminally ill patients wish to end their lives.

Brown signed the "End of Life Act" into law on Monday, and in doing so California joins four other states — Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana — where patients' right to choose doctor-assisted death is protected either by law or court order.

In a statement Brown referred to the measure as "not an ordinary bill because it deals with life and death." He also said he considered a wide range of perspectives on the matter, including two of his doctors, champions of disability rights and even Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

"In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death.
"I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn't deny that right to others."
As the Los Angeles Times reports, approving the bill "appeared to be a gut-wrenching decision" for Brown, a former Jesuit seminary student who at one time studied to enter the priesthood. The LA Times also reports California's law is similar to Oregon's.

"It permits physicians to provide lethal prescriptions to mentally competent adults who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and face the expectation that they will die within six months.
"The law will take effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns its special session on healthcare, which may not be until next year. The earliest likely adjournment would be in January."
As the Two-Way has reported, similar bills failed to make it out of the California Legislature. But proponents of right-to-die rallied around a new champion in Brittany Maynard, who moved from California to Oregon to end her life last year through legal suicide. Maynard, who suffered from incurable brain cancer, was 29 when she died.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the rules for terminally ill patients who are eligible for a physician's help to end their life.

"Before the drugs can be prescribed, two California doctors must agree that such a person has no more than six months to live.
"It is then the patient's choice whether to take the drugs. Those who want to must affirm their intention 48 hours in advance and must take the drugs on their own, without help.
"California has seen five previous efforts to pass an aid-in-dying law since 1992, when state voters rejected a ballot initiative by a 54 to 46 margin. Similar laws failed to make it out of the state Legislature four times between 1995 and 2008.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/05/446115171/california-governor-signs-physician-assisted-suicide-bill-into-law

#healthcare #ethics #politics

Comments 1 - 28 of 28        Search these comments

1   HydroCabron   2015 Nov 5, 9:04pm  

Looks like small government to me: letting people make their own choices.

Good.

2   curious2   2015 Nov 5, 9:15pm  

Here is the official text of the legislation, and here is Governor Brown's Signing Message. Signing the legislation required special courage of Governor Brown, because his own Roman Catholic church opposed it.

One major caveat: in a legislative compromise due to heavy church opposition, the legislation sunsets automatically in 10 years.

(BTW, the Catholic Church requires Catholic "charity" hospitals to maximize revenues from Medicaid and Medicare by ignoring advance healthcare directives. Catholic "Charities" gets 90% of its revenue from government, which - ahem - may explain the Vatican opposition to this legislation.)

3   indigenous   2015 Nov 5, 9:22pm  

Trump says

Looks like small government to me

Yes that is what California is know for...

4   marcus   2015 Nov 5, 9:33pm  

Fricking libbies.

It's a slippery slope to soylent green. The libbies want to turn all the old republicans into protien bars. I'm pretty sure Obama and the Zionists are in on it too.

5   indigenous   2015 Nov 5, 9:55pm  

"The [libbies] want to turn all the old republicans into [protien] bars."

And the old Libbys can be turned into Libby's canned fertilizer. They tried dog food but no dogs would eat it...

6   mmmarvel   2015 Nov 6, 6:48am  

curious2 says

Governor Brown, because his own Roman Catholic church opposed it.

Brown is Roman Catholic like I'm a old black lady (which I'm not).

7   zzyzzx   2015 Nov 6, 5:47pm  

Obligatory:

8   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2015 Nov 6, 5:56pm  

It will be a good way to clear out Nursing homes for more equitable customers.
I mean you keep them around as long as you can, but eventually the trust fund runs out you know?

9   curious2   2015 Nov 6, 7:20pm  

Trump says

Looks like small government to me: letting people make their own choices.

Good

Sadly many self-styled "conservative" opponents insist on paying higher taxes and mandatory insurance premiums to subsidize church hospitals. They talk about being conservative, but end up favoring whichever fork in the road their sect tells them to follow, regardless of the cost or consequences. Ditto the dittoheads that claim to be Christian and pro-life, but support endless wars and the death penalty.

