Deal Reached for Vote on US Funding Bill

By Joseph Lord

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that lawmakers had reached a deal for a vote on a package to keep the [US] government funded through March 14.

“I have very good news for my colleagues and the country. Democrats and Republicans have reached, just reached an agreement that will allow us to pass the CR tonight, before the midnight deadline,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Washington Post Opposes the Expansion of Canada's Euthanasia Law

By Lisa Blumberg

The broadening of eligibility under the Canada’s euthanasia law to include people who are deemed to suffer from “untreatable mental illnesses” has been delayed once again. The expansion had been scheduled to take effect in March. According to the New York Times, the postponement occurred because a parliamentary committee concluded that there are not enough doctors, particularly psychiatrists, in the country to assess patients with mental illnesses who want to end their lives and to help them do so. The Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland stated that “the system is not ready, and we need more time.” He did not give any new effective date for the expansion, although a committee member expressed the hope that the delay would be indefinite.

Shortly before the delay was announced but when there were already signs that the Canadian Government was having “second thoughts”, the Editorial  Board of the Washington Post wrote a sharply worded piece opposing voluntary euthanasia for psychiatric survivors in Canada and elsewhere. The importance of a major newspaper taking such a stand cannot be overestimated.

My Mum Didn't Die

Good morning. I’m Anita Cameron, Director of Minority Outreach for Not Dead Yet, a national, grassroots disability organization opposed to medical discrimination, healthcare rationing, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide laws are dangerous because though these laws are supposed to be for people with six months or less to live, doctors are often wrong about a terminal diagnosis. In 2009, while living in Washington state, my mother was determined to be at the end stage of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I was told her death was imminent, that if I wanted to see her alive, I should get there in two days. She rallied, but was still quite ill, so she was placed in hospice. Her doctor said that her body had begun the process of dying.

Though she survived 6 months of hospice, her doctor convinced her that her body was still in the process of dying, and she moved home to Colorado to die.

My mum didn’t die. In fact, six weeks after returning to Colorado, she and I were arrested together in Washington, DC, fighting for disability justice. She became active in her community and lived almost 12 years!

New Office of Inspector General Report: Hospice Deficiencies Pose Risks to Medicare Beneficiaries

WHY WE DID THIS STUDY  

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has identified significant vulnerabilities in the Medicare hospice benefit and found that hospices did not always provide needed services to beneficiaries and sometimes provided poor quality care.  Click here to view report.