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I'm not sure why the left doesn't think through the logical consequences of what they're trying to force onto everyone. Time and time again, I've seen them push and support pipe dream ideals in which it's blatantly clear that they've only thought about the outcome on the most superficial level.
Don't you want what your user name implies, informed consent for care of your choice during your end days? That is what this is about-period!
Doctors have been choosing what procedures are needed, can't be done, or when its time to give up the ghost since we've had witch doctors.
Someone who is 90 years old doesn't need a heat transplant if their liver is failing also.
"Death Panels" is just a marketing ploy, rationing of healthcare has occurred, is occurring, and will always occur regardless of what others will have you believe. Lets get real people, and worry about real problems.
Sorry to burst some bubbles here but, when ONE person makes the decision to cut off certain benefits to someone who is poor, knowing that without the possibility of a transplant would end their life, that is a sentence of death.
Of course, it IS only a death sentence for those who are unfortunate enough to become ill & unable to work.
This will make it easier for those who are lucky enough to have their health & able to provide a living for themselves & their family who believe the poor are just 'leeches on society anyway' to pretend it isn't happening.
Doctors have been choosing what procedures are needed, can't be done, or when its time to give up the ghost since we've had witch doctors.
Someone who is 90 years old doesn't need a heat transplant if their liver is failing also.
"Death Panels" is just a marketing ploy, rationing of healthcare has occurred, is occurring, and will always occur regardless of what others will have you believe. Lets get real people, and worry about real problems.
At last! Someone who has a voice of reason! Thank you!
We are often reminded that EVERY developed nation other than the US has universal health care in some form. We are rarely reminded that EVERY universal health care plan has an effective means to ration care or proscribe certain procedures for people in certain circumstances--often limiting treatment by age.
Note the deceptive transition in that paragraph from "EVERY" (in caps) to "often." The comment is a patently dishonest attempt to continue promoting fear that "death panels" are or have ever been a part of the actual discussion for health care reform in the United States.
We "are rarely reminded" of these things because when people "remind" us of them, they are actively trying to replace genuine and necessary discussion with fear, uncertainty and doubt. It is a cheap salesman's trick.
1. Make no mistake, we ration health care in the US today. The problems are at least two-fold:
A. We ration it stupidly.
B. Rationing decisions are being made by insurance companies and not by health care professionals or patients.
2. Discussions of end of life care (which I have been involved with several times in support of loved ones facing terminal illness) not only improve the quality of life for patients in their final months or years, but often result in the patients themselves making choices specifically designed to preserve their estates for descendants. Since we do not have universal health care in this country, such decisions continue to keep end of life care discussions both relevant and important.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marcopolo
There will not be "death panels" in the sense that individual cases will routinely be ruled on by a tribunal--but when we wake up to learn that (for example) heart bypass surgery will no longer be performed on people over age 70, many in America will conclude that the responsible bureaucracy is in fact a "death panel."
Then it is a very, very good thing that discussions of end-of-life care have exactly nothing to do with some third party (be it government or insurance company) denying heart bypass surgery to people over a certain age. If such a criterion were to be in operation, end of life discussions would hardly be necessary now, would they?
That said... today as we write "responsible bureaucracies" in this country are denying patients life saving care for criteria much less tangible than age of the patient. And the lack of universal health care coverage leads directly to the deaths of people at even young ages simply because they have the misfortune of being neither wealthy nor insured.
Sorry to burst some bubbles here but, when ONE person makes the decision to cut off certain benefits to someone who is poor, knowing that without the possibility of a transplant would end their life, that is a sentence of death.
Of course, it IS only a death sentence for those who are unfortunate enough to become ill & unable to work.
This will make it easier for those who are lucky enough to have their health & able to provide a living for themselves & their family who believe the poor are just 'leeches on society anyway' to pretend it isn't happening.
Exactly! For years this country has been practicing death panel decisions of life and death based on ability to pay, IQ, and country of origin or race.
The people hyping Obama's death panel crap just want to keep it status quo.
In other words, they want to keep discrimination of health care to match their own personal discriminations.
The true death panel is the prejudice of some Americans!
Quote:
Black Americans still get far fewer operations, tests, medications and other life-saving treatments than whites, despite years of efforts to erase racial disparities in health care and help African Americans live equally long and healthy lives, according to three major studies being published today.
Don't you want what your user name implies, informed consent for care of your choice during your end days?
Yes, I do, which is why I surely don't want to see this happening in the U.S.:
Quote:
"The waiting list to see a cardiologist is 18 months."
"Once seen by a cardiologist, the waiting time to have the investigations is six months, and only then can the patients get on the waiting list for cardiac surgery. "It's true that no-one is waiting over 10 months for surgery but the big problem is that the patient has to wait two years to get on that list."
"It means it's nearly three years in total - that's a lot of uncertainty and ill-health for people."
Note the deceptive transition in that paragraph from "EVERY" (in caps) to "often." The comment is a patently dishonest attempt to continue promoting fear that "death panels" are or have ever been a part of the actual discussion for health care reform in the United States.....
.....Discussions of end of life care (which I have been involved with several times in support of loved ones facing terminal illness) not only improve the quality of life for patients in their final months or years, but often result in the patients themselves making choices specifically designed to preserve their estates for descendants. Since we do not have universal health care in this country, such decisions continue to keep end of life care discussions both relevant and important....
......That said... today as we write "responsible bureaucracies" in this country are denying patients life saving care for criteria much less tangible than age of the patient. And the lack of universal health care coverage leads directly to the deaths of people at even young ages simply because they have the misfortune of being neither wealthy nor insured.
HD, no deception intended. When a hospice patient dying of cancer gets a hip transplant 14 days before the funeral, resources are being badly misallocated. (I am speaking of the case of the President's grandmother, but could cite similar cases in my family.) We cannot afford to be burying that kind of medical expense, especially when care for other people can do far more good.
I've been through those end-of-life discussions, I've been in on those end-of-life decisions. I have fought to let a dying person die, in accordance with their wishes, more than once. Those fights were against a medical establishment whose mission is to defer death at any price in money, pain, suffering, and anguish of loved ones. The existence of an open-checkbook Medicare system is a huge factor in promoting the current insane system.
So how do we get to a more rational allocation of expenditures? You can call it whatever you want, but "death panel" is not far off the mark. It is blatantly dishonest to frame the whole healthcare debate solely in terms of benefits of increased coverage and treatment when much of those advantages is financed by DECREASES in coverage and treatment for others. This is fundamental fact behind every universal coverage plan in the world. Can we get this out on the table and talk about it?
I appreciate your posts on this subject across many threads. They are thoughtful and informed. But we have differences.
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