10   Strategist   2015 Nov 6, 8:59pm  

curious2 says

Sadly many self-styled "conservative" opponents insist on paying higher taxes and mandatory insurance premiums to subsidize church hospitals. They talk about being conservative, but end up favoring whichever fork in the road their sect tells them to follow, regardless of the cost or consequences. Ditto the dittoheads that claim to be Christian and pro-life, but support endless wars and the death penalty.

Very foolish. I see no point in keeping vegetables alive by spending huge amounts of money, when that same money could be used to prevent premature deaths for those with no insurance. The same goes for terminally ill patients living in pain. If I have 2 months to live in pain at a cost of $1 million to society, I would just want the plug pulled, and the money used to keep others alive.

11   Y   2015 Nov 6, 9:09pm  

No need to pull any plugs. Kapersky will happily do that for you when the Russian subs are parked and in position off the eastern seaboard...

12   FortWayne   2015 Nov 7, 7:53pm  

Worst thing Jerry ever signed into law. He took away all the incentive to save a life and make affordable treatment.

You liberal morons don't get it. Giving you lethal injection is going to cost an insurance company very little, while curing your expensive treatment is going to cost them an arm and a leg. So expect them to dick you around until you are terminal and than right into the lethal dose. Because that'll save them money, and they are assholes who only want to save money, not your fucking life. Just wait till you need a kidney or something else that costs a lot, you'll get enough run around until you are terminal. And those insurance decision makers won't even give a shit!

This law is anti-human.

13   Strategist   2015 Nov 7, 8:19pm  

FortWayne says

This law is anti-human.

You have a point when it comes to insurance companies. But if you are a terminally ill suffering vegetable, what good does it do to keep you alive by humans, when your own God wants you dead?

14   FortWayne   2015 Nov 7, 8:39pm  

Strategist says

But if you are a terminally ill suffering vegetable, what good does it do to keep you alive by humans, when your own God wants you dead?

It creates an incentive to create an affordable cure. Without incentive human race isn't going to create a damn thing.

15   marcus   2015 Nov 8, 11:31am  

FortWayne says

Without incentive human race isn't going to create a damn thing

THat may be true in a way, but it's irrelevant to this law. IF anything, it might be argued that if a lot of people were being put to sleep, let's say because of certain forms of cancer, there would be a strong political will (incentive) for more government research money directed in to cures.

Most breakthrough technology originates at the university level and is funded by the government. This includes medical breakthroughs. THere's incentive everywhere in this picture. Incentives for the professors and their phd and graduate student researchers to succeed, since their careers are in academia (at least for now) and since they want more research money.

I know this shatters yor illusion that the capitalist profit motive is the only incentive that is endorsed by god.

THere are many forms of profit and incentive other than money, but even financial incentives are often directed by government backed and funded r & d.

Medicare is the major insurer of people over 65, which is when terminal health problems usually occur. Human compassion is always there as an incentive, and there will always be doctors in on decisions.

What I would fear is a two tier health care system, one for the rich and a lessor one for everyone else. This is why we should have something like medicare for all, where most resources (including r & d) go toward treatments and cures the will be available to everyone. This in turn incentivizes politicians to back government research in to cures.

A typical right winger is going to say something like, "yeah but you need the rich there buying the new tech when it's expensive until the cost comes down." That's bs, And isn't really the way medicine works. Institutions including the ones that are for profit and hope to one day profit immensely by providing the new treatments (TO EVERYONE) will be sufficiently incentivized as long as there is oversight and a strong pressure to have health care for everyone.

This does necessitate a role for government though, something you dimbulbs have a problem with.

16   marcus   2015 Nov 8, 11:53am  

Corporate profit motive is one of the things that ultimately over inflate the cost side of medicine. Like that company that recently bought the rights to that drug and then raaised the price by a factor in the hundreds.

