A Talking Points Memo article about the falsehood of Palin's hysterical claim regarding "death panels" is what you have to show for yourself? Or did I miss a commenter's post that said "No, she was right"?

Show your work.

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I am really very flattered that you both have wholeheartedly adopted my phrase as your own personal retort to anyone who disagrees with you.

It's funny how the left is so good at picking up sound bites that suit their agenda. Especially when they aren't willing to do what it is they are requesting of others.

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I love how you're able to stick to the facts and not get all personal in your replies.

Would you mind referencing the clause or section or any thing at all in the Constitution that allows us to disregard the rest of the document when things aren't going our way?

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If I were you, I'd be editing out the lie ("The thing is - death panels did exist in the legislation") that bclinger continues to spread, out of shear embarrassment too. Good for you!

Just noticed your signature. It certainly lives up to your treatment of your "challenge" to the statistical analysis of a certain population study.

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There are no death panels?

http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/08/d...ing-in-oregon/

Another subject that has links there just for you to click on.

We cannot afford any longer? Really? Just like we can afford out of control medical related law suits! The type that made Johnny "I didn't" Edwards a multi-millionaire.

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It is exceedingly evident that neither of you know of "Google Search." Try it. You might like it.

It was in the senate version and taken out after the public found out about it.

Death panels do exist and when you yourself mentioned that emergency health care can no longer afford...well, take it like that - when the money runs out, death is the way out and who makes that decision? The government.

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That is it right there. The Constitution only fits the needs of the liberal and his/her moments of need. Otherwise make room for the "feel good" that liberals have and the hate they espouse at others who do not agree with them.

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And the lie continues.

In Oregon, assisted-suicide is legal with 2 physicians attending.

The Op-Ed piece you post tries desperately to tie assisted-suicide to healthcare reform, but fails miserably.

Where in legislation were "death panels" ever referenced?

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There was to be a "death panel", and it had nothing to do with the eol issue in Oregon.

The "death panel", early in the national debate, was the term applied to Obama's selected team of "experts" that would decide which procedures would be best for each patient based on data, best practice, and BUDGET. This panel was called a "death panel" because of the rationing issue, specific examples like denying a hip replacement to an 80 year old because of rationing needs, but allowing it for a 40 year old because he'll get more out of it, were cited. In effect, the lack of the hip replacement could be shown to contribute to the decline and ultimate demise of the elderly patient. At the very least, it would greatly reduce their quality of life. But hey, they've lived their lives, right? Why should they complain. They've taken enough from the rest of us already.....

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Thanks for correcting bclinger. It's not nice to promote misinformation.

I'm looking forward to your specific, cited reference for your claims just as I am bclinger's. Was this included in a Senate resolution or proposal, as bclinger suggests?

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Help yourself. It's called "google". I don't have to reach out and grab a "specific cited reference" for you every time I post a comment.

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I just figured since you (and bclinger) are so intimately familiar with the senate proposal and all ... and its devious plan to refuse granny a hip replacement ... They usually have numbers assigned to make them easy to reference, if that helps.

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Obama's Death Panels: Whose Life Is It, Anyway?
By EvanMadianosMD - Posted on August 16th, 2009

"The big story of the past week is the controversy over "death panels"— Sarah Palin's term for the idea that "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."

The basis for this claim is two different provisions put forward in various versions of the (still not completely written) health-care bill.

The first is a proposal to establish a panel of medical experts who would determine which treatments are supposedly most cost-effective and thus will be paid for under a government-run system—and which will not.

In a New York Times interview in April, which makes very instructive reading in the current debate, President Obama explained that "part of what I think government can do effectively" is to be a "broker" "between patient and provider"—that is, between you and your doctor—"in assessing and evaluating treatment options."

He continued: "And certainly that's true when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid, where the taxpayers are footing the bill and we have an obligation to get those costs under control."

The example he gives? Whether his ailing grandmother should have been allowed a hip replacement in the final months of her life.

"End-of-life care" he said, is an area where "you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right? I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here."

