THE THOUGHT POLICE WILL RUN MEDICARE FOR ALL.

• Author: Singleton, Marilyn M.
• Position: MEDICINE & HEALTH

THE NEW Medicare for All bill has come and hopefully will go the way of the pet rock. Everybody now knows the basics: the government will take care of all medical, dental, vision, pharmacy, and long-term care services with no out-of-pocket expenses. The bill prohibits parallel private insurance, and has the glaring absence of a financing mechanism.

These types of bills always have hidden gems. For instance, Section 104 tracks the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's "anti-discrimination" rule, making it clear that no person can be denied benefits, specifically including abortion and treatment of gender identity issues "by any participating provider."

The bill does not correspondingly reaffirm the Federal laws protecting conscience and First Amendment religious freedom rights of medical personnel. Such protections relate to participation in abortion, sterilization, assisted suicide, and other ethical dilemmas.

Do we really want the government to control any aspect of our individual lives--particularly our religious beliefs and moral codes? When the Department of Health and Human Services sought to clarify such conscience protections, thousands of commenters offered evidence of discrimination and coercion to violate the tenets of the Oath of Hippocrates and their own ethics. Some left their jobs or the medical profession entirely when their conscientious objections were not honored.

Subsequently, the HHS Office for Civil Rights issued a final conscience rule that protects individuals and health-care entities from discrimination on the basis of their exercise of conscience in HHS-funded programs. Just as OCR enforces other civil rights, the rule implements full and robust enforcement of approximately 25 provisions passed by Congress protecting longstanding conscience rights in health care.

Conscience protections are vital in this time of unabashed devaluing of life. Last year, the Palliative Care and Hospice Education Training Act passed the House but died in the Senate. This bill would have dedicated $100,000,000 in additional taxpayer dollars to persuade patients to forgo treatment that might prolong life in exchange for a steady stream of increasing doses of narcotics. Already some families feel that they are not offered hospice as a choice, but instead are steered toward it when their older relatives fall ill, even when the medical prognosis is uncertain.

The focus on palliative care and lowering costs by reducing "aggressive"...