When there are technologies that can be sold for absurdly high prices, if anything, that gets in the way of inexpensive paths to cures or treatments that might exist. We've all heard stories of how pharmacuetical companies aren't really interested in a drug if it's not something they can patent and milk for the big bucks for a couple decades.

What happens when some natural substance is found out to be a cure for something ? The pharmaceutical companies go to work finding a way to synthesize a chemical analogue, that has the same properties that they can patent and make a big profit on. Sure, sometimes they are identifying the specific chemicals and making a drug that's better than the natural vesion, but still the incentive brought in by the profit motive is sometimes sort of perverse.

What happens when there are solutions to problems that shouldn't be looked at from the angle "how do we make money off of this?"

17   Booger   2015 Nov 8, 2:51pm  

marcus says

Like that company that recently bought the rights to that drug and then raaised the price by a factor in the hundreds.

It was a 5000% price increase. That company and few others are under investigation. Hopefully somebody will go to jail over this.

18   marcus   2015 Nov 8, 3:01pm  

Booger says

It was a 5000% price increase

Okay, a factor of 50, I stand corrected.

19   FortWayne   2015 Nov 8, 4:03pm  

marcus says

THat may be true in a way, but it's irrelevant to this law. IF anything, it might be argued that if a lot of people were being put to sleep, let's say because of certain forms of cancer, there would be a strong political will (incentive) for more government research money directed in to cures.

They don't give a damn to save lives as long as it's someone else's. They never did, and they never will.

20   MMR   2015 Nov 12, 2:20pm  

curious2 says

he Catholic Church requires Catholic "charity" hospitals to maximize revenues from Medicaid and Medicare by ignoring advance healthcare directives.

From Article:

In other words, according to current Catholic teaching, a cancer patient in a coma with a life expectancy of four weeks must now be force-fed--no matter what his prior instructions stated and without regard to his family's wishes. All comatose and vegetative patients will be required to accept nutrition and hydration indefinitely, even if they leave behind air-tight living wills objecting to such "heroic" and invasive measures. This extreme policy apparently applies to all patients receiving care in Catholic-run hospitals, whether or not they are Catholic

......No doctor or nurse in the United States may provide such unwanted nutrition and hydration without defying a well-established code of professional conduct. It is likely that any provider who acted in this paternalistic and unequivocally immoral manner would lose his or her license. In the very least, the provider would become a pariah among his colleagues.

21   MMR   2015 Nov 12, 2:24pm  

Strategist says

I would just want the plug pulled, and the money used to keep others alive.

Indeed. Most doctors would prefer to die at home or in hospice care, not on life support indefinitely. That is usually done by families who tell doctors to 'do everything in their power'. Others can disagree with me, but I'm not sure I see any dignity in that.

22   MMR   2015 Nov 12, 2:28pm  

FortWayne says

Worst thing Jerry ever signed into law. He took away all the incentive to save a life

How did he take away the incentive to save a life? Better yet, how often do people with terminal illness suddenly turn around and make a miraculous recovery? I can't say that treating such individuals is in the spirit of "affordable treatment".

23   MMR   2015 Nov 12, 2:31pm  

Booger says

Like that company that recently bought the rights to that drug

He has a show

http://www.statnews.com/2015/11/12/martin-shkreli-show-reviled-pharma-exec-just-cant-stop-talking/

24   Y   2015 Nov 12, 2:33pm  

Better have a backup in case it's battery powered...

Strategist says

I would just want the plug pulled, and the money used to keep others alive.

25   MMR   2015 Nov 12, 2:33pm  

FortWayne says

Because that'll save them money, and they are assholes who only want to save money, not your fucking life

Do you think doctors will take people wanting to end their life so lightly in your lifetime? If you do, then it is because you don't know many doctors well. Just because it saves an insurance company money, a doctor isn't just going to go along with it unless it meets the strict criteria set forth for assisted death.

26   MMR   2015 Nov 12, 2:35pm  

FortWayne says

It creates an incentive to create an affordable cure

What's stopping them?

