Assisted Suicide: Refusing to Connect the Dots

The other day, the Sacramento Bee editorialized in favor of assisted suicide. Now, it runs this story about how state investigators are inadequately auditing nursing homes and busting unsafe operators. Here’s the story:

The California Department of Health Services is underestimating the severity of safety problems at some nursing homes and fails to promptly investigate at least half of the thousands of complaints it receives about the facilities each year, the state auditor reported Thursday.

The Health Department is responsible for oversight of the 1,200 nursing homes in the state, and the department’s duties include responding to complaints and conducting routine inspections.

The auditor’s study also found that the department fails to communicate quickly with people who make the complaints and keeps poor records of investigations.

In a written response to the audit, the health department blamed a staffing shortage. There is a 16 percent vacancy rate for registered nurses who evaluate nursing homes, largely because the state has trouble competing with private health-care providers who pay more, the report said.

What the MSM continually refuses to do is connect the dots from stories such as this to the ridiculous premise that “guidelines will protect against abuse” in a legalized assisted suicide regimen. In Oregon, “regulators” from the State Dept. of Health admit that they have no authority or budget to investigate abuses: Mostly, bureaucrats merely compile data for publication from the lethally prescribing doctors, do a little spot checking, publish the data and then destroy all the supporting documentation. In other words, the guidelines are mere facades: They are not substantial protections.