McClellan: Twisting the Facts About 1999 Law
McClellan: Twisting the Facts About 1999 Law
At the gaggle this morning, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan defended a law Bush signed as governor of Texas in 1999:
The legislation he signed is consistent with his views. You know, this is a complex case and I don’t think such uninformed accusations offer any constructive ways to address this matter…[P]rior to the passage of the ‘99 legislation that he signed, there were no protections…The legislation was there to help ensure that actions were being taken that were in accordance with the wishes of the patient or the patient’s family.
McClellan’s statement grossly distorts the nature of the law. The law does not ensure that actions are taken “in accordance with the wishes of the patient or the patient’s family.” In fact it codifies and legalizes the ability of doctors to stop treatment even if it goes against the explicit directive of the patient or the patient’s family.
Check out Section 166.046, Subsection (e):
If the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient is requesting life-sustaining treatment that the attending physician has decided and the review process has affirmed is inappropriate treatment, the patient shall be given available life-sustaining treatment pending transfer under Subsection (d). The patient is responsible for any costs incurred in transferring the patient to another facility. The physician and the health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment after the 10th day after the written decision required under Subsection (b) is provided to the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient …
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Just one more entry on Terri Schiavo
Via Think Progress and The Daily Kos as well as The Daily Show with J [...]
March 22nd, 2005 at 1:04 pmwoowoo!
March 21st, 2005 at 3:35 pmThat was 1999 – it was acceptable to kill patients w/o consent from family back then…
Things were much simpler…
March 21st, 2005 at 3:42 pmIt was a pre-9/11 mentality….
If President Bush’s position is to stand “on the side of people with disabilities,” then why on earth has he nominated Terrence W. Boyle to the U.S. Court of Appeals? Boyle doesn’t stand with the disabled. He stands against them, twice ruling against plaintiffs seeking redress under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which Boyle would like to see repealed. The political manipulation of the Terri Schiavo situation is just one more example of this administration’s shameful hypocrisy.
March 21st, 2005 at 4:00 pmI was wondering where woowooboi was…..
March 21st, 2005 at 4:22 pmI’ve seen commentary that this law allows for pulling the plug if the patient can’t afford further treatment. Can anybody cite me where in the law this can be found or even inferred? Where (what) is the definition of “inappopriate” treatment?
March 21st, 2005 at 4:24 pm“Inappropriate treatment” was defined under the 1999 Texas law as ‘medical treatment for which the patient cannot pay’.
Under the proposed federal law now being promoted by Senator Santorum, “inappropriate treatment” is defined as ‘any form of medical treatment for any illness or injury contracted or sustained by any person who did not vote for President Bush and/or has failed in his national obligation to support the President in his So-Called War On Terror (SCWOT)’
This has been a public service announcement.
March 21st, 2005 at 4:31 pmEvery time I think that the country could not possible move any further to the right, they move even farther to the right.
If I were Shiavo’s husband, I would say to her parents, OK folks, she’s all yours, hospital bills and all.
GWP
March 21st, 2005 at 4:31 pmI heard Pres. Bush on the radio saying that in difficult cases like the Schiavo case where there is a possibility of error, it is important to err on the side of life. What a hypocrite! This from a man who is notorious as Governor of Texas for not spending even 30 minutes to consider death penalty cases.
March 21st, 2005 at 4:36 pmDetails on infant who died last week in TX under this law.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/
And in what many liberal bloggers are calling an example of outright hypocrisy, Bush signed a Texas law in 1999 that created a legal mechanism to allow attending physicians and hospital ethics boards to pull the plug on patients — even if that specifically contradicts patient or family wishes.
As it happens, a major test case for that law was resolved just last week — with a baby’s death.
Leigh Hopper writes in the Houston Chronicle: “The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open and smacked his lips, according to his mother.
“Then at 2 p.m. today, a medical staffer at Texas Children’s Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his Sept. 25 birth. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.
“Sun’s death marks the first time a hospital has been allowed by a U.S. judge to discontinue an infant’s life-sustaining care against a parent’s wishes, according to bioethical experts. A similar case involving a 68-year-old man in a chronic vegetative state at another Houston hospital is before a court now. . . .
“Texas law allows hospitals [to] discontinue life sustaining care, even if patient family members disagree.”
