Health Care, Abortion, and End of Life Issues: The Candidates’ Views 55.3 million people die each year. 151,600 people die each day. 6,316 people die each hour. 105 people die each minute. Nearly 2 people die each second (Birth &Amp; Death Rates). 33 million Americans don’t have health care (Barry-Jester and Casselman). In five states, physician assisted suicide, or euthanasia, is legal (New Health Guide). Hillary Clinton believes that euthanasia should be legal and that everyone should have the right to health care. Gary Johnson believes that euthanasia should be legal, but health care should be cut by 43% ("Should All Americans Have the Right (Be Entitled) to Health Care?”). For many years, health care and suicide have been an unresolved …show more content…
Clinton stated while she was in Oregon that she thinks it is up to the state to decide whether they want euthanasia to be legal or not. She also said that she commends Oregon on being innovative and providing new information on whether physician assisted suicide should be right or not (Drake). Oregon was the first state to make physician assisted suicide legal in 1997. Currently, five states have legalized physician assisted suicide; Oregon, Washington, Vermont, New Mexico, and Montana. In 2013, 300 terminally ill patients were prescribed lethal medication and 230 of those people died from the medication. Doctors say that some terminally ill patients decide not to take the medication though (“Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Laws around the World”). Clinton also mentioned that she has a great deal of sympathy for people who are in difficult end-of-life situations. She makes her decision on the subject based on experiences that some of her friends have …show more content…
The Democrat said that, “affordable health care is a basic human right”("Should All Americans Have the Right (Be Entitled) to Health Care?”). Over the years, Hillary Clinton has led the fight to expand health care for Americans who are, for any reason, unable to access it. In the 1990’s, insurance companies tried to stop Clinton from making healthcare affordable for everyone, but she continued to push her opinion on health care and now over eight million children are covered. The former Secretary of State and Senator from New York has very clearly mapped out her plan for health care if she becomes president. Clinton will expand the Affordable Care Act, which currently covers twenty million and counting, and she will support letting citizens fifty-five years and older buy medicare. She will reduce the cost of prescription drugs, so the underprivileged will have access to the medicine they need to take care of themselves and their families. Clinton will also allow healthcare to every family no matter their race or immigration status, and change many other things about the health care policy. Clinton feels very strongly about the health care issue and has said that she will do whatever it takes to fix the Republican-led government opinions on healthcare and other issues (“Hillary on Health
Oregon. According to Daniel E. Brannon and his article “Gonzales v. Oregon (2006)”, this case was brought to attention thirty-one years after the United States had passed the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 when “the U.S. attorney general attempted to issue an interpretation...which would would prevent physicians from administering the drugs necessary for the assisted suicide process” (2011). The attorney general, John Ashcroft, deemed physician-assisted suicide as an illegitimate medical practice and any doctor who practiced it “would have their license revoked” (Brannon, 2011). Often, the act is seen as illegitimate because people believe that it is unethical to end one's own life. In cases like murder, it extremely wrong because the dying person had no consent, but when the patient gives consent and has the ultimate power in taking the medication, they should have the right to proceed.
Over the years, the prices have inflated so much that Americans felt the Affordable Care Act was not providing the services it was supposed to; Lower health costs, helps with insurance companies paying out, provide a greater coverage etc. Hillary feels that this area can be targeted to help reduce costs greatly and bring back the meaning of the Affordable Care Act so that the people of America will actually gain from this.
Health Care is a topic which most Americans certainly have much concern over. Hillary Clinton herself has said that healthcare is the most important cause of her life (Clinton). This is reflected in her past and in commitment to healthcare policy should be the next president of the United States. She has spent her career working towards the expansion of Healthcare so that all families will have access to affordable and fair health insurance.
The choice for the patient to choose should be left up to their decision, and some states have embraced this practice. Oregon instituted the Death with Dignity Act in 1994 which gave adult patients with a terminally ill diagnosis a choice to obtain a prescription to end their life (Death with Dignity, 2017). Since the onset of this ground breaking law, the concept of physician assisted suicide has soften and the general consensus has slowly began to shift.
Oregon is one of only five states along with Vermont, Washington, Montana and New Mexico that allow medically assisted suicide. In the rest of the country, assisting people with suicide even if they are terminally ill will be accused as a crime. According to the KQED news, ”Advocates of assisted-suicide laws believe that mentally competent people who are suffering and have no chance of long-term
Physician-assisted suicide was first made legal in the state of Oregon. (Hendin) In cases of euthanasia, physicians often give lethal doses of a medication to terminate a patient’s life because they’re experiencing intolerable pain. Patients who wish to use the Death with Dignity law in Oregon must be eighteen or older, must be a resident of Oregon, and they must be able to make their own health care decisions. (Sharp 53) However, the law does not require the patient to be in unmanageable pain, they must just have a prognosis of less than six months to live. (Sharp 54) This law seems to be in place to kill patients more quickly to open up hospital space, instead of compassionately ending someone’s suffering.
