What you are saying may be so, but from seeing the situation from the inside, it is a grey area when it comes to individuals that are incapacitated and have severe disabilities. They have medical and legal guardians that are the final word in these matters legally and what the patient desires, or what is assumed they desire by onlookers, often carries little weight. This is the problem with legislation like this. It opens the door for abuse and pushing the law to its limits. Institutions have little incentive to plug holes as long as they are "legally" in the clear. I have had to personally deal with guardians on behalf of patients that could not speak for themselves. What is in the best interests of the patient often becomes a matter of expediency and cost. It is very frustrating.
Members of the team are not looking for personal glory or accolades. They serve a higher purpose. Their names are not important. We all have played a part in this story. We all can take pride in whatever efforts were done to further the cause no matter our capabilities - all effort is important. Members of the team are, and will probably remain, silent heroes. They will not take the stage away from the people.
Good analysis. But I have to say this: as long as evil exists in the world the battle is never over - it does not end. There will always be those addicted to power and greed that will try to take advantage of others to profit themselves. It requires constant vigilance - just as our forefathers told us. Tough times make tough men. After this all gets to a point were we can truly see the daylight, we must make sure the next generation learns the lessons. If we do not, they will become weak and comfortable. Then we as a people will be right back where this all started. We allowed the enemy into our schools and they have brainwashed our youth. Never again.
During a previous property bubble, there were many seniors living in the Lake Tahoe area that were forced to sell their homes of 30 years or more. Property values had exploded into the stratosphere and there were several cases of seniors who were forced to sell because they could not afford the property taxes. It was truly sad and shameful that officials could not find a work around for these seniors.
For exactly this reason, one of the good things CA actually did was to pass prop 13 in 1978 that capped property taxes for homes owned prior to passage. Surprisingly this was done under Dem Gov. Jerry Brown. Because of prop 13, my aunt is still living in her home purchased in 1963. At this point, my aunt is among the few remaining residents in CA still taking advantage of the break. My aunt is in her nineties and continues to live on her own.
The best solution is to eliminate property taxes all together. But at the very least, there needs to be a similar accommodation that applies only to the homes specifically of seniors that has been their primary residence for a number of years. Like prop 13, it would cap property tax increases and peg the value of the property to an earlier date, such as purchase date, and not to current market values. This way seniors can stay in their homes, still pay taxes, and not be forced to sell because they can't afford to pay the taxes. It would not apply to recent new purchases or rental properties. It would only be a small carveout in the scheme of things that would not put a huge dent in budgets. Abolishment of property taxes all together will force municipalities to find another way to tax citizens to make up for the shortfall because they are addicted to the money.
I have seen grocery receipts belonging to illegals with EBT balances in the thousands. WTF??? One of the good things that came out of the lockdowns was that seniors were given an increase in their Food Stamps. Unfortunately the increase was then taken away when the programs ended. Absolutely shameful. Besides seniors I have seen disabled adults get the same pitiful amounts for FS.
I helped a disabled person once manage some of their affairs. She was only receiving a whopping $530 a month in SSI/SDI. Her rent for a small room was around $300/mo. She had no additional assistance other than Medicaid. After jumping through all the hoops to get approved for FS, she ended up only receiving a grand total of $18/mo. This was before the system went digital and you had to go to the welfare office to pick up the coupons. I decided it was not worth my time and gas to take her to the office to stand in line, so I gave her the $18. Actually, I ended up supplementing her groceries because she literally had no money for food once her bills were paid.
It angers me, as I am sure it angers most people on this forum, that our disabled, seniors, and veterans are basically shoved to the side in order to prioritize people that should not even be here in the first place - because they drop a few anchors. They game the system by collecting benefits using different names. In Latin countries they use many names - and all of them are legal. This is not rumor. I saw it myself almost every day. They drive brand new cars, sometimes an Escalade or a Mercedes, the family are wearing designer jeans and sneakers, and everyone has a new iPhone - even kids as young as 10 or 12. The maddening part about it is that they don't even try to hide the fact they are gaming the system. They flaunt it. However, the problem is not entirely theirs, but the system that has allowed them to rip off the taxpayer in the first place. Cut off the money and they will go home. They are only here because of the money - not because they want to be Americans.
Charge the Chinese even more. They trash pretty much everything they come in contact with. Even other countries complain about the behavior of the Chinese. My sister works at Yellowstone and said Chinese tourists are the worst.
Yes it is good news, but it would be nice if seniors got a decent pay raise for a change to offset what inflation has eaten up. Also, they should be made eligible and receive real EBT benefits instead of giving it to illegals. Illegals receive hundreds of dollars every month and most seniors are lucky if they get about $20. Many of our seniors are living below the poverty line. Shameful!
There never is any accountability. I worked in both the private and public sectors. The waste, stupidity, and inefficiency of government work is mindboggling. I truly believe that the majority of government workers are there simply to collect a paycheck along with benefits and cruise to retirement. Work? Who me?
You are not alone. The way they sell it to the people is that a person should have the right to off themselves - especially when they are terminally ill. It sounds like a logical argument. But what people fail to see is that it never ends there and it devalues human life. What shocks me is people that are against abortion but then turn around and support medical suicide. Seems like a contradiction. Murder is murder - even if it is self inflicted. It is much worse when medical professionals, sworn to protect life, are required to participate in that murder.