Frumkin links to this Houston Chronical article http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3084934
March 21st, 2005 at 4:40 pmWould that make Bush a flip-flopper?
Flippity-floppity…
March 21st, 2005 at 4:43 pmWrite letters. Everyone reading this needs to send letters to national news orgs and local papers highlighting the disparity between the Texas Futile Care law, Sun’s death last week, and Bush and GOP action.
Let’s blow their coalition apart with this crap. “the media” won’t do it – we have to apply consistent pressure to get the hypocrisy into sunlight.
The Budget the GOP proposes is full of stuff that would undermine long term care for others. Let’s “hammer” them with it.
March 21st, 2005 at 4:44 pmWhen you are paid a six figure income to speak for the President, aren’t you doing your job to the fullest extent possible when you expresses his current and immediate reality rather than coherently represent an overall view of the many multiple realities that came before but no longer exist now. As Apostate said: that was 1999; Bush has changed realities a few thousand times since then.
March 21st, 2005 at 4:57 pmHm. So only liberal bloggers call this disparity in moral positions between Bush circa 1999 and Bush of 2005 “hypocrisy”. Apparently, for this reporter, the story is about a claim the bloggers are making, not about the clear discrepancy in legal positions taken.
March 21st, 2005 at 5:02 pmGWP-
Larry King asked him why he wouldn’t just hand over care to the parents and he said it is because it was not what she would want.
All these GOP acting like her husband doesn’t love her is crazy- obviously if he didn’t care about her he would just turn things over to the parents.
March 21st, 2005 at 5:11 pmI wonder if CNN will mention that the bill allows patients to be taken off life support over the wishes of the family. Maybe they’ll say “Liberals say the bill allows…” and not bother confirming the fact.
March 21st, 2005 at 5:21 pmConservatives lie, liberals cry, the needy die, the rest just sigh and call it a day.
March 21st, 2005 at 5:40 pmScott McClellan has huuuuge balls. They’re visible from space.
Anyways, I’d say waiting 10 days before pulling the plug qualifies as “erring on the side of life.”
March 21st, 2005 at 5:49 pmIn the Schiavo case, our coward Bush wants to show his supposed respect for life but it only extends to his idea of whose life is important. Bush had no qualms about letting a black baby die. There were no emergency trips back to DC nor great public proclamations for this baby whose life support was pulled. Why does our coward Bush not care about babies living or is it just black babies he does not care about?
March 21st, 2005 at 5:50 pmHas anybody commenting on this bothered to read subsections a-c of the law quoted above?
March 21st, 2005 at 5:59 pmMaybe Michael Schiavo should just fly Terri out to a Texas facility and wait for the money to run out. Wouldn’t that be an ironic test of Bush’s Texas law?
March 21st, 2005 at 6:08 pmCandyce, I think you’ve hit upon a winner.
March 21st, 2005 at 6:14 pmExcept of course, that money running out is not a reason for a hospital to deny treatment. Sheesh, you would think someone might actually click through and read the law in question . . .
March 21st, 2005 at 6:18 pmPROCEDURE IF NOT EFFECTUATING A DIRECTIVE OR
TREATMENT DECISION. (a) If an attending physician refuses to
honor a patient’s advance directive or a health care or treatment
decision made by or on behalf of a patient, the physician’s refusal
shall be reviewed by an ethics or medical committee. The attending
physician may not be a member of that committee. The patient shall
be given life-sustaining treatment during the review.
(b) The patient or the person responsible for the health
care decisions of the individual who has made the decision
regarding the directive or treatment decision:
(1) may be given a written description of the ethics or
medical committee review process and any other policies and
procedures related to this section adopted by the health care
facility;
(2) shall be informed of the committee review process
not less than 48 hours before the meeting called to discuss the
patient’s directive, unless the time period is waived by mutual
agreement;
(3) at the time of being so informed, shall be
provided:
(A) a copy of the appropriate statement set forth
in Section 166.052; and
(B) a copy of the registry list of health care
providers and referral groups that have volunteered their readiness
to consider accepting transfer or to assist in locating a provider
willing to accept transfer that is posted on the website maintained
by the Texas Health Care Information Council under Section 166.053;
and
(4) is entitled to:
(A) attend the meeting; and
(B) receive a written explanation of the decision
reached during the review process.
(c) The written explanation required by Subsection
(b)(2)(B) must be included in the patient’s medical record.
Your point?
