After a knock-down drag-out fight over I-1000, I’m still pretty amazed by the margin of victory bestowed to the initiative I worked to pass:
58% to 42%
I-1000 won in every country west of the mountains, and won 11 out of 20 counties on the east side.
You know, for such a “controversial” issue, voters seemed be able to cut through the baloney pretty easily. Campaign-types like myself would like to take credit for this, but I think the credit belongs to my friend Nancy and others:
Nancy’s husband Randy died an awful death. His allergy to morphine, combined with a particularly nasty manifestation of brain cancer, resulted in one of the five percent of deaths that can’t be eased with palliative care. Nancy’s husband knew he was going to die a painful, undignified death, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do for him. Until now.
Folks have been talking past Nancy for most of the past year, arguing that I-1000 is a basic human right, or that I-1000 will result in full-scale euthanasia. It’s easy to bash Booth Gardner, or to slam the Catholic Church. Nobody wants to talk about Randy and the humiliation he went through.
Whatever. For 57.77% of the voting public, some issues are less complicated than the headlines would suggest.
The new Congress takes office 2 weeks before Bush leaves office. That’s plenty of time to impeach him. If they don’t, he’ll pardon himself and his entire criminal administration, and he will have gotten away with making a mockery of the Constitution and rule of law, and the concept of justice won’t mean a damn thing.
I was also a supporter (sent more donations than my skimpy budget would normally allow and left me wondering if I was getting a tad crazy).
“His allergy to morphine, combined with a particularly nasty manifestation of brain cancer, resulted in one of the five percent of deaths that can’t be eased with palliative care.”
Good lord, I had never realized that part about the ‘allergy to morphine’! I just knew that people were saying the palliative care wasn’t covering everybody in the time of their suffering. And I believed them, since they were in the position to KNOW what happened in their own particular circumstances.
Today I got the call that my Dad is being started on the heavy duty morphine, not expected to live 2-3 days more. We siblings are GRATEFUL that the morphine will end the suffering. End his fight with the damned neck collar after he broke his neck, fractured pelvis & more, in a fall in the shower at his former nursing home while left unattended. His confusion and dementia leaves him unable to understand why that infernal contraption around his neck is a ‘good’ thing. My Dad was a WWII vet, a good man that never hurt anyone in his life!
I saw that the I-1000 advertisements were tasteful, heartfelt, and totally believable. THAT’s what made people vote the way they did. Money well spent!
Nice one Pelletizer. Instant thread pollution.
FricknFrack,
You see, I can give you my condolences to you about your father even though I know your politics are truly distasteful to me. May you remembrances of your father be colorful, blessed and happy the rest of your days.
So was it his mother or jo mama’s mother who taught you to dislike black people?
Libtards are amazing!
the yes side spent lots of money on good ads
pointing out the Oregon test was smart, very smart and the spokes person was very credible
I am not sure I like the idea, still some misgivings
but I clearly have the choice to custom order my own end
do so others – maybe – major depression plagues our society and is not always diagnosed properly
You know, for such a “controversial” issue, voters seemed be able to cut through the baloney pretty easily.
They seemed to buy right wing hate talk radio baloney for too long. Some like our troll friends still buy it.
4 – Republicans are pretty amazing as well Stupes.
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/
I’m sorry, but in today’s political climate, this was a gimme from the start. The tally is not surprising to those of us who’ve watched for more than a dozen years, and the numbers back up that lack of surprise (for some).
This was a feel good initiative from the get go, that commanded way more money and attention than the minimal (and arguable) benefits it may provide justified, for the population it helps.
(Hard to write that without trying to convey the felt irony.)
No need to gloat.
I beg to differ. This was never a gimme initiative, Aaron. The opposition – religious and conservative extremists – has always outspent the supporters of death with dignity by 2-1 margins or better. No law has passed since Oregon’s DwD law. This was a tough fight all the way, up to the very last day, and kudos to the campaign and the supporters for their tremendous victory.