Yes it is. Some of the reasons I have heard used as rationale for suicide approval in Canada are off the charts. One disabled guy wanted permission under MAID because he was poor and he was losing his place to live. It was approved. A very slippery slope indeed. Where does it all end?
I have been very vocal on this issue whenever the subject came up. Here in the states it made the news when Dr Kevorkian invented his suicide machine. He had his medical license stripped so it was illegal for him to administer drugs. He was charged with murder and found guilty.
Then the subject of medically assisted suicide got national attention when there was that gal in Florida that I think had a bad stroke and was left unable to communicate and needed constant care. Her husband after many years decided that the quality of her life was not good and he wanted to basically end her life. Her parents on the other hand fought to save her. That case took months to resolve. Unfortunately, the husband won the case in court and they cut her food and water. They starved her to death with the court's blessing. Come to find out, the husband wanted to remarry and I think there was a life insurance policy in play. It was really sad. But the story was big news and everyone was covering it.
I had a lot of conversations with people over the issue because there were other cases also working their way through the system attempting to legalize more invasive medically assisted suicide. At first it is always terminally ill people that wanted a medical way to die rather than offing themselves - forcing medical personnel to do the deed. That is always where it starts and most people do not have the foresight to see where all of this goes. Canada and their MAID law has taken it to new extremes. The ACA here in the states had language in it that laid the groundwork for something similar. It was called "death panels." If I remember correctly, that language ended up being stripped from the bill. Thank God. No one is safe if that kind of state sanctioned murder is allowed.
Not in Canada. This poor victim essentially had a legal guardian that could legally make a life and death decision for this patient. Under Canada's MAID law, the door has been thrust open to qualify almost anything as a valid reason to end someone's life - poverty, depression, disability, etc. All of it legal. In fact, the state actually counsels suicide as a treatment option and a viable choice. Let this be a lesson for the rest of us to keep the door for this madness and evil closed. Remember, the ACA had a provision in it for end of life counseling protocols for Medicaid and Medicare that were very similar to MAID. The framers of that bill had exactly the same result in mind - all in the name of reducing costs. As far as I know, that language was stripped out of the ACA bill - or at least drastically toned down. Someone can correct me if wrong about the ACA.
If the person had a disability that required them to have a guardian to make legal decisions, the patient basically did not have any rights of self determination. That is what this particular case sounds like to me. I suspect that this poor person's family conducted this tragedy from a distance and had little to no contact with their family member. As a medical provider I had to deal with situations like this - an elderly or disabled person's affairs were managed by some other family member living in another state. The affected family member was basically being warehoused and all the distant family dealt with was the business end of the matter. Canada makes it easier for the guardian to rid themselves of the "burden." Out of sight, out of mind. So sad.
I have heard of many cases like this in Canada since they passed the law several years ago. People are being "suicided" simply because they are poor or disabled and are being encouraged to do so by the state. It is horrifying.
I had many arguments with people when the issue of assisted suicide was thrust into public awareness. It always starts with, "but they are already dying" and "it's their choice." My response has always been that it doesn't end there, but it is where it begins. The door, once opened, always leads to much darker cruelty. Human life becomes devalued and can be ended for almost any reason in the name of expediency and efficiency. In addition, as a medical clinician the idea of being forced to participant in state sponsored murder is horrifying. Canada has truly gone down a dark road.
Reservations are Native Lands and are not subject to Federal jurisdiction. They can do what they want for the most part. So those laws passed by Congress have limited reach on Native Lands - unless the Tribe says that they do.
The situation does vary from Rez to Rez. Oklahoma is better off than most and can afford to offer a program like this. Many others, not so much. I worked for IHS in several much poorer facilities and communities. Many Americans are under the false assumption they are supported by the Federal government. They are not. Much of their money to make these kinds of improvements and offer employment opportunities comes from their own home grown industries - like fishing, casinos, and sadly, tobacco sales. Those communities that do not have cottage industry are forced to rely on the still remaining government handouts - and it shows. They are very poor and I saw this first hand.
I am glad the model of what is possible is being pointed out. Native Americans have a 5x higher incidence of diabetes than other Americans - all due to diet. It is a crisis. The youngest patient I treated with type 2 diabetes was 17 years old and there were many children that were borderline. More isolated communities, unlike Oklahoma, are farther away from city centers and are very limited with food choices due to cost, refrigeration, transportation, etc. That limits what they can purchase at their onsite stores to very unhealthy processed foods - basically junk. What good is an EBT card when there is only junk to choose from. The same could be said for food deserts in many of our inner cities. The point here is that the investment into making better foods available for people, especially in poorer communities, in the long run is much cheaper than what we end up paying for ongoing medical care and lost productivity. Our people are worth the investment.
That is exactly what happens. These people are in their homes because they simply wanted a place to live, not because they were searching to make a profit. Speculators in the property sector have driven home prices up to the point that the average person can't afford to buy and those who just wanted a place to call home are forced out because of the rising values.