March 21st, 2005 at 6:18 pmThe “Culture of Life” is a crock of crap. The republicans should be ashamed.
March 21st, 2005 at 6:20 pmAll of this is a diversion tactic which Bush and his GOP cronies pull everytime someone is pointing a finger at them for their short comings. With the floodlights on DeLay, we haven’t seen him utter a word for the past few weeks. Now no one can shut him up with his Schiavo diversions. Are we tired of the media harping on Michael Jackson, baseball steroid hearings and now Schaivo? I’m telling you, it is all pure diversion from Iraq, Social Security plans not going over so well, DeLay’s crap and probably a few other things we’ve yet to hear about.
March 21st, 2005 at 7:16 pmwhat blows my mind is that listening to the “news” about this on radio and tv, you would think that the majority of americans were right with bush on his interference in the schiavos’ marriage — polls are showing that over 70 percent of people think this government interference is an outrage. gee, could it be that our oh-so-superior media is once again making busy, keeping in line with their political bosses, rather than reporting the facts?
March 21st, 2005 at 7:29 pmActually, Bush did add safeguards for families and patients.
Prior to the enactment of the law he signed, doctors were not “not civilly or criminally liable for failing to effectuate a qualified patient’s directive.” The only thing the doctor had to do was “make a reasonable effort to transfer the patient to another physician.” These quotes can be found in Section 672.016(b-c) of the Texas Health and Safety Code for 1997.
In 1997, Bush vetoed a bill that would have continued to allow hospitals to remove life support without the family’s permission. The bill he vetoed contained no ten day waiting period for the family to make other arrangements. If you want to see the text of the veto, go to http://www.texasprobate.com/97leg/vetoed.htm
After lengthy negotiation, including representatives from the National Right to Life, the current law was drafted. Unlike the earlier bill, it gave the family 10 days to transfer the patient, during which time treatment must continue. It also added a notice, hearing and appeal process of the doctor’s decision before the ten days start to run. See Section 166.046 of the Texas Health and Safety Code.
It was not a perfect bill, but it was the best Bush could do at the time. If you look at the Texas House in 1997, it had 82 Democrats and 68 Republicans. The Senate had 17 Republicans and 14 Democrats.
The breakdown can be found at http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legis/profile75.html
Oh, by the way, the bill’s sponsor was Senator Mike Moncrief, a Democrat from Fort Worth.
March 21st, 2005 at 8:05 pmI am confused with the stand, that GOD needs mans’ help. Since man is keeping Terri’s body alive, why not step back, leave tube out, and if GOD wants her to live I’m sure “HE” will keep her alive, no problem. When she died the first time, was it not GOD’S will? Did man not subvert that will by restarting her heart? This is a simple thing not complex. Americans need to understand and practice logic rather than wallow in manipulated sentiment and dogma.
March 21st, 2005 at 8:37 pmSam the best he could do if he didn’t believe in the law….drum roll please…was to…get ready for it…veto it. Yes Sam, it’s true he was the Govunator.
Of course that would have taken guts because that would be bucking his wealthy, hospital owning sponsors and we already know Bush was/is a spineless weasle.
March 21st, 2005 at 8:49 pmAlthough the Texas law says nothing about the patients’ ability to pay for treatment, it does allow for life-sustaining treatment to be stopped if another facility cannot be found within the 10-day period, and that is where the difficulty lies, since there are very few available beds for Medicaid patients who need life-sustaining care. If a patient can pay for a high-cost nursing home, then a transfer from hospital to another facility would not be a problem. But, in a case like that of Sun Hudson, transfer to an expensive facility was not an option. The “death caused by inability to pay” is certainly not explicit in the law, but it is an inevitable byproduct of its enforcement in the case of indigent patients. The Texas futile treatment law was the result of a compromise among a number of parties with competing interests and, like most compromises, is far from perfect. Scott McClellan misrepresented the law’s provisions and should be called to account for that. I am not holding my breath, however, until that happens.
March 21st, 2005 at 9:47 pmS Brennan, if he had vetoed the second bill it would still have left patients and families without any protection, under 672.016(b-c) of the Texas Health and Safety Code of 1997 The bill he signed gave them some protection.
