Senate Version of Obamacare May Require Public Option to Cover Assisted Suicide

The Senate version of Obamacare is actually an already-passed House Bill, HR 3590.  Why a House Bill?  By gutting the passed bill and substituting the Obamacare plan, it could avoid a conference committee.  If the bill passed, it would go back to the House, and if it passed without amendment, there would be no conference committee. It’s a potential fast track to passage.

Moreover, the Senate bill does not prohibit the “promotion” of assisted suicide in the end of life counseling like its House counterpart.  Moreover, it seems to require coverage for assisted suicide/euthanasia by the public option plans in states where it is legal.  Check out section 1323 of the bill creating the public option (p. 183), beginning at page 186 :

(F) PROTECTING ACCESS TO END OF LIFE CARE.—A community health insurance option offered under this section shall be prohibited from limiting access to end of life care.

If assisted suicide, or even euthanasia, are legally considered forms of “end of life care” in a particular state—as it is now in Oregon, Washington, and Montana—it seems to me that the area’s community health insurance option would be required to provide “access” to it under this clause. How else can the provision be read? And because it would have been passed later in time, this clause could be construed to subsume existing federal law that prevents federal funds from being used in assisted suicide.

Tricky. Very tricky.

More details over at Secondhand Smoke .