You probably never heard of the Liverpool Care Pathway. But I guess you never heard of the IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board). However I am almost certain you know about the Obamacare death panels.
Each of the above are related.
The Liverpool Care Pathway
Doctors are to investigate public concerns over the use of the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway, which has been used without family members’ knowledge.
The technique is supposed to alleviate suffering in the final hours or days of a person’s life and can involve the removal of tubes artificially providing food and fluid.
Families have come forward saying their loved ones were placed on the pathway without their knowledge and argued they were not dying.
UK Telegraph, “Doctors investigate Liverpool Care Pathway”
Frightening, huh?
All part of an experiment to save Britain’s NHS (National Health Service) socialized medicine program. You hear about the NHS, and if you watched the recent Olympics you saw a very entertaining skit about the NHS. But how much do you really know?
Andy Flanagan’s Liverpool Care Pathway Story
The family of a 48-year-old man have told how they rescued him from dying on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway by reviving him with drops of water.
Andy Flanagan’s family were told that he was severely brain damaged, had organ failure and was close to death after a cardiac arrest.They gathered at his bedside to say their goodbyes after the hospital withdrew fluids and said it was going to let him ‘slip away’.
But when Mr Flanagan’s sister, who is a nurse, gently moved him to change his bloodstained sheets, he started to murmur words, showing signs that he had not suffered severe brain damage.
Then, as she cleaned his face with a wet cloth, he desperately tried to suck in the moisture. The family continued their vigil at his bedside around the clock, concerned that doctors did not want to keep the patient alive.
Every ten minutes they gave him drops of water that helped him start to come round before doctors eventually agreed to put him back on a drip. Mr Flanagan recovered and returned home. He lived for another month and was able to properly say farewell to his loved ones.
Daily Mail UK, “A Pathway to Euthanasia”
Obamacare, Medicare and the IPAB
One little known or discussed aspect of Obamacare is the IPAB. What is the IPAB and how will it impact Medicare beneficiaries?
Beginning with fiscal 2015, if Medicare is projected to grow too quickly, IPAB will make binding recommendations to reduce spending. Those recommendations will be sent to Capitol Hill at the beginning of the year, and if Congress doesn’t like them, it must pass alternative cuts — of the same size — by August.
(The IPAB) will have 15 full-time members, and only a minority of them can be health care providers.
Hospitals, doctors, drug companies and some patient groups are worried IPAB will recommend reductions in Medicare payments — which they say already are too low — and that they won’t have the time or ability to counter the cuts during accelerated congressional action. Doctors and drug companies are particularly worried that they’ll bear a lot of the burden because hospitals and nursing homes aren’t subject to IPAB’s cost-cutting recommendations until fiscal 2020.
Kaiser Health News, “The IPAB”
Some of the IPAB recommendations include reduced funding for Medicare providers as well as providing oversight with regard to treatment protocol in an effort to save money. And what better way to save money than to deny payment for procedures that are expensive and not expected to prolong life?
Does this sound like the Liverpool Care Pathway?
It does to me.
If you don’t want Congress to implement the IPAB provision in Obamacare, and would rather have your doctor decide your care, then consider how you vote this November. Otherwise we might have our own version of the Liverpool Care Pathway here in the colonies.
