Oregon will pay for you to die

Marta Russell ap888 at lafn.org
Thu Feb 11 11:07:44 PST 1999


Carrol Cox wrote:


> I'm going over limits, but this is strictly informative. As I understand
> it, the chief actual effect of the suicide law in Oregon has not been to
> increase the suicide rate but to vastly increase the prescriptions
> physicians give for pain medication.
>

Carrol,

I haven't heard this one before. I can tell you that Oregon Medicaid tried to restrict doctors in giving pain medication to Medicaid patients. They tried to bump Oxytonin prescription levels down to a size that would be ineffective for pain and specifically named disabling conditions to which it could not be effectively prescribed. In addition, the Oregon Medicaid program has been chipping away at what it will pay for in other departments which affect disabled people's quality of life. When disability activists learned of the Oxytonin cutback they fought the state and won.

I think the corporate state is using physician assisted suicide as a way to ration health care.

Marta



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