With the approval of McConnell or his PoA, if McConnell is not able to make medical decisions on his own, yes. Without that approval, no, he would not legally be allowed to.
I was going by what the Associated Press is reporting. The AP story includes a physician quote concerning polio that is a little different from the quotes in McConnell’s press release. From this I conclude that the AP has independent access to the congressional physician.
Maybe McConnell probably has some heath issues beyond what was mentioned today. Almost any 84 year old would. The Attending Physician is presumably there to act in the interest of his patients, so there is probably something missing.
On the other hand, I think it amounts to a just-asking-questions conspiracy theory to suggest that McConnell might be in a coma. He’s a sick man and I do not think going after his illness is a good way to criticize.
I wouldn’t read too much into this. Just because he is having “multiple sessions” of PT & rehab doesn’t mean he is participating in or benefiting from them in any meaningful way. If his office manages to produce a non-AI generated video of him moving around, even with assistance, or communicating, even with nods or blinks, I would be more inclined to accept their rosy descriptions of his prognosis
Coma and brain death are fringe opinions given what’s been revealed to date. Stroke is a reasonable layman’s diagnosis also based on what’s been revealed and said to date.
To be sure, McConnell has absolutely done nothing wrong in suffering a health emergency requiring extended rehab. For better or worse, he’s taking a lot of flak for the rightfully presumed mendacity of his team.
He’s almost surely told his PT’s that his goal is to get back to the Senate before his term runs out at the end of the year. It would be cruel and harmful to the chances of successful treatment for them shoot this down.
As for actual prognosis, modern medicine has made much greater advances in treatment than in accuracy of prognosis.
Truth is, no one knows. I officially have heart disease and cancer. I do not consider either all that bad, but, hey, I might die tonight.
I want a rosier scenario, and I’ve been given a rosier scenario, and until they suggest hospice, I favor the rosy scenario (and even with hospice, sometimes the reality is better than the prognosis).
Hemiplegia — paralysis on one side of the body—is the term I couldn’t recall.
At risk of a small digression, let me address this. You’re right that generally speaking, for the average person for-profit hospitals tend not to be the best in terms of patient experience and outcomes, but for another side of that coin, look up concierge health care, a system where money and privilege explicitly opens instant access to the best physicians and luxury amenities. The guy sure as hell isn’t being funded by Medicaid!
Whatever deceptions we may be being fed about McConnell’s true condition, I’m sure that the claim that he’s being assessed daily by multiple medical specialists is true, and that the average patient wouldn’t be getting such dedicated attention. FTR, I also believe that the “proof of life” pictures are genuine, but that they were staged to make his condition appear better than it actually is.
My mother got excellent treatment from Medicare, including, at times, being assessed daily by multiple medical specialists.
Did you possibly misread “Medicaid” as “Medicare”?
Not to mention just plain dead. But mentioned fairly often here.
Not impossible.
He is alive, not in a coma, not brain dead. BUT he is also not able to go back to the Senate floor- etc. A sick old man.
I was replying to you:
The average patient of his age is on Medicare.
I think he’s functional enough to smile for a picture but not much more beyond that or someone would have put him on speakerphone by now.
As I said upthread, we’ll know he’s dead when the guard detail sitting outside the hospital hauls ass over to his house, where they will immediately begin burning documents/destroying hard drives/etc.
Sorry, I thought you might have been responding to this line:
Still, my point stands. The latest estimates show that the average American who retires today will need around $185,500 in personal savings just for basic health care needs despite having access to Medicare. The equivalent cost in nations with universal health care is around $0.
With an estimated net worth of as much as $70 million, Mitch may not be in the same club as his billionaire cronies, but he certainly has the means to have access to the best concierge-style health care services, the kind of health care that he’s dedicated his career to ensuring that average Americans should NOT have unless they can pay for it themselves. For years he’s been a strident opponent of the Affordable Care Act.
After Michael Jackson died, IIRC, a bunch of hospital staff got in trouble, several of them fired and the hospital sued because a handful of people looked at his file. People that had access to it, but no reason to be looking at, for example, his death certificate.
When I say people that had access but no reason, these were people like a pathologist that was making labels for vials and got curious when they saw his name or nurses from entirely unrelated departments pulling up his file because they heard he was in the hospital. They didn’t know patient files have an audit trail.
Concerning Mitch’s proof of life evidence, the one and only objective in providing proof of life is to immediately and convincingly put the question to rest. Period. How is that best achieved? By taking a video, with at least one journalist present. This is neither complicated nor a high bar. Yet, he failed.
Yes, he’s obviously not well enough to be publicly videoed. Because that’s really easy, and would resolve these questions.
So, i think we know that he’s alive and that he’s in really bad shape. My guess is also “stroke”.
To be clear, I’m not saying that he is in a coma or brain-dead. I’m saying that what we know is consistent with anything up to or including those, and the lack of actual evidence from him or his family or office makes it seem likely that it’s something very extreme. Paralysis on one side of his body is, I think, about the bottom end of how bad it could be.
Posing a coma patient (or a brain-dead person!) to look reasonably alert would seem to be a hell of a challenge. I’m speaking from a position of ignorance, though — I’ve never physically handled a person in either condition.
I look at the statement @DrDeth posted upstream on 7/14, part of which specified that “a stroke” was ruled out.
I thought about that. How do you go on record with that statement knowing that McConnell’s true condition is likely to be eventually revealed? In other words you’d have to know conclusively that not only did he not have a stroke, but that your diagnosis is 100% and you didn’t miss anything.
There are a couple of ways out of the conundrum:
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Someone ruled out a stroke. Someone else later diagnosed a stroke, and the later diagnosis had not yet been revealed.
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The weaseliest of weasel words: “Yes, A stroke was ruled out. Specifically, a stroke on the left side of his brain. A stroke WAS diagnosed on the right side of his brain …”
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Straight prevarication. The person publically stating “stroke was ruled out” doesn’t have a medical license and can legally lie as required by whatever/whoever is driving all this.
Don’t forget “straight prevarication, and the liar could get in trouble for it if they’re caught, but they just assume that they’ll never get caught” and “straight prevarication, and the liar could get in trouble for it if they’re caught, but assume that political pressure will prevent them from getting in trouble”. Plus a side of “never even thought about the possible consequences of lying”.