Could Health Care Reform be Deadly for Some? Two Sarah�s and Baby Jayden Capewell

By Deacon Keith Fournier
9/10/2009
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

I kept asking for the doctors but the midwife said, 'They won't come and help, sweetie. Make the best of the time you have with him.'

Governor Sarah Palin wrote '�is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by�dare I say it�death panels?'

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) � Along with most of the Nation I will be sitting in front of the Television this evening, watching our President speak to the joint session of Congress. The topic is, as everyone knows by now, Health Care Reform. There is no doubt; the Nation is engaged in a robust debate. The majority of Americans are growing increasingly suspicious of several aspects of the proposed Health Care Reform package. Now, the word has come from the Obama administration that the President will lay out his own specific plan or at least the main points which he will insist upon.

Catholics, other Christians, other people of faith and all truly Pro-Life people of good will have succeeded in bringing to the forefront the most important concern of all, our obligation to protect human life and human dignity. Federal Funds must not be used to promote the taking of innocent human life through intentional abortion, PERIOD. No matter how many times the danger of this happening is denied by proponents, it remains. It is most clearly present in any so called �Public� or �Government� Option. The Anti-Life effects of such a �Government Option� has all but killed any hope the US administration had of receiving support from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

As Bill Donohue notes in the article published below this story: �No segment of American society has been more supportive of universal health care than the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Moreover, this isn�t something new: the bishops have a long-standing commitment to health care reform. Their support, then, for the very bills endorsed by the president should be a slam dunk. Just the opposite is true�they�ve walked away from the table. All because of abortion.�

There are other concerns which have been brought to the forefront in this debate, such as the dangers attendant to an increasingly federalized approach to administering and providing Health Care services. Not only because it could violate the important principle of subsidiarity but because it presents the danger of placing perceived efficiency over solidarity, thereby �commodifying� compassion and placing the decision to deliver health care to the very young, the seriously ill and the disabled. In short, it will result in the rationing of health care to the poorest of the poor.

Former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal Wednesday entitled �Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care.�
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574400581157986024.html

The opinion piece was subtitled �The president's proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers�. Oh, I know, some members of the rude and disrespectful pundit class will use this as one more opportunity to disparage her. I wish they would actually deal with her well presented and reasonable concerns about rationing. These concerns are not only valid; they speak directly to the fundamental flaw in the proposed Health Care Reform.

Governor Palin wrote ��is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by�dare I say it�death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through "normal political channels," they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we've come to expect from this administration.�

She is not the only woman named Sarah whose words fed my serious reservations today. The other woman is named Sarah Capewell. Her tragic story of the loss of her little son made me even more cautious over where some of the alleged �Health Care Reform� plans may be headed. I read an article in the �UK Daily Mail�, entitled 'Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby'. It was written by Vanessa Allen and Andrew Levy. It detailed the horrific failed plight of Sarah Capewell to save her own child from Government Health care rationing in the U.K.

She lost her son Jayden due to the decision of the NHS, the Health Care System in Great Britain - a system similar to what some have proposed for the United States of America - to let him die, for economic reasons. They had also refused to treat her in her efforts, while she was pregnant, to prolong his time in her womb and slow an early birth. Over economic concerns and alleged efficiency they refused any attempts to save Jaydon. The movement galvanizing around this violation of fundamental human rights and decency is set forth ...