When he vetoed the first bill, he was bucking the system. The first bill had passed the Texas Senate with zero no votes and 31 yes votes. See http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/tlo/textframe.cmd?LEG=75&SESS=R&CHAMBER=S&BILLTYPE=B&BILLSUFFIX=00414&VERSION=5&TYPE=B (bottom of page) to get the Senate and House vote totals.
March 21st, 2005 at 9:53 pmMy daughter works in a hospice facility with all medicaid, retarded individuals. When a lovely, sweet retarded lady was dying, the local Catholic priest refused to come – saying it was not necessary since she was retarded. That same priest is on the front lines fighting for Terri!
March 21st, 2005 at 10:19 pmshame? rofl
March 21st, 2005 at 10:22 pmdon’t let an interfering govenrnment mess with peoples lives or deaths
March 21st, 2005 at 10:24 pm“As Apostate said: that was 1999; Bush has changed realities a few thousand times since then.”
The Quantum Presidency!
March 22nd, 2005 at 9:11 amthe media should focus more on where the problem lies: the parents, who are in a pathological grieving syndrome i.e. denial.
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:18 amBush makes me cry and angry at the same time…he said, “We should error on the side of a life”…Tell that to the l,500 GIs killed in Iraq, a war in which numerous lies were unfolded to get us into the war…The GOP are a bunch of hippocrites…their action in the Terri S. case was an action of deflection…gee, nobody will notice the trouble DeLay is in, the Iraq war will not be noticed, and soscial security will be shaded ovef…talk about flip flopping and catering to their masters of big corporations and the religious right…Bush etc…get some backbone!
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:23 amAnd these congressmen,, are the same ones who cut benefits to people like Terry. If it has anything to do with OIL or PRO LIFE.. the GOP is all over it. Scum .. all of them
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:42 amBush & Co. are so concerned about one woman. He says we should “err on the side of life.” What about the 1500+ American deaths in Iraq? A death is a death anyway you look at it.
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:45 amBush on Theresa Schiavo’s wishes: “Please don’t kill me.”
March 22nd, 2005 at 11:53 amOh, wait; that was someone else.
Our attention has been diverted to the Schiavo case, which makes me wonder what the anal wonders in Washington are up to that they don’t want us to notice.
March 22nd, 2005 at 12:11 pmTime for Congress and the Senate to tackle issues like our spiraling national debt, before the Chinese and Japanese pull us off of life-support.
March 22nd, 2005 at 1:18 pmThe “culture of life” is actually a “culture of credit”.
To BJ Rogers, thank you for putting the facts out there, that the bill doesn’t itself reference non-payment as an appropriate reason to discontinue treatment, but that is one predictable result. I looked through the bill and didn’t see any definition of what constitutes “inappropriate” treatment, or how that judgment is to be rendered. That seems pretty strange, adding to the risk of wallet-based decisions.
Bruce
March 22nd, 2005 at 1:42 pm1999, Simpler times. Before Tom Delay was about to be indicted at any time.
March 22nd, 2005 at 3:19 pmI am amazed about how the left is totally unable to produce coherent arguments. When I posted previously, I gave citations and links. Most of you just spew hate and regurgitate the Kos or Atrios Talking Points.
No wonder why you guys keep losing election after election.
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:23 pmSam – you still sound bitter and angry for being out of power for forty years.Life is too short – get over it.
Peace
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:28 pmIt’s my understanding that the 1999 Texas Advance Directives Act that Bush signed as guv was inspired by health care/hospitals complaints about the cost of care, and the poorer individuals’ inability to pay. Basically, Bush said it was okay if a doctor/hospital committee pulled the plug (on poor people). I’m still trying to find a good colloquy or article on the background of the passage and implementation of that Act.
These radical rightwingers are, as usual, ironically hypocritical (or hypocritically ironic). If people in America don’t hurry up and wake up soon to what is happening here, I despair the future.
March 22nd, 2005 at 11:02 pmSamuel Dijk whined:
“I am amazed about how the left is totally unable to produce coherent arguments. When I posted previously, I gave citations and links…. No wonder why you guys keep losing election after election.”
Uh, the fact that no one is bothering to reply to your regurgitation of White House talking points weaseling Bush out of yet another blatant flip flop hardly constitutes grounds for your sweeping generalizations about the debating skills of “the left”. Though I suppose we should be flattered that you consider the tens of participants in this modest thread to be of such eminent stature that we collectively represent the entirety of “the left” (whatever that vague label means to you).