I didn’t think Will was gloating. There’s a big difference between acknowledging a victory and gloating.
The current governor refused to support it. A Democratic leader in the state legislature led the opposition. This was far from an easy win. I was watching the campaign closely and I’m not surprised it won, but I am impressed that the margin of victory was so wide. It points out to the brilliant work of the campaign coordinators and the power of personal stories like Nancy’s.
Will
Congratulations to the supporters.
I hope the I1000 crew now actually puts their money and action behind doing a much better job with this than what has happeened in Oregon:
1. Too few people in Oregon use the law and most physicians will not write the script. An effort needs to be made to make this available and understandable without .. as has happened in Oregon .. having a small coterie of physicians who understand and support it. Otherwise all your efforts will end up going small number of folks.
2. We need regulations to assure the law is not misused. I would like to have seen he law forbid forcing people to choose between penury and suicide.
I believe the law has not been misused so far in Oregon. Oregon’s law has been used very little but Oregon built nothing in their law to protect patients from having to choose between impoverishment and state aid for terminal care.
This is especially worrisome in the current economic situation where we must expect a lot more people to be driven to medical bankruptcy.
At a minimum, I hope we will require that records be kept to monitor the use of this option in people with precarious financial needs.
3. We need to be sure that the law is not misused to prosecute physician’s current use of morphine. I know the proponents claim this is not an issue, but lawyers have told me they think the law could be used by the “pro-life” crown to place law suits against the physicians who use morphine without going through the procedures described in this law.
Are there Allergies to Morphine?
Obviously I do not have access to Nancy’s husband’s chart so I am not sure what sort of reaction he had to morphine. I am, however, concerned that the publicity she has garnered around this part of his care may unduly worry patients so I took the time to find a goo link of the topic of morphine allergy. True allergies to morphine are rare because morphine itself is an analog of natural opiates our own bodies make. In brief, most of the time what is called a morphine allergy is some other, non allergenic effect of morphine .. including effects on the target cells for most allergies that can look like an allergy. This distinction matters because physicians do have alternatives to deal with these side effects and, as we have heard, relieving people from pain is terribly important in terminal care. There are also surgical options for somer kinds of pain.
I would hope that no one chooses the I-1000 route without being sure they have other options.
Again, if any one is interested,
SJ, there already are regulations to avoid misuse of Initiative 1000. They are written into the law: at least fourteen separate safeguards to make sure that the patient is always in charge of the process and is not being coerced, conned, or forced into choosing death with dignity. You’re wasting time by worrying about something that has already been addressed.
skyblue
With all due respect, you are wrong.
I-1000 NOT protect patients from the choice of impoverishment.
As for the issue of creating a legal risk, nothing I can see in the legislation does this either.
Finally, my FIRST point was that I-1000 in Oregon is not working. What good is a law that is not used?
Personally, I hope a lot of my worries go away when Obamacare becomes real.
OTOH, as our economy crashes and more people need to choose between assisted suicide and impoverishment, then we can worry about it, right?
As I recall, this law only comes into effect if the patient is diagnosed as terminal with 6 months or less to live. So patients won’t have the choice between impoverishment or death, it’ll be more like a choice between death or lingering death.
@ 14, Mrs. W: “So patients won’t have the choice between impoverishment or death, it’ll be more like a choice between death or lingering death.”
EXCELLENT point!
It’s not an excellent point, it’s a simplistic point.
A more complex point is make the connection between lingering death and impoverishment, and then go on to suggest that given our current circumstances, for some we’ll now have as only alternative to lingering death with impoverishment, a quick cheap death. Circumstances like our current dysfunctional health care system.
That is a more complex point, as is the point that there are genuine moral dilemmas badly in need of discussion when we adopt a knee jerk libertarian attitude about health care. Dilemmas that are far too complex to expect actual discussion of in the heat of a campaign, dilemmas that have been largely ignore during the campaign.
