Tag Archives: Federal Issues
Obama Administration Drops New End-of-Life Policy
The Obama Administration has announced that it is abandoning a controversial new “end-of-life” policy recently incorporated into new Medicare regulations. The Administrations says it is setting aside the plan, which would have reimbursed doctors for holding “advance care planning” discussions during annual “wellness” visits.
The policy was similar to language originally inserted by U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) into President Obama’s recently passed health care legislation. That language, which was developed by the pro-euthanasia group Compassion and Choices, was also abandoned after critics charged it would create federally funded “death panels.”
The New York Times reports that the Administration …
Are “Death Panels” Back in Obama’s Government Health Care?
According to the New York Times, the infamous “death panels” that were removed from President Barack Obama’s final 2,000+ page Government Health Care bill have been revived stealthily by government bureaucrats. The restoration of these “death panels” is coming in the form of a Medicare policy that will “pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forego aggressive life-sustaining treatment.”
The reason why this is possible, as the New York Times puts it, is because “the laws [in ObamaCare] were so broad and complex that executive-branch regulators have wide leeway in …
Congress Votes to Reshape American Military Culture
The United States Congress delivered a most unwelcome Christmas gift to the U.S. military when it voted to open the ranks of America’s Armed Forces to active homosexuals. The lame-duck session of Congress voted to repeal a federal law adopted in 1993 that declared that homosexual conduct is incompatible with service in the military.
The law overturned by Congress stated that a person who “engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in homosexual acts” is ineligible for service in America’s military branches. That law had codified military policy that has existed …
Homosexuals in the Military
The issue of homosexuals serving openly in the military is so complex that writing about it seems overwhelming.
First, there is the problem of reconciling both Article 125 of the Military Code of Justice and U.S. Code – Section 654 that strictly prohibit those who engage in homosexual acts or those who state that they are homosexual from serving in the military with the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy that serves as a defacto law superseding actual law.
“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” implicitly says homosexuals can serve as long as they don’t openly acknowledge that they are homosexual. That’s like …