Read the section titled "Reflective Practice: Pants on Fire" from the chapter "Health Policy, Politi ...
Read the section titled "Reflective Practice: Pants on Fire" from the chapter "Health Policy, Politics, and Professional Ethics" and address the questions below. How do you judge Palin's quote below, as an effective strategy to oppose Democrats' plans for health care reform or unethical scaremongering? "And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's death panel so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their level of productivity in society, whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." Reflect on what informs your judgment: commitment to advance care planning, analysis of facts, and/or political party loyalties? Is it right for nurses to endorse health reform legislation even if the legislation is not perfect? Does this apply to the recently failed American Health Care Act? Reading: Reflective practice: Pants on fire Sarah Palin is famous for urging her supporters to oppose Democratic plans for health care using the scare tactic of death panels. She said the Democrats plan to reduce health care costs by simply refusing to pay for care: And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s death panel so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their level of productivity in society, whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil. In fact, there was no panel in any version of the health care bills in Congress to judge a person’s level of productivity in society to determine whether they are worthy of health care. The truth is that the proposed health bill would have allowed Medicare, for the first time, to pay for optional doctors’ appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues with their physicians. PolitiFact awarded Palin with the 2009 Lie of the Year for the death panel claim and it made the list of FactCheck’s “whoppers,” but the political impact of her statement is hard to overstate. In 2011, the Obama administration even deleted all references to end-of-life planning in a new Medicare regulation when opponents interpreted the move as a back-door effort to allow such planning. So even in the regulations, Palin achieved her goal (Holan, 2009). 1. How do you judge Palin’s quote? Effective strategy to oppose Democrats’ plans for health care reform or unethical scaremongering? 2. Reflect on what informs your judgment: commitment to advance care planning, analysis of facts, political party loyalties? 3. Is it right for nurses to endorse health reform legislation even if the legislation is not perfect? (The answer is yes; it may indeed be the right thing to do.) Remember, politics is about relationships, and relationships cannot prosper when one party insists that the other party must agree with them on every (or even any) issue. It is not wrong to compromise; compromise is part of the give and take of relationships, and it is part of the give and take of politics. What is critical is knowing when it is possible to compromise without sacrificing personal integrity. This prompts the question of whether it can be acceptable to distort an issue to manipulate public opinion or to win the support of a particular piece of legislation. It is usually, however, possible to frame a discussion in a manner that is more acceptable to a certain constituency without lying in this manner. For example, in the health care arena, one can use words that appeal to known values, words such as tradition and legitimate authority (words that tend to appeal to conservatives), and words such as autonomous and experimental (words that tend to appeal to liberals). Knowing the target audience and framing the issue in words that will help them listen (or at least not harden their opposition) is smart, not unethical. Any professional group has a duty to push forward laws and policies that protect or advance the best interests of those whom they serve. And any citizen, particularly a knowledgeable one, has a civic duty to speak out for the common good.