As to the Democratic party’s recent electoral fortunes, I think the near-total domination of the mainstream media by the same corporate overlords who also have taken over the GOP and the White House is a much more convincing explanation for the Republicans’ current success. That, and of course the GOP’s embrace of electoral fraud and voter intimidation.
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:59 amThe point is that the Texas law is a good law and bush and the congress are circumventing with politics.
March 23rd, 2005 at 9:17 amA culture of life — just like a fair election, apparently involves all of government acting on behalf of ONE INDIVIDUAL, at the expense of all the rest.
Apparently compassion is a restricted commodity for these guys. The poor and the sick can just die, but the rich and vegetative have inalienable rights to the very best health care indefinitely.
Just remember, if you decide NOT to abort your deformed/disabled fetus in Texas, and allow it to be born, be prepared for the state to pull the plug if they think your little “culture of life” is too costly to keep alive.
March 23rd, 2005 at 9:53 amToo bad someone doesn’t remove dumbya’s life support system.
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January 18th, 2006 at 8:15 am[...] Dex (dexfarkin) wrote,@ 2005-03-23 13:00:00 Terri Schiavo and the GOP Well, this is interesting. I’m not going to get into the actual moral dynamics of the case, because my opinions are already fairly well established. I believe in the right to die, moreso, I believe that the husband in this case has proven to the courts beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is acting on Terri’s wishes. Her parents have tried to prove all sorts of things, from profiteering to martial instability to invalidate his claims and have failed. What is interesting is the absolute massacre this is leading to for the Republicans. The interference of Washington on this case is obvious political opportunism, and based on the polls, most of the US views it as that. Despite the shameful bipartisan element (and the Democrats need to give their collective heads a shake), DeLay and Frist from the beginning made sure to brand this as a Republican effort, and it is going to hurt them badly.First of all, it is counter to public opinion, even amoung conservatives. Hell, even amoung the fundamental religious right, it’s only garnering a seven percent lead. On the country as a whole, the disapprove numbers range from eleven to as high as thirty percent in the split. Taking a stand against those numbers means that politically, you have to be able to cast that stand as the moral position with untouchable credentials against it. But, considering that the majority of the country views it as an act of political opportunism, it’s looking even more like it’s simply the GOP pandering to a narrow and extremist element of their base.More interesting is the split inside the Republican party that is happening over the incident. States rights, traditionally a cornerstone of the Goldwater cast conservatives of the last forty years has been chucked over for political expedience. “My party is demonstrating that they are for states’ rights unless they don’t like what states are doing,” said Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn) “This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy,” Mr. Shays said. “There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.” Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the sole Republican to oppose the Schiavo bill in a voice vote in the Senate, said: “This senator has learned from many years you’ve got to separate your own emotions from the duty to support the Constitution of this country. These are fundamental principles of federalism.” “It looks as if it’s a wholly Republican exercise,” Mr. Warner said, “but in the ranks of the Republican Party, there is not a unanimous view that Congress should be taking this step.”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23repubs.html?ex=1269234000&en=b374f7629523357d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserlandEven worse for the Republican leaders that were falling all over themselves to override doctors and talk about how they could hear words from Schiavo, is that their efforts directly contradict a bill then Governor GW Bush signed into law in Texas during 1999. Those most active in politicizing the case are Republicans who typically proclaim their devotion to reducing the interference of the federal government in people’s lives. These include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, both potential candidates for a future Republican presidential nomination. Frist, a heart surgeon and one of the few physicians in Congress, even presumed to offer his own optimistic diagnosis of Schiavo’s prospects based on viewing a few clips from a family-provided videotape. That’s a dubious method for practicing medicine. Medical specialists say the occasional eye movements and reflex actions that Schiavo’s parents and their supporters see as encouraging are common signs of false hope. For House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose professional expertise is in pest control, not terminal-care decisions, the issue is a convenient distraction from allegations about ties to unsavory lobbyists and a Texas fundraising scandal.from USATodaySection 166.046, Subsection (e): If the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient is requesting life-sustaining treatment that the attending physician has decided and the review process has affirmed is inappropriate treatment, the patient shall be given available life-sustaining treatment pending