So yeah, big rah rah. Now solve a real problem.
@14 Mrs W’s class
When a physician says someone has “six” months to live this is at best a guess . This actually has been documented in Oregon eiher people who have gotten the prescription have chosen not to use the suicide cocktail and still been alive for two years.
Under current law it is very common for a social worker or even a financial planner to meet with a terminally ill patient and explain how best to manage their estate while gaining access to state paid medical care. From the healthcare provider’s financial POV, the optimum is to get as much as possible from the patient while spending the least on terminal care.
While I believe most health care providers are ethical, I-1000 .. as far as I can see, .. does offer an incentive that should not be there.`Unless Obamacare passes soon, the weak economy is certain to mean a lot more medical bankruptcies and patients will be faced with a terrible choice between impoverishment to obtain expensive care vs assisted suicide while leaving no estate behind.
I hope I am wrong and I hope the good people who worked for I-1000 will now work to see that it is not abused.
16 Aaron
Thumbs up for that post!
Too many people think politics is a football game.
re: #17
Wow, a moving target. So is the concern the six-month diagnosis or the poverty issue? Make up your mind.
The law calls for two doctors to agree on the diagnosis of terminal illness with less than six months to live. Not all doctors get it right, so that’s why two doctors are required.
If you’ve been diagnosed with less than six months to live, and you seem to be doing better, than the answer is simple. Don’t use the law. If you’ve gotten a prescription, don’t take it! People are going to use this in the last weeks of their lives, when the suffering is unbearable.
Those two doctors are also required to certify that the patient is making their choice voluntarily and without coercion. Making the choice for financial reasons sounds like coercion to me. Making the choice because your health care provider wants to save money on your medical bills sounds like coercion to me. (Never mind that hospice care is typically one of the least expensive forms of health care, because it only provides comfort care.)
There are two waiting periods built into the law. A patient has to request the medication three separate times, and each time, it has to be certified that they’re not being coerced. What else do you want? Financial statements? Bank records? Tax returns? What, if anything, would mollify your concerns? My guess is that you don’t have an answer to this question, just lots of “concerns” and “worries” and “troubling questions.”
@19 Sky …
No moving target, just explaining the facts.
There is no realistic way of saying someone has “six months to live” in anything like the precision you state. People with six months to live may die in a week or in years. The only reason this is important is that it unnecessarily limits the option of voluntary detail while creating a false impression of medical certainty for those concerned that patients will be coerced to choose death. I suspect that the bulk of those, like Gov Gardner, who could benefit from a well written law will get no relief from I-1000.
Please remember that under current law, a patient, whether “terminal” or merely suffering , already can be offered palliative drugs with the understanding that these will lead to an end of life. This is done everyday and responsibly now. Hopefully the current practice will not be harmed by I 1000.
@20 SJ
Hopefully the current practice will not be harmed by I 1000.
I don’t know what you mean by “harmed.” What you describe is legal, and has been upheld by the Supreme Court, so that’s not going anywhere.
I expect that the practice you describe will go down, however, now that people can openly and honestly ask for life-ending medication instead of playing this wink-and-nod game with their doctor. It will be a relief for patients to be able to speak openly with their doctors about what they can do to avoid suffering.
Impoverishment IS a separate issue.
Talk to anyone involved with geriatric care or terminal illness and they will tell you that impoverishment is a routine procedure used to obtain state aid for patients.
The danger of I-1000, if it is not well set up, is that patients will use the incentive of retaining their bank account to choose the cocktail.
Before the I-1000 crew jumps on me, I utterly agree that the problem has only reared its ugly head in a small way in Oregon. However, Oregon’s law is used very little. If we actually want people t use I-1000 as it was intended, that is to avoid pain and suffering, then we need to be very careful not to let the system misuse the new law.
I am not sure how this can be done without creating yet another expensive bureaucracy. At a minimum, I would hope that WA, unlike OR, will keep careful records of who uses this.