"The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law...."
Is it wrong to use the inflammatory rhetorical term "death panels"? It sure gets results!
January 5, 2011
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The pragmatic Mr. O.
Is it wrong to use the inflammatory rhetorical term "death panels"? It sure gets results!
I dunno, Althouse. Maybe you should go back an censor what you just wrote and replace "death panels" with "the d-p word." It's all the rage!
I wonder what other provisions will wilt away in the sunlight? Mandates? 10-99s?
I guess we all except the idea that unelected bureaucrats and white house goblins can add to and strike from federal regulations on a whim.
Hey if it serves the right wing's desire to screw over a fairly large but unempowered segment of the people I say go for it.
Hey if it serves the right wing's desire to screw over a fairly large but unempowered segment of the people I say go for it.
Did you forget to include the part of that sentence that caused it to make sense?
chicken..
Another for Miss Sarah. Nobody liked or wanted it except the Pelosi types.
For once, The Zero showed a little sense.
He also blinked.
I have a feeling the EPA is in for interesting times.
HDHouse said...
Hey if it serves the right wing's desire to screw over a fairly large but unempowered segment of the people I say go for it.
You mean people over 50 who didn't want their family doctor high pressuring them into Dr Berwick's NHS assisted suicide program?
The ones who put the Republicans in charge of the House?
That "fairly large but unempowered segment of the people"?
@HDHouse
"Hey if it serves the right wing's desire to screw over a fairly large but unempowered segment of the people I say go for it."
Ignorance is bliss, eh, HD?
Here is my 'HDHouse' version/response:
Hey, if it serves the left wing's desire to butt fuck a majority of the US population, taxpaying and working citizens generally satisfied with their health care choices and not wishing to piss off the people entrusted with their care, I say fuck you.
But but but...how could the death panels be taken out? There weren't any death panels! Everybody who supports the legislation says so!
HDHouse said...
Hey if it serves the right wing's desire to screw over a fairly large but unempowered segment of the people I say go for it.
Really? Which ones, you vacuous diddler? Which segment? Your addled thought processes are getting worse, crusty.
i'm sure you pinheads saw the latest polling on showing the majority viewed the plan favorably in spite of 2 years of non-stop lying and distortions - as evidenced here by some fairly silly comments by the neuvo spinners posting above.
If it serves the leftie leader's desire to give their buddies big money deals while getting kick backs themselves and putting people in place for future control all while screwing the American people - I say we keep up the pressure and stop them.
(ya, I know, not as poetic as dont tread)
@HD
You are in the shrill minority. Your 'poll proof' is bullshit. So is the 'plan' which was unknown when voted on by the leftist lackeys.
@The Musket
Keep firing and keep the powder dry. Clowns like HD are instructive and good to have around for target practice.
The advisory sessions were only a minor feature; if you turn health care into a social program, there necessarily must be "death panels" and quite real ones making decisions about treatments to be given or not given.
The Obama/Soros cabal in the White House is one big death panel. Every move they have made has been a creative attempt to remove life support from the American economy and then necessarily its military strength. Their goal is to kill off most of the Americans, whom they think have no purpose in living anymore anyway, and to return the earth to a natural pre-human state. These are very ill people. They need to be removed from office and replaced by common sense men and women filled with a faith in America.
HD was referring to his heroes, the US taxpayers, of course. Death panels were about the only provision in the law that would actually cut costs for the government. Everything else goes the other way.
The Obama/Soros cabal in the White House is one big death panel. Every move they have made has been a creative attempt to remove life support from the American economy and let its military strength die. Their goal is simply to kill off most of the Americans, whom they think have no purpose in living anymore anyway, and to return the earth to a natural pre-human state. These are very ill people. They need to be removed from office and replaced by common sense men and women filled with a faith in America's purpose. Ask Sarah Palin what that is...she knows.
This is one more example of the dubious concern of government over quality and the new found concern about people being given the choice of end of life care. In 1978, we started to get the government nagging about how quality was important. The funny part was that quality was always measured as cost. When the bill payer starts to ask you if you really want this useless expensive treatment when you are old, your first reaction is to grab your wallet.
