LAT: In Wake of Schiavo Case, Congress Ponders Further Action

[DeepModem Mom]

In Wake of Schiavo Case, Congress Ponders Further Action
By Richard Simon, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON -- After intervening in the Terri Schiavo controversy, members of Congress are exploring whether to pass more sweeping legislation that would apply to other cases of incapacitated patients who did not leave behind instructions for their medical care.

In the bill approved earlier this week and signed by President Bush that allowed Schiavo's parents to ask a federal judge to order her feeding tube reconnected, lawmakers expressed their intent to take a broader look at the issue. A congressional hearing on whether additional federal legislation is needed is expected to be held next week.

Clearly, Congress is interested in the debate over preserving a culture of life," said Bob Stevenson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

While the push for the Schiavo bill came from Republicans, a prominent Democrat, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, is considering introducing legislation that would allow a federal judge to review cases in which people wrote no living will or left other instructions specifying their medical wishes if they became incapacitated and where there is a dispute about the patient's wishes.

"The more I looked at the Schiavo case, the more I thought, wait a minute. There are a lot of people in similar situations -- maybe not in her specific situation -- but because of a disability cannot express themselves or cannot in any way make their desires known," Harkin said last weekend....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pol23mar23,0,3774937.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[MichiganVote]

1. Sure, why not waste more time in worthless legislation?

[China_cat]

2. Because it will further

the numbers of people going bankrupt for medical bills and hasten the day when the poor who are in serious debt will have no choice but to sell themselves into slavery. (Most likely by becoming cannon fodder for the oil wars)

[etherealtruth]

3. Congress is interested in the debate ...

...over preserving a culture of life

How many lives lost in Iraq? He was trying to make a joke , right?

[IndianaGreen]

4. No good law can come out of the Schiavo case

and there is no way to have a dialogue about the issues involved in the Schiavo case when all the politicians are exploiting it.

[Technowitch]

5. "Deciding they haven't done enough damage to the rule of law...

...and using the Constitution to wipe their collective GOP arses, they contemplate just how much further they can go before someone finally realizes the United States of America really has become a Quasi-Christian Theocratic Fascist Dictatorship."

In other news, Michael Jackson still weird, another celebrity was accused of murder, and look over there! Shiny things! Puppies!

[Goldeneye]

6. Ass covering time, eh boys?

What a bunch of disgusting scabs.

[janx]

7. Some Iowans need to get in touch with Senator Harkin--pronto. n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

9. LOL! Yeah -- was he drunk, or something? nt

[janx]

12. No. He was one of the THREE senators who voted for it

in emergency legislation on Sunday.

What has happened to the U.S. Senate?

[Ripley]

27. I read where a Senator in Arkansas (R) said...

none of them had time to read the bill and understand the situation fully. He sounded like he regretted voting for it. If this is the case, it seems to be normal procedures...Patriot Act, etc. Bills pushed through at the 11th hour (on Palm Sunday even) where the Senators don't have a clue what they are voting for.

Mob Rule.

[shraby]

13. Not only will more people be burdened

by onerous hospital bills, but more property will be confiscated to pay them.

[Guckert]

8. Then they can cut the funding for all the life support and life long care.

What a bunch of meatheads. we should check them for a LIQUEFIED BRAIN.

[Triana]

10. they need to keep their freakin noses out of it...

...N. Korea is stockpiling nuclear weapons...

the job market here still sucks - there are nothing but low-paying service jobs here and the IT industry is gone to India and China, whilst bu$hit keeps telling people to go back to school. For WHAT - Wal-Mart? Yardwork?...

record numbers of immigrants are being allowed in to take what jobs there are - and they get social security, driver's licenses and paid college...

the environment is a mess and needs to be cleaned up...bu$hit is instead stripping clean air and water regulations left and right...and drilling in ANWR...

we're at peak oil use/production and prices are still going up. All bu$hit wants to do about that is drill every pristine place on the planet to get more...nothing done about finding alternative sources. Don't expect to hear about THIS on the evening news. WHO owns the news media? Corprats whose pockets bu$hit lines so well with his policies (ie: The Plutocracy). Forget it. You won't get news from there...

the increased mercury allowed in water (mercury in water, period) has been shown to cause autism but bu$h is allowing more of it anyway...

we still have no national healthcare system...and chronic illness/injury are what causes 50% or more of declared bankruptcies in this country - meanwhile, bu$hit and the bank robber barons made it more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy....how PRO-LIFE is THAT?...

they're getting ready to trash social security instead of fixing it with a minor tweak here and there, which is all it needs...

there are more homeless, poor, and uninsured people in this country now than ever...if THIS isn't a huge moral issue, nothing is....

there is an extremely fast-moving and virulent new strain of HIV out there and the idiot hasn't even addressed that...

they're getting ready to outlaw abortion *and* birth control...go figure. (they're pro-birth, *not* pro-life - they don't give a rat sh*t what happens to people after they're born)...