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1 - 10 of 10 Comments

John Grimes
3 years ago
You are quite right, Kyle Foley, to note the profit-enhancing tactic of private insurance companies who routinely deny customers legitimate coverage in the hope they will simply give their claim up. We should also note that private insurance companies, the very same ones for whom Gov. Palin and company carry water regularly, provide abortion coverage. According to published statistics, almost every major health insurance company in the US covers this sin, but you won't hear the usual right-wing suspects talking about that. They're too busy whipping up a storm of lies, exaggerations, half-truths, innuendos, and general hysteria to bother with the facts.
Kevin
3 years ago
This is a very well-written, eye-opening article that really cuts to the heart. I simply could not believe the negligence of those doctors in the Jayden story. Actually, I wouldn't even call this negligence, it's purely reckless and horrible. Every child has a right to a life, unhindered from any discretion of others. If this is what National Health Care becomes, I say "no thank you" to that. I certainly do not like these arbitrary rules and regulations that put a value on life based on time periods. Ick!!!!
Leticia Velasquez
3 years ago
Like S. I have a beautiful active daughter with Down syndrome. She was fragile at birth, and born a month early but did not need any surgeries. It makes my blood run cold to think that in the likely event that Christina outlives me, there could be a government run health plan run by eugenicists like Emmanuel who will delcare her loving happy life 'unworthy of life' as the Nazis did in the T4 program. Pope Benedict lost a cousin with Down syndrome to that horrible program, and I will fight the formation of any type of eugenic health care reform with all my strenth. Look for me at the "Health Care for Gunner" press conference with Students for Life at 10AM Tuesday, Sept 15. Several parents like the Sarahs and I will be voicing our concents that our children will not be covered under Obamacare.
It is also the Feast of the Sorrowful Mother.
Rose
3 years ago
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much. I beg you to spare the life of the unborn baby that I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you, save souls.
S.
3 years ago
If the proponents of public health plans really support the right of all to live, even the most fragile, they need to wash their hands of associations with people like Drs. Peter Singer and Ezekiel Emanuel. It's the involvement of eugenicists in the construction of the plan before congress that has me very concerned.

I'm the mother of a very active young lady with Down syndrome who happens to have some chronic health issues. She should not be denied her medicine because some bureaucrat judges her life as less valuable. At this point, she has never been denied care or medicine by any public or private entity. I will always speak out against any proposal to do such a thing. I admire Sarah Palin for doing this on a public level.
3 years ago
A baby boy died today, birth induced at 5.5 months because the doctors told the mother that even if the baby survives, he would undergo 2 surgeries before he is even 2. He fought for his life for over 2 hours before he breathed his last. I wish I had this story to share with the mother yesterday, but I am now sharing this with as many as I can in the hopes that another baby might get the chance to be born as God wills it, not as doctors recommend, or as mothers "choose".
Sara Palen
3 years ago
How many dots must we connect to understand this?

The current administration is already pushing at the UN this culture of death under the guise of "health care".

The President was almost smirking when he was talking about the claims of "death panels" in his speech. It isn't that far fetched when the government refuses to recognize the dignity of the unborn. Truth be told-a human fetus dies at some of these places with which Obama has a special interest. How much more difficult would it be to go the next step? As in other countries?

Maybe the pro-slavers back in the civil war era were also smirking when the dignity of the slave was compared to the dignity of the unborn. Why, that would almost be laughable. Did they smirk when human chattel were being killed or tortured or denied the most basic care under the color of law?

Do not forget how the President viewed a potential unwanted pregnancy of his own daughters. Do you want that standard of care applied to your daughters?

This Sara says no.
kyle foley
3 years ago
it's the private companies that are pro-death. a private company is in the business of making money by denying people care. a for-profit company loses money when they pay a claim.

the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee has just released new data that reveals more than one of every five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient�s physician, are rejected by California�s largest private insurers. The group says this amounts to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation�s biggest state.

this is data that the insurance companies have always wanted to hide, and it�s just now become available. It documents that the insurance companies have denied, in California alone, 45 million claims since 2002, and in the first half of this year alone, their rates continue to skyrocket. Some of these rates ranged as high as 40 percent for UnitedHealthcare�s PacifiCare. And other large, giant insurers like Blue Cross, Health Net, CIGNA, Kaiser were all in the range of 30 percent. So it shows a clear pattern of very high denials by the very insurance companies that people depend upon to assure that they get care they need when they need it.
Jean
3 years ago
Lord in heaven we love you and beg you to intercede for us in these terrible times regarding the darkness of life.

Send your Blessed Mother to us.

Let us pray for all of us who stand for life.
David
3 years ago
Jayden means 'God has heard'. When you cried, little Jayden, God has heard. When you cried Sarah, God has heard. When this story made me cry, God heard that too.

Why does it seem some people don't hear God?

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