HDHouse said...
i'm sure you pinheads saw the latest polling on showing the majority viewed the plan favorably in spite of 2 years of non-stop lying and distortions - as evidenced here by some fairly silly comments by the neuvo spinners posting above
No, but I saw the Rassmussen poll that has people against ZeroCare 60 - 36.
Death panels reminds us of Nazism.
They were motorized death panels.
One looks back to the death of the gladiators and at least there's some glory for them, or the possibility of living to fight another day.
Mengele and co. reduced it to a cold procedure.
Palin had a stroke of genius there.
But didn't the Commerce Clause already put paid to the whole charade?
"a fairly large but unempowered segment of the people"
In the context of the death panels, the vulnerable people are the elderly who will be encouraged to sign documents that will make it possible for doctors at some later time to withhold treatment and thus hasten their deaths.
Hi Ann...what death panels do you refer to?
or are you simply adopting the rhetorical device du jour so that the mongers who seem to monopolize your blog of late have their share of red meat.
i hope a woman of your intelligence isn't buying into this straw dog and i wasn't referring to the elderly - i was referring to those completely outside the system who see some glimmer of hope for health care and access and because of this death panel bullshit come out on the wrong end of the fight yet once again and were not even aware that they were in the battle.
It was wrong of Obama to, typically, try to ram this through by administrative dictate after Congress had expressly removed the provision from the law, so he gets no credit for not doing what he should not have done in the first place.
That said, if any doctor wants to ask his patients if they have a healthcare power of attorney or advance directive, there is and was nothing stopping them from doing so on their own initiative. In fact, it probably is done everywhere as part of getting a patient's medical history.
A law or regulation mandating such things was not necessary, and it certainly was not necessary for Medicare to pay for doctors to ask such a 10-second question.
But beyond the wasteful spending to pay doctors for this, of course this was never about informed consent or patients knowing their rights and options. This was always about advocating and promoting "end of life" agendas, i.e. getting grandma to agree to pulling the plug or, as Obama put it himself, maybe she's better off without the hip replacement.
Even though he backed down this time, don't think that he'll let this drop. The culture of death will continue apace.
"i wasn't referring to the elderly"
Because you can't discuss the issue at hand. Face it, the new plan will terminate old people and use those funds to pay for "those completely outside the system."
It was some serious evil to pit the elderly against the uninsured, and cynical to offer "some glimmer of hope" and then yank it away because the paln was so horrible.
What assholes are those architects.
They will delete the references, but you can be sure they will reimburse for the consultation.
Plus it won't be a death panel. If you follow the advice of the Administration "experts," you will make this directive in consultation with one person: your doctor. Better a lawyer or a minister than someone who may tire of caring for you with high maintenance and low pay.
And, to set the record straight, the "death panels" that Palin referenced were NOT this issue, advocating DNRs and pro-death advance directives.
Rather, the "death panels" referred to the various panels of government bureaucrats and "experts" who would decide who gets treatment and who doesn't, what treatments get paid for and which ones don't. One example of that was the trial balloon, made of lead, by an administration task force that advocated women stop getting mammograms at age 40 and waiting until 50 instead, even though it would have led to many women being undetected for breast cancer.
Statement on the Current Health Care Debate
by Sarah Palin on Friday, August 7, 2009 at 1:53pm.
As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. 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.
Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.
Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.
We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.
Actually the death panels are the groups of bureaucrats who will decide what we must buy and what we will not be allowed to buy. They will decide what treatments will be allowed and who will be allowed to receive them.
This sort of rationing based on politics is the hallmark of all socialist systems. That is why the Wikileaks documents showed the Cuban diplomats being deathly afraid of the average citizen being shown the hospitals that existed only for foreigners and those at the top level of the government.
We just had construction halted on 45 hospitals due to just one provision of this damned atrocity. It will only get worse if it is not destroyed root and branch.
In the context of the death panels, the vulnerable people are the elderly who will be encouraged to sign documents that will make it possible for doctors at some later time to withhold treatment and thus hasten their deaths.
In the context of death panels?
Wait, are the "death panels" the visit with your doctor at which you discuss your care plan, or are the "death panels" something else?
Or am I not supposed to be looking for rhetorical clarity?
some glimmer of hope for health care
Health care is hopeless in this country. They're just keeping us alive longer and longer so our corpses will be covered in wrinkles and age spots.
