re: #46 KingKenrod

I posted this in the overnight thread:
Mickey Kaus, writing for notorius right-wing hate site Slate.com, points out that Obama kinda sorta maybe endorsed the idea of a kinda sorta maybe non-binding panel that kinda sorta maybe might be construed as a death panel. By some people.

[Link: www.slate.com…]

I think the purpose of these panels is not to make death decisions, but to make the hard decisions politicians don’t want to be blamed for. Where these groups go in the future is anybody’s guess.

Your reference was quoting Obama statements made in April. On June 24th, during the ABC health care infomercial, Obama responded to the question of taking into account an elderly woman’s ‘will to live’ in relation to the expediency of giving her a pacemaker, with this:

“I don’t think that we can make judgments based on people’s spirit. Uh, that would be, uh, a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that, uh, say we are gonna provide good quality care for all people.”

“END-OF-LIFE CARE IS ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT SETS OF DECISIONS THAT WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE”
(snip)
At least WE can let doctors know - and your mom know - that you know what? Maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off, uh, not having the surgery, but taking, uhhh, the painkiller.”

“WE”, and, “…decisions that WE’re going to have to make”, is not in reference to ourselves/our families/our doctors. He’s talking about the government, and the “difficult sets of decisions” the government is going to have to make.

If he didn’t mean the government - there would be absolutely no reason for him to say “WE”. He would have said “you”, “your family”, “your doctor”.

Bottom line: government pays, government sets the goalposts.
No, there won’t be “black helicopters”, or “death squads” - or even “death panels”.

There WILL be a looseleaf notebook distributed to each and every “participant” in national health care (hospital, doctors, social services entities, etc.), which will contain every rule, every regulation, and every procedure of administration. And those procedures will include the verbal procedure for every possible scenario relating to each physical illness and impairment for every age group. And it will have a section particular to the “problems” relating to the end-of-life scenarios.

Anyone who has ever worked for a government-funded entity knows from where I speak, and knows it to be the truth.

Everyone else - EVERYone else, would be prudent to re-read the above quote of Obama’s statements (and the Kausfiles link) and realize that everything he says must be carefully and thoughtfully parsed.

link: printthis.clickability.com…