27   curious2   2015 Nov 13, 12:11am  

MMR says

No doctor or nurse in the United States....

I keep seeing case reports:

"Joe Yourshaw...was 93 and suffering from kidney disease, cardiovascular problems, and a host of other ailments. His medical records say doctors expected him to live "six months or less" and he was telling anyone who'd listen he wanted to die.
***
He put his wishes in writing and made Barbara his health care proxy. He stopped taking medications that might prolong his life and enrolled in a home hospice program that prescribed small doses of morphine he could drink to ease his pain. It was in February 2013, at his home in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, that Barbara says he asked her to hand him that bottle of morphine.
***
Barbara Mancini: He asked me to hand him the bottle and I did. I had the dosing syringe in my hand. He took the cap off and he drank what was remaining in the bottle.
***
She did tell a hospice nurse who visited the house that morning what had happened, and the hospice called the police. An officer soon came to the door.

Barbara Mancini: He told me I no longer had any say in what happened to my father.

Anderson Cooper: And he was taken to the hospital.

Barbara Mancini: He was.

Anderson Cooper: What happened to you?

Barbara Mancini: I was arrested on the spot.

Anderson Cooper: Did they tell you why you were under arrest?

Barbara Mancini: The police captain said I was being arrested for aiding a suicide.

Anderson Cooper: What's the penalty for that?

Barbara Mancini: Up to 10 years in prison.
***
The case against her was complicated by the fact that her father did not die right away when he got to the hospital. His medical records indicate he "responded well" to a drug that reversed the effects of the morphine and he "awoke" in the ER.

Barbara Mancini: My mother and my sister-in-law were with him and they said they had never seen him so angry in his entire life. He pulled out his IV.

Anderson Cooper: He pulled out his own IV.

Barbara Mancini: Yeah, he apparently pulled off the wires for the heart monitor and tried to get up and leave."
***
Four days after being taken to the hospital, Joe Yourshaw died. Though his death certificate lists "morphine toxicity" as the primary cause, hospital records suggest a number of other possible causes including "aspiration pneumonia," and "failure to thrive." The records also show that because of his daughter's arrest, Yourshaw's family allowed the hospital to provide medical treatment he specifically said, in his living will, he didn't want. Barbara Coombs Lee says studies in medical journals indicate that's common, even when there is no arrest.

Barbara Coombs Lee: I think most people don't realize that an advanced directive, the paper that we fill out and have other people sign as witnesses, it can't mandate. It can't require a doctor or a health care provider to do anything or not to do anything.

Anderson Cooper: I think most people think the complete opposite?

Barbara Coombs Lee: Actually in order for those wishes to have any force, they have to be reduced to a medical order.
***
But only two states have well-established systems to ensure that a medical order regarding life-sustaining treatment will be respected throughout the health care system. In other states, there's no guarantee.
***
A year after Barbara Mancini was arrested, a state judge dismissed the charges against her, ruling that the prosecution's case "appears to have been based on little independent investigation" and "significant hearsay."

[Barbara Mancini: Good afternoon. My name is Barbara Mancini...]

Last year, Mancini left her nursing job to work with Compassion & Choices, encouraging other states to pass laws similar to Oregon's. She's fighting for a cause now, but says she's also struggling to come to terms with what happened to her father

Barbara Mancini: There are some nights I lie awake in bed and I just relive this whole thing. And less of it has to do with what happened to me. More of it has to do with picturing him lying there in that ER crying out, knowing what I read in the hospital record.

Anderson Cooper: The way he died haunts you?

Barbara Mancini: Yes. Because the way his life ended was exactly the way he didn't want it to end. With no control, in pain, having things done to him. And I feel terrible about it."

For those four unwanted days in the hospital, the hospital corporation billed probably more than $100k, which would be paid in full via mandatory federal insurance programs.

28   anonymous   2015 Nov 13, 4:55am  

Thanks a lot, obamacare!

And get fucked, every moron that touts health insurance. You're as anti American as it gets, worthless pieces of shit

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