...i was referring to those completely outside the system who see some glimmer of hope for health care and access and because of this death panel bullshit come out on the wrong end of the fight...
Death panels for all! Miniature American flags for others.
This phrasing, "to withhold treatment and thus hasten their deaths," is based, I suspect, on a couple of poorly formed assumptions.
Deciding to forgo treatment is different than deciding to withhold care.
Pursuing aggressive treatment may, at times, actually hasten one's death.
Here's an interesting study, comparing outcomes for hospice patients and non-hospice patients. Across groups studied, hospice enrollment is not significantly associated with shorter survival, but for certain terminally ill patients, hospice is associated with longer survival times.
Brian, the correct phrasing is "Death panels for some. Miniature American flags for everyone."
No one is seriously considering a system in which every patient is entitled to every treatment he or she desires.
The elderly and babies are both inconvenient truths, and neither group votes reliably for Democrats.
The elderly and babies are both inconvenient truths, and neither group votes reliably for Democrats.
Too bad the same can't be said of the dead.
peter hoh said...
No one is seriously considering a system in which every patient is entitled to every treatment he or she desires.
Tell that to the lady who thought that President Erkle was going to pay her rent or the other one that wanted a new kitchen.
wv = slymeat = an HDHouse favorite ala Titus
@Bender...my my quoting Sarah Palin on health care is like quoting Glenn Beck on history.
Both are vaguely aware what the topic is but neither knows what the topic is about.
Both are vaguely aware what the topic is but neither knows what the topic is about.
Oh God! It's HenHouse breaking his arm again, patting himself on the back about his incredible IQ, which of course is a non-existent social construct.
And this moron wrote, believe it or not that: "Muslims are the new Jews."
You're about a dozen IQ points short of 100 yourself, HenHouse. Of course, no worries as it is just a social construct.
Pursuing aggressive treatment may, at times, actually hasten one's death.
Ah, so Obamacare is premised on the assumption that health care is bad for you? That explains a thing or two.
Just because using the term "death panels" works does not mean it is really true or accurate. It is demagoguery. I am not a liberal and I am not a supporter of Obamacare, but I work in the health care industry and doctors do talk to patients about this already. Obviously, when a person is dying or is very old and their body is failing...they need to talk to their doctor about what kind of care they need and want. The idea that you can call a lawyer instead of a doctor to talk about dying is just ridiculous.
People have been thinking about issues like living wills and advanced directives for a long time, there is nothing new or scary about it..but the idea that if a doctor spends a half hour talking to someone on medicare about long term care that the result will be "death panels" strikes me as absurd. It really does.
The truth is we need to cut spending and the size of government and that means conservatives need to think about the costs of long term care..they can't have it both ways.
HDHouse said...
i'm sure you pinheads saw the latest polling on showing the majority viewed the plan favorably in spite of 2 years of non-stop lying and distortion
Hysterical.
You mean like this poll?
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows - for the second week in a row - that 60% favor repeal of the national health care law
You are a blathering idiot.
PS, you can't name any "distortions" at all.
@ bender:
Rather, the "death panels" referred to the various panels of government bureaucrats and "experts" who would decide who gets treatment and who doesn't, what treatments get paid for and which ones don't.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Even the Zero talked about this,
THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think 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.
Q: So how do you — how do we deal with it?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, 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. 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.
How about "we" don't "make those decisions" at all???
David:
When a person is dying, they need their doctor not their lawyer. If they need hospice or if they need painkillers or home health care..whatever they need has to be prescribed by a physician. He has to be part of the discussion.
For years I have been hearing that health care needs to be between a doctor and his patient..now it seems that a lot of people want to drag a lawyer into the mix.
.....Govenor Brewer weighs in on the death panel issue......
"The truth is we need to cut spending and the size of government and that means conservatives need to think about the costs of long term care..they can't have it both ways."
No, it means citizens need to think about it, and recognize that FDR and Johnson and all the great liberal spenders of the last 80 years have made many promises they cannot keep, ones they knew at the time they couldn't keep.
The leftist threw a massive bacchanal, and spent the last few decades drunk and throwing money around.
Now it's Saturday morning, and we have a national hangover, we're broke, and we promised the same $50 in our pocket to at least a dozen different people, and we got no one left to borrow it from.
