I got this letter passed to me in an email from the Coyote Kid, who is retired USAF, but got his start as a grunt in 'Nam, so he's always a Marine first, and I don't hold it against him.
The letter is from a Vietnam vet, who had a strange experience at the hospital medical clinic just recently:
I
am a 67-year-old former Marine and a Vietnam veteran. And I say:
"Forget
about living to age 75 in the USA!"
This morning at Danbury
Hospital here in Connecticut, I was scheduled for
a cardio-lite stress
test. This is a treadmill stress test where nuclear
dye is injected
into your bloodstream and you are put in a CAT scan or
something
similar in order to take a picture of your heart. If all is
good,
the heart shows up red; if there are blocked arteries anywhere, the
heart shows
up pink. I have had three of these tests in the past twelve
years due to
blocked arteries discovered in 2000. They use the test to
determine if I
need a "roto rooter" or a bypass
operation.
So, I arrived for my previously schedule
appointment at the hospital at 8
a.m. this morning and in the process
of checking in, the lady in the front
desk said that my appointment has
been canceled. She made a call, spoke
with someone, and then she
handed me the phone. It was a nurse in the
Cardiology Department who
said that my medical insurance carrier denied the
procedure.
I
said, "It is a routine part of my heart maintenance program as
ordered
by my PCP and with approval from my cardiologist who is the
head of Danbury
Cardiology Department, which is right where I am
standing right now."
She went, "Yes, but our request was
denied."
So I said, "I have Medicare, so what is my backup
insurance doing denying
anything."
Then the bombshell. .
.she said, "It was the Medicare Board that denied
the
procedure."
At that point, I turned to everyone behind me,
and it was a long line,
and I said to them "Well, you won't have to
wait too long today because my
stress test procedure was just canceled
by a Medicare Death Panel. I am only
67 so can you imagine what
is going to happen when we really get old?"
The entire
waiting room and everyone there from patients to staff just
went dead
silent.
Then, I turned to the front desk staff and told them, "I
guess I will
have to write a letter to the editor of the Danbury News
Times and call my
senators and congressman and let them know the Death Panels
have already
convened".
Then I walked
out.
By the time I got home the message machine was
blinking. My PCP had
called and so did the hospital and guess what? Medicare
decided to
approve my stress test procedure, and I should get back
down to the hospital, and they
would fit me in right away for the
3-hour procedure.
I called back and told them that I couldn't make
it, I was going fishing
because I didn't know how many more fishing
trips I could get in before I
went into cardiac arrest, but not to
worry about me costing the government
any money because I am a
30% disabled Army veteran due to Agent Orange
poisoning which is
what caused this heart problem to begin with, and I
qualify to be
buried for free in a plain pine box in the cheap graves section at
any
national cemetery. I certainly don't want to cost our government
any
money. So, maybe we just won't do the procedure anymore and we can
use the
money to redistribute it to all of the illegals to keep them
alive so
they can mow the lawns at the national
cemeteries.
And so this note is for everyone to know that
the Death Panel crap has
already started. And if we don't vote this guy
and his criminal cronies out
of office this November, then we should
all expect to die younger and as
completely broke paupers as the
country goes further down to hell.
Feel free to distribute my note
to anyone and make it your mission to not
only make your vote count in
November 2012 but on behalf of all of us,
please also make an effort to
help convince everyone to NOT vote for the
present White House
occupant or any of his cronies in the November 2012
election if they want to
receive proper medical care and expect to live
to age 75 or
older!
Another forwarded email message from
another Marine:
Dr. Suzanne Allen, the head of
Emergency Services at the Johnson City
Medical Center in Johnson City,
Tennessee, was recently asked if she has
seen any effects of
ObamaCare in her work.
Her reply was: "Oh, yes. We are
already seeing cutbacks on the services
we provide. For example, we are
now having to deal with patients who would
normally receive dialysis,
who no longer can. In the past, there was always
automatic approval
under Medicare for anyone who needed dialysis --
not
anymore."
When asked what the outcome will be. "The
patient will die sooner without
dialysis," she
replied.
What about other services?
She said that
as of 2013 (after the election), no one over 75 will be
given major
medical procedures unless approved by the
government-appointed
local Ethics Panel. These Panels will determine
whether a patient should
receive medical treatment or not. Dr. Allen
points out that most
life-threatening emergencies do not occur
during normal hospital business
hours, and if there are
emergencies that need to be resolved within minutes or few
hours,
the likelihood of getting these Panels' approval in time to save
a patient
life is going to be very challenging and difficult, if
not impossible.
This applies to operations such as stent placement,
bypass surgery, kidney
operation, or treating an aneurysm which
are normally covered under Medicare
today. In other words,
starting in 2013, if you needed a life-saving
operation, it is
likely that Medicare might not provide coverage anymore,
or ifit
does, it will require approval by a government appointed Ethics Panel
if
you are age 75 or over.
When in 2013? "We haven't been
given a specific date, it could be in
January or July, but it's after the
2012 election," says Dr. Allen.
This is shocking to anyone
who will be 75. Her advice? "Get healthy and
stay healthy. We do not
know the specifics of the actual implementation of
the full ObamaCare
policies and procedures; they haven't filtered down to
the local level
yet. But we are already seeing severe cuts in what we
provide to the
elderly. We have refused dialysis to an individual who was 78 just
the
other day. We have also refused to give stents to a gentleman who
was
in his late 80s. Every day, we are seeing these cutbacks aimed at
reducing
care across the board for anyone who is over
75."
This is a death sentence to those who are over
75....perhaps you should
pass this on to your friends who are thinking
of voting for Obama this year.
Regardless if you have private
health care coverage now (I have Aetna
Medicare Part B), it will no longer
apply after 2013 if the Ethics Panels
disapprove of a procedure that
may save your life. Scary! Think about
how this applies to
you, your parents, and your other loved
ones!
If you didn't know about it, as Nancy Pelosi
said, "Well, if you want to
know what's in the bill, you'll have to
read it...." (after it was already
passed).
This is an
important reminder to stay healthy, and to get your plot at
the nearest
Forest Lawn Memorial Park now, while they are still available
because
the ObamaCare Plan is a death sentence to those who are age 75
or
older!
Semper
Fi
Mofak
Back-to-Back We Face the
Future
I have plans to fight these "Death Panels". The first is to start finding out who are on them, at first politely reminding those docs that they swore the Hippocratic Oath on their first day in Medical School, and it is a forever Oath, just like my Oath of Enlistment. If politeness doesn't work, well then, that's what street politics is for. That's what Grand Juries are for, because it is likely that ObamaCare rules will NOT protect docs who are sworn to uphold State constitutions which say for them to save all possible lives.
Okay then, we will have used the Soap Box and the Jury Box to no effect, and the Won bypassed/stuffed the Ballot Box, so what Box is then left?
You know THAT answer, readers.
Regarding the first gentleman's story: Possibly the denial was a mistake. Maybe one over-zealous individual overreacted. The denial was rescinded. And most of all, according to his story, the gentleman decided to refuse the procedure after it was authorized! He possibly shortened his life so he could stand on a soapbox and whine? Regarding the second story, I have mixed feelings about some of the treatments given very elderly people - heart transplants, kidney transplants, etc. But many 75 year olds are not medically very elderly. And the problem of the Mon-Fri review ethics panels is real.
Posted by: Rivrsis | October 07, 2012 at 09:38