The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was put into effect on October 27, 1997. This act allowed physicians to prescribe to terminally ill patients a lethal dose of medication in order to hasten their death, even though euthanasia is prohibited in the United States. According to Katrina Hedberg, this act has been revised by Oregon legislature, but has still been brought to attention of the United States Supreme Court on raised questions of legality. In order to receive a prescription for the Death with Dignity Act, the patient must reside in Oregon, be a terminally ill adult, and should be expected to die within a six-month time frame. Along with these requirements, patients must be able to make their own healthcare decisions. Katrina Hedberg found that over the course of ten years, physicians had written 546 prescriptions and a total of 341 Oregon residents passed away after the lethal dose under this act. The medications that were prescribed during this time were secobarbital and pentobarbital, and most patients would pass away within an hour of taking pentobarbital. Many physicians have reported that patients who requested these prescriptions often had a loss of autonomy and a decrease in their ability to engage in activities that they enjoyed. The results showed that these factors had increased over the course of ten years. According to physicians, patient’s concerns of pain had also increased during this time. This is still very controversial, but findings have shown that
Within the past few years physician assisted suicide has been a major topic of debate. Assisted suicide is termed as suicide committed with aid from another individual, including a doctor. With the suicide term raising much concern, many people interchangeably use other terms. A few terms are death with dignity, physician assisted death or compassionate dying. Physician assisted death is implemented for those that are terminally ill and mentally capable adults that would prefer to shorten their dying process. The option of being able to get medical aid in dying only apply to certain states, and must pass through an election for that specific state. The first state to vote on the subject was Oregon and eventually passed in 1994 as the Death with Dignity Act (Jackson, 2008). There are now six states in the United States that has passed this act. The states that are allowing physician assisted death are District of Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California and recently Colorado.
Hillary wants to defend and expand social security instead of making an action of cutting it. Throughout Hillary's lifetime, Hillary has made a stand for medicare and social security. She is committed to maintain, protect, fortify these lifelines for seniors. As a president, Clinton commits to defend social security against republican attacks. For example, she will disapprove Republican attempt to raise the retirement age. She attempts to do this because that idea of raising the retirement age will hurt the seniors who have worked the hardest throughout their lives. Hillary also commits to increase the idea of Social Security for those who need it the most and who are treated unfairly by the contemporary system. In the other hand, medicare is another issue that Hillary will attempt to make easier for individuals. The medicare is a health care coverage for 50 millions American seniors and individuals with disabilities. Hillary wants to Fight Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act saves more than 9 millions people with medicare due to prescription drug expenses. Hillary wants to improve the expenses for seniors and people with disabilities. This will Drive down drug costs for seniors and other Americans, which is a goal of Clinton. Hillary will ensure medicare and decrease the drug prices for seniors and individuals with
In order to fulfill the act she had to move to another state where it was legal and ended her life by using Barbiturates that her doctor prescribed to her. After this event took place it created some thought to legalize assisted suicide. California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, and Rhode Island just to name some of the 12 states that have tried to legalize PAS several times have failed to do so. Many have considered how Maynard’s death can cause others to take up her actions and do the same. The choice to die, and has been only legalized in three U.S. states: Oregon, Washington, and Montana. In Oregon it was legalized in 1997 but is not referred to as physician assisted suicide but as physician aid in dying, in Washington it was legalized in 2008, and lastly in Montana in 2009. Physician assisted suicide should not become a legal option to individuals, because it is against religious beliefs, patients will be prompted to give up to soon, and it violates professional ethical
There are currently three states that have adopted legislation supporting “Death with Dignity”, also known as physician-assisted suicide. Oregon, Washington, and Vermont have each enacted laws that enable a terminally ill, mentally competent, adult to decide and dictate end of life decisions up to and including the time of their death. Oregon was the first United States (U.S.) to enact legislation and other states in the union have followed suit.
Physician assisted suicide was legalized in Oregon in 1995, being the first U.S. state to legalize physician assisted suicide (Quill, Timothy & Sussman, Bernard).
It is thought that the presumed vulnerable would be left helpless if physician-assisted suicide were legalized, though evidence shows this claim is false. People presumed vulnerable to physician assisted suicide are the uninsured, the poor, people with little education, people older than 80, women, people with mental illnesses, people with physical disabilities, minors and racial and ethnic minorities. There is no evidence supporting the claim that any of these groups have been adversely affected since physician-assisted suicide was legalized in Oregon in 1997. Since the law was passed in 1997, 460 patients have died from ingesting physician prescribed medication under the Death with Dignity Act (Department of Human Services, 2010). In 2009 a total of 59 deaths were from physician-assisted suicide; 98.3 percent were white, 48.3 percent had at least a bachelors degree, 98.7 percent had health insurance, and 78 percent were between 55 and 84 years-old (Department of Human Services, 2010). These statistics clearly show the vulnerable have not been poorly affected by the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.
In 1994, Oregon voters passed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, which exempted, “from civil or criminal liability physicians who, in compliance with specific safeguards, dispense or prescribe (but not administer) a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of the terminally ill patient.” Oregon, to this day, remains the only state within the Union to allow physician-assisted suicide. In 1997, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that, although there was no constitutionally protected right to physician-assisted suicide, states have permitted to pass laws allowing it. Thus, the issue of euthanasia remains widely open to philosophical, political, legal, and ethical challenges.
The Canterbury Tales has an ultimate lesson at the end, just as every other literary work does. In some of them, he simply states what it is, or some may have to be inferred. During the time, many social and historical events were taking place; and in some instances, Chaucer chose to base the moral around it. While reading The Canterbury Tales, the audience gets entertainment and a basic knowledge of what life was like through the lessons he presents. All of the morals of the tales differ and hold their own significance.