'Conservatives' can't fix this for you; not this time, not by 'thinking about long term care'. We're way past white papers and national conversations.
Citizens themselves are about to become acutely aware that bills have come due without the means to pay for them.
The truth is we need to cut spending and the size of government and that means conservatives need to think about the costs of long term care.
I am for cutting spending.
I think Medicare & Social Security should be only for the truly indigent.
That would save a trillion, at a minimum, over the next decade.
Your medical bills and "long term care" are not my problem.
Good luck.
Bender & Jay .. thanks very much for quoting Palin's original post. It drives me nuts that so many conservatives have accepted the liberal redefinition of Sarah Palin's language as some how being related to end of life planning, and wind up fighting this battle on ground of their chosing, not ours.
Pogo, your little history of the health care spending orgy conveniently omits the massive expansion of entitlements known as Medicare, Part D.
Very true.
It's been a bipartisan bacchanal since the GOP ceded the moral narrative to the left, socialism by the installment plan arose, and the quibbles were only about social issues and the military.
I don't understand the opposition to living wills, or authorizing payments to doctors for discussing them with their patients. With the Wisconsin living will [pdf] you can specify with great detail what measures you want (or don't).
typical democrat bait and switch.
first we have to reform health care because every patient is entitled to every treatment he or she desires.
the when it comes time to pay for it, no one was ever seriously considering a system in which every patient is entitled to every treatment he or she desires.
Terrye said...
David:
When a person is dying, they need their doctor not their lawyer.
You miss the entire point of the discussion. These advance directives are made while the "patient" is reasonably healthy and not in any imminent danger. They have the effect of giving the doctor authority over end of life decisions that might better be made by family members, or family members in consultation with the doctor. The doctor is unlikely to have access to all of the personal and social factors going into the decisions, and also has a conflict of interest. The conflict is that it costs the doctor more to care for elderly or dying patients that they will get in reimbursement.
That is why some trusted person--family, lawyer, minister--should be involved in making these arrangements, and making the decisions when the time comes.
Is it wrong to use the inflammatory rhetorical term "death panels"? It sure gets results!
Never let a serious crisis go to waste Thus Spake Rahm Emanuel.
"Is it wrong to use the inflammatory rhetorical term "death panels"?"
The left pioneered the use of carefully marketed language for political gain. It's completely disingenuous for them to complain when those who oppose their litany employ the same tactic.
HD;
screw over a fairly large but unempowered segment of the people I say go for it.
You mean the elderly? Powerless? And I thought a big criticism of the Tea Partiers was that they were all just old white folks.
Govenor Brewer weighs in on the death panel issue
Yes, her administration when faced with an untenable short term Medicaid budget opted to stop payment for liver transplants in a certain disease population (AHCCCS stopped covering liver transplants for hepatitis C because of the procedure's low long-term success rate.)
The research regarding this is concerning to say the least (but not hopeless). The cost is huge, not just because of the costs of the transplant but also because of the much closer and more expensive surveillance for recurrent Hep C and then the expensive treatment for it when it recurs. So yes a very difficult issue and one you'd rather not face if you're in a position of setting health policy or payment.
Interestingly, the opposition in the AZ legislature is coming from the left (an easy target for Democrats) and the right (i.e. Rep. Kavanaugh, you know the guy who wants to repeal the 14th Amendment)
But I guess I'm confused. Wouldn't you want to encourage actions by Gov. Brewer regarding cost containment as a sign of rationality within the Republican party. Or is the point of your game simply to ridicule the other side?
Marcus Welby, MD probably would discuss end of life treatment with his elderly patients, and I do not see anything wrong with that; in fact I think he should, but that is between Dr. Welby and his patients and is none of the Government's business.
The Government getting involved and writing regulations for when and how the the insurance companies shall pay for such consultations, which is apparently what it is about so far, won't stop there, and it is rife with potential for mischief.
Just consider the "zero tolerance" policies adopted by the public school systems across the country regarding "drugs" and "weapons" on schoolgrounds in response to clamors in the media and kneejerk legislation.
Obama has already been forced to exempt millions of employees whose health care plans would have been destroyed by Obamacare, and now he's pulling the plug on a major Lib initiative like death panels, so maybe we won 't have to repeal this thing after all. It'll collapse under the weight of it's own stupidity.