Iraq is a quagmire and money pit of unprececedented proportion (except Vietnam) and the US still invaded the place prematurely and based on false pretense (lies) and we need to get the Hell out...meanwhile the threat of terrorism and anti-American sentiment worldwide is increasing because of this, and because of the terrorism the US itself perpetrated on Iraqis in Saddaam's own prisons there. But we got control of the OIL and that's all that mattered in Afghanistan and Iraq anyway. That was the mother lode - at all costs...

Meanwhile, all bu$hit and the Fundies can find to do is stick their noses up the rear ends of animated corpses and worry about what jocks are on steroids?

REPUBLICANS seem to have a PRIORITY problem, don't they?

I think so. :mad: And this week, they've illustrated in stark relief JUST how bad THEIR vegetative state is.

[AzDar]

21. Well said!! n/t

[Swede Atlanta]

11. Good God!

The states, as Florida has demonstrated, have the ability to deal with this themselves. This is an area that has traditionally been reserved to the states and generally a private family matter. There is absolutely no need for the federal government to get involved in these legal issues more than it should get involved in divorces, alimony, child custody or other matters of state law.

If they expect the federal courts to start hearing these cases then they had better start cranking up the Wurlitzer and confirming scores of new federal judges. Which is of course what they want to do.

[Mz Pip]

14. Why stop with those who

left no instructions? Even with a living will these nut jobs will stop at nothing to further their agenda.

Say I've been diagnosed as being in a persitant vegetative state. Say I signed a living will. Say some fundie nurse hears Jesus speak in my room or misinterprets a gas pain as a smile. She goes public, gets the Family Research Council to advocate that my "life" is of value because God told her so.

So much for my living will. So much for my wishes. So much for the wishes of my husband. That doesn't count. Tom DeLay says it doesn't matter.

Creeps. Ghoulish evil creeps.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[cascadiance]

17. Yup!

I'm worried that is exactly what I and my Mom will face with my Dad right now, who is dying a slow death now of not getting enough food to live. We have his power of attorney, but the government "knows best" and might take our rights of letting him go gracefully and keep him alive on tubes and still stick us with the bill! Bastards!

[MsMagnificent]

15. They going to hire PSYCHIC'S?!

Too bad their titular 'Respect For Life' doesn't apply to the deaths of brown people or our own American servicepeople.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. I misread the headline

In Wake of Schiavo Case, Congress Panders Further Action

[kainah]

18. Culture of Life Universal Health Care Bill

who will introduce this bill? Durbin? Kerry? Kennedy? Clinton? Obama? Step up, folks, the door is WIDE OPEN. Walk through. It won't bite.

[riverwalker]

19. warehouses full of half corpses

is this what they want to pay for? Spend Billions of $$ sticking tubes to pump fluids in and out of tecnically dead patients? These PVS patients have all eventually exhausted any insurance or savings they have, it is us who will pay for this. Yet, our children go without medical care? Veterans go without medical care?
gawd these people are insane.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. There's a big fucking surprise

The fascist fucks get their foot in the door and start pushing for dinner and dessert? I'm stunned...:eyes:

[Kimber Scott]

22. Culture of Life = Stop Bombing People

Culture of Life = Outlaw the Death Penalty
Culture of Life = No Torture
Culture of Life = Health Insurance for Everyone
Culture of Life = Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Culture of Life = AIDS Funding
Culture of Life = Wildlife Preservation
Culture of Life = Clean Air
Culture of Life = Forest Preservation

Let's have a real culture of life.

[leesa]

23. I'm a nurse in oncology. I hope like hell I'm taking care of some of these

bastards some day. I'd love to hold their living wills and families wishes over their head and taunt them with it.

[TahitiNut]

24. No, you wouldn't.

When push comes to shove, you'd merely find the 'edge' taken off your empathy.

But it's fun to think of them being afflicted with what they exploit for financial and political gain.

[daleo]

25. Here is a cynical look at it, from the health care system point of view:

1 - Pass law demanding extra-ordinary and heroic means to preserve life (option, pass law ignoring living wills because they are "illegal expressions of suicidal intentions").

2 - Milk the brain dead patient's assets until they are gone.

3 - Milk the next of kin's assets until the are gone (threaten them with a murder charge if they won't cooperate).

4 - Make sure neither (2) nor (3) can get out of this through bankruptcy (already accomplished I think).

5 - When all assets are exhausted, allow the hospital an out, where a medical board can decide "there is no more hope".

Repeat steps 1 to 5 on millions of people.

[cascadiance]

26. Need to add a couple of other steps there...

- Reduce Medicaid eligibility with budget cutbacks there so that patient's and next of kins assets go that much more quickly, unless they've increased their "gifts" to private health plans to compensate for not being eligible.

- keep in place the rules that those under hospice care (even though they've been "saved" now) and aren't showing improvement cannot qualify for Medicare assistance, which also helps insure that the patient's and next of kin's assets go that much more quickly too. We the government should continue not to help others pay for patients that are "terminal" and "going down", even though we're going to mandate that they be kept alive as long as we can.