So who is going to make the decisions about grandma's cancer treatment and hip replacement surgery?

"It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance."

Just don't call it a "death panel"!

Other countries already have such a system. In Britain, it's known by the creepy, Orwellian acronym NICE, for National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and it is the panel charged with deciding, for example, that a cancer drug that would extend your life by six months is too expensive because you don't have enough "quality adjusted life years" remaining to justify your cost to the National Health Service.

This is a rationing board for government-provided medical care, based on a bureaucratic formula that tells you how much your life is worth to the state.

The second provision in the current health-care reform, covered in more detail by Palin in a follow-up posting, is a proposal—actually included in a Senate version of the bill until Palin pointed it out—that would give doctors a financial incentive to approach their patients about "end-of-life planning." This would likely have the effect of pushing doctors to discourage additional treatment in the last years and months of one's life in order to cut costs for the government.

Obama has dismissed these concerns—somewhat flippantly—as mere "rumors." But they are totally in keeping with his own statements and with the logical consequences and overall direction of the bill.

And worse: the fears about "death panels" and rationing of care for the elderly are validated by the moral justifications offered for the health-care bill in the first place.

In a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal does an excellent job of describing the economic factors that will necessitate rationing of health-care and denial of care for the elderly. But it is important to grasp that this is not an accidental or unintended consequence of government control of health care. It is an intended consequence, following directly from the basic moral premise behind the health-care bill: the premise that your medical care is the business of "society."

Thus, when discussing the "difficult moral issues" that are raised by end-of-life care, President Obama says, "I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place," leading to Obama's idea of an "independent group" being put in charge.

Is this how you would naturally think about decisions regarding the end of your own life? Would you say, "let's have a democratic conversation about it"? Or would you respond that this is your life and hence your decision, which cannot morally be made by anyone else?

Jack Wakeland sent me an e-mail yesterday which captured how these "end-of-life" decisions—let's put it bluntly: decisions about dying—are currently, and properly, treated.

"When a patient is terminally ill, it is entirely proper and legitimate for doctors to push for frank discussions between the patient and his family about whether or not the medical profession can really do anything for him other than alleviate pain. It is entirely proper and legitimate for the patient to consider the financial burden he is imposing on his family if they are supporting him, or the financial loss to his family if he intends to bequeath to them what remains of his estate after his death.

This kind of end-of-life cost/benefit analysis is a deeply personal issue. It is so intensely personal that one's own family members—including one's own wife or husband—may not legitimately involve themselves in the decision unless they're asked by the one who is to die."

Yet Obama is proposing to turn the subject over to a whole bunch of strangers, to an "independent group" "guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists."

Under what morality is this acceptable?

Ask one of the "ethicists": Ezekiel Emanuel, a physician, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and a "special advisor for health policy" in the Obama administration. Dr. Emanuel has advocated the denial of care based on a viciously thorough, consistent version of collectivism: the premise that an individual's life is only valuable insofar as he is valuable to the collective.

In an article titled "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions," published in the medical journal The Lancet in January of this year, Dr. Emanuel and his co-authors advocate "a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated."

Get that? We're going to "allocate" "chances that are attenuated." Just don't call it a "death panel"!

The administration's toadying defenders in the press have leapt to object that Dr. Emanuel was "only addressing extreme cases like organ donation," but the examples that lead his article include "beds in intensive care units," penicillin, and kidney dialysis (which were once quite scarce). Yet what is important is not so much the treatments that are to be rationed, but the principle on which they would be rationed.

In a 1996 article, Emanuel advocated government guarantees of health care for those treatments that would make possible the "full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations," while "services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed."

Thus, it is "public participation"—a person's usefulness to society—that is the criterion by which health care is granted or "attenuated."

Of course, this raises the specter of the politicization of health care. After all, are the tea party protesters good "participating citizens"? Not according to Nancy Pelosi. So maybe those good "participating citizens" in the Service Employees International Union should be first in line for the state's allocation of scarce health-care resources.

Decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the left still adheres to the philosophy of collectivism—the ghostly influence of the twisted moral code that inspired the murder of millions in the 20th century.

The American people sense this, and that is why they are recoiling in horror from Obama's plan for a greater government role in health care. Once the government sets itself up as the allocator of "society's" resources, the people—and especially the elderly—are afraid that they will be granted or denied care based on some nebulous criteria that attempts to measure how useful they have been or will be to society.

Greater government control puts the individual's life at the mercy of collective—which means the state. And that is what makes people justifiable terrified of Obama's health-care plan.

The individual is not a mere cog in the collective and cannot be regarded as such—or discarded when he is no longer useful to the state. That view is a fundamental rejection of the founding ideal of this nation: that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That means that each individual life is an end in itself, an irreplaceable value whose fate can only be decided by one person: the individual himself.

Any legislation that threatens to undermine this code of American individualism must be thoroughly and immediately rejected. It's time to convene a death panel to discuss end-of-life planning for Obama's health-care bill.
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An Op-Ed by a Radiologist, far removed from patient care, about the already known provisions for providing end of life services ["During those consultations, practitioners are to explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services"] is what this tizzy is all about? You're kidding, right?

If that's the standard, somebody should do something to reform Pastoral Care too since it has always been in the practice of digging the grave and throwing dirt on granny's face (while praying for her mortal soul, of course!).

This is absolutely laugh-out-loud ridiculous to be equated with "death panels" and is only regurgitating what is already known to be misrepresentative.

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The end result is the same. A select person/group makes the decision. That is what is done in Oregon and that is what was going to be done on the federal level.

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You need to listen to more than one source. You need to then go and look for the information. It is there. It was in the senate version and subsequently removed after Obama stated it was not there and then found to be there.

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Take responsibility for your own education.

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My wife is in home-based hospice at this time due to lung cancer.
When she was initially diagnosed, the 1st doctor took the time to speak to us where we were, where we were going, and what to expect. When an oncologist was assigned to her, the routine was repeated. When the radiologist began treating her, the routine was repeated. Standard stuff. However, the government is now mandating it according to their standards and when things like "responsibility to family" is stressed over quality of life on a personal level, then we really have an ethics problem.

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There is so much garbage, misinformation and dunderheadedness in that piece that it's hard to know where to begin. Do you think that determining which treatments are effective and which are not is a bad thing? Would you rather be spending your money on things that have been proven to not be helpful because your granny's sister wants it done, even though it will not improve her quality of life or care? If so, and that's the attitude everybody has, we're all screwed. We cannot afford that. Try looking at the work of the US Preventive Services Task Force (link) who convene world experts to determine what screening tests are safe and effective. Read again: world experts, not government doctors. If you decide you want to have a screening MRI of your entire body just to check on things, should we pay for it? Should your private insurance company pay for it?

For a number of years I volunteered to serve on a panel that was put together by a local non-profit health plan (yes, a private insurance company). The group, called the Technology Assessment Panel, was composed of private docs and academic docs. None of them worked for the HMO. Our job was to review requests by docs who had contracts with the HMO who wanted to add specific technologies or treatments to the list of approved interventions. If we said no, there's no evidence from the literature that that new replacement finger joint is any better than the traditional joint, regardless of what the private orthopedist thinks, then it was not paid for by the HMO....and guess what? If that was what we decided, it almost always saved them money, because new stuff costs a lot more than old stuff. But cost never was a part of the discussion,only efficacy (and effectiveness....you might look up the difference if you don't know it). Is there something wrong with that approach? The same thing is done in hospitals to determine what drugs should be added to the forumulary to avoid bias. Is what you want no control whatsoever, so if you want to see a neurosurgeon for a simple headache you can do it and your insurance company will pay for it? Does any of that assessment of quality or efficacy sound like a death panel to you? If so, you might want to think about it for a while. Death panel...crap. There are no death panels, there never have been in this country.

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Wrong. Times 40!

REPORT: The media have debunked the death panels -- more than 40 times over

Under reform, the patient is always the one to make their own healthcare decisions. Just as today.

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