Read the section titled “Reflective Practice: Pants on Fire” from chapter “Health Policy, Politics, and Professional Ethics” and address the questions below:
- How do you judge Palin’s quote? [“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.] Effective strategy to oppose Democrats’ plans for health care reform or unethical scaremongering?
- 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?