transfer under Subsection (d). The patient is responsible for any costs incurred in transferring the patient to another facility. The physician and the health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment after the 10th day after the written decision required under Subsection (b) is provided to the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient …http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=480Plus, a rundown of the circulated speaking points on the campaign.http://www.dcinsidescoop.blogspot.com/All and all, it’s a giant clusterfuck for the Republicans, and will likely cause some serious damage on the floor and in the polls. If DeLay and folks follow trend, Shays and those who voted with him will be the focus of strenuous removal attempts, and at the very least, cut off from the party main. It also has shoved DeLay and Frist negatively into the spotlight. Both look like political vultures, trying to score poll points on the body of a brain damaged woman, and wiping themselves with states rights and small government ideals in the process. DeLay, who is facing severe charges of corruption (from being obviously as twisted as a fucking 20s steel union boss in his fundraising) looks like he’s seizing a cause to distract people, and Frist, who has his eyes on a Presidential run in 2008, looks like he’s pandering to the fringe theocracy for preliminary support. Reid’s monumental stupidity in letting the Democrats get on board this trainwreck hasn’t seemed to have spilled over yet, but in 2006, smart Republicans will use it as another example of the Democratic love of increasingly government interference. As for the Republicans, it’s yet another staggering disaster in this utterly monstrous winter for them. If the voters and media actually started hammering on the usurious bankruptcy act or the crippling bastard of tort reform, some severe splits could fracture the GOP monolith into three or four factions, all vying for power.(Post a new comment) pyrephox 2005-03-23 06:40 pm UTC (link) Honestly? I’m not sure that there’s anything the Republican party /could/ do that would alienate their base. This isn’t the first time they’ve blatantly gone against their ‘core principles’ for a power grab, and each time, their base just shrugs and says, “But they ain’t Democrats” and continues to vote whoever they’re told to vote for.(Reply to this) (Thread) dexfarkin 2005-03-23 09:20 pm UTC (link) It’s happened before. Remember 1992 with Perot and the Reform Party? If you look at it, the Republicans have lost some ground there. The further they marginlize the Libertarian aspect of their base, the more the West blues. I’ll be curious to see both 2006 and 2008. There are some really vulnerable seats, and many of them are wedge fanatics, like in PA.(Reply to this) (Parent) drharper 2005-03-23 08:21 pm UTC (link) *holds up a steel wedge and a sledgehammer*I’m all for fracturing the GOP a bit. Maybe in the fragments, I can find a political platform that represents more than 40% of the issues I think important.(Reply to this) heatherly 2005-03-25 03:09 pm UTC (link) Speaking of…you might check out my friend Kit’s entry regarding the bill being passed. Interesting political maneuvering: http://www.livejournal.com/users/twistedchick/1298652.html(Reply to this) Log in now.(Create account, or use OpenID) [...]
September 4th, 2006 at 6:44 am[...] obscurum per obscurius (greylit) wrote,@ 2005-03-21 15:37:00 “Man and Woman he castrated them” Let the counterspin, begin!So it looks like the White House Press Corps has already started asking about The Texas Futile Care Law and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has already being the spin (copied from Think Progressive):At the gaggle this morning, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan defended a law Bush signed as governor of Texas in 1999: The legislation he signed is consistent with his views. You know, this is a complex case and I don’t think such uninformed accusations offer any constructive ways to address this matter…[P]rior to the passage of the ‘99 legislation that he signed, there were no protections…The legislation was there to help ensure that actions were being taken that were in accordance with the wishes of the patient or the patient’s family.McClellan’s statement grossly distorts the nature of the law. The law does not ensure that actions are taken “in accordance with the wishes of the patient or the patient’s family.†In fact it codifies and legalizes the ability of doctors to stop treatment even if it goes against the explicit directive of the patient or the patient’s family.Check out Section 166.046, Subsection (e): If the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient is requesting life-sustaining treatment that the attending physician has decided and the review process has affirmed is inappropriate treatment, the patient shall be given available life-sustaining treatment pending transfer under Subsection (d). The patient is responsible for any costs incurred in transferring the patient to another facility. The physician and the health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment after the 10th day after the written decision required under Subsection (b) is provided to the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patientARGH!(Post a new comment) [...]
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February 3rd, 2007 at 8:59 amI’ve just been staying at home waiting for something to happen. I just don’t have much to say right now, but so it goes. I’ve basically been doing nothing to speak of, but shrug. Today was a loss. I don’t care. That’s how it is.
February 12th, 2007 at 12:42 pm