And as for the "death panels", as previously mentioned this doesn't pertain to some entity that would judge the effectiveness of certain interventions and out of that make coverage/payment policy.
This was the proposed Medicare policy regarding payment for physician counselling visits for "end of life planning" (I'd rather call it "advance care planning"). I'm a big proponent of such planning for everyone. In the absence of clear direction, the medical community will often "do everything" and sadly, family members, who often don't know of their loved one's wishes, will agree with such efforts.
I view it as an opportunity for a person to declare to the medical community "If I'm in this condition (i.e. bedridden and unable to meaningfully interact) I don't want this (i.e. artificial ventilation, artificial feeding). Frankly, most patients prefer the "everything that will a difference" route which of course leads family and health care folks to try to figure out what the person meant by "a difference" (i.e. continued breathing? alertness? etc)
The mistake I see in this proposal is the notion that explicitly paying for it will make it happen. Medicare already covers visits that are predominantly for "counselling". This proposal would inevitably draw political flak. A Medicare payment rule won't "make us change", a societal and physician community attitudinal change regarding such discussions will need to change. That will take time.
Lincoln, the language in the Senate bill about reimbursing doctors for consulting with their patients about end of life care was put in by Johnny Isakson, Republican from Georgia.
So much for it being a "major Lib initiative."
A consistent feature of Liberal legislation is that it results in consequences that has the Liberals crying, "But we didn't mean for that to happen!"
People just do not react the way Liberals think they should.
In fact, the 2008 Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act, which passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate though enacted over President George W. Bush’s veto, specifically added 'end-of-life planning' to the list of things that could be covered as part of Medicare’s Initial Preventive Physical Examination
And before he jumped on the death panels bandwagon, Newt Gingrich praised advanced care directives as a way to control costs and provide good care:
Let me give you an example that I find fascinating. In LaCrosse, Wis., the Gundersen Lutheran Hospital system is, according to the Dartmouth [Atlas of Health Care], the least expensive place in America for the last two years of life. They have an advanced directive program, and over 90 percent of their patients have an advanced directive. They have electronic health records, so everybody on the staff knows what the advanced directive is. They have a very strong palliative care program for using drugs to manage pain. They have a hospice program.
The result is today, the last two years of your life in costs are about $13,600. The last two years of your life at U.C.L.A. are $58,000. Now, why should Medicare pay $58,000 for the same outcome if it could pay $13,600? You can say, well, Los Angeles is more expensive; they do a couple of more complicated things. So fine. So let’s say it ought to be $20,000 at U.C.L.A. That’s still [$38,000] less than it currently is.
Under the weight of its own
Stupidity
peter hoh said...
Yeah, bercause we know nobody with an (R) next to their name would ever endorse a Lib policy, right?
And so the challenge for each and everyone of you on this blog:
Do you know what sort of medical interventions (i.e. mechanical ventilation, nutrition through a tube in your stomach) you would want if you were in a state where you could not care for yourself, feed yourself or communicate your wishes? And if you do know, have you 1) communicated these wishes to those people who will need to speak for you when you can't 2) communicated these wishes to the doctors who will be involved with your care 3)written these wishes down (doesn't require a lawyer).
If you haven't, DO IT TODAY (one of many sites that has the documents available for download)
Lincoln, reimbursing doctors for helping patients make advanced care directives is not a liberal position.
Newt Gingrich praised advanced care directives as a way to control costs and provide good care:
Actually, the quote you provided, does not demonstrate this.
Further, you do understand that a hospital system offering a service and the government mandating something and rationing care if said something is not done are 2 different things, right you little liar?
More Newt.
Jay, you understand that Medicare reimbursing doctors for helping their patients with advanced care directives is not the same as a government mandate or rationing, don't you?
Do you or our resident doctor, Pogo, think that doctors should not be reimbursed for discussing advanced care directives with their patients?
Nobody is saying "end of life counseling" is bad. What people like me are saying is that we know Government programs and how they work. Every suggestion becomes a mandate and the "budget" is the ultimate arbiter of what is "right". If this is all so innocuous then why did Obama first lie about it, then hide it, then pull it?
wv:canso
"Hey, you can't pull that plug!"
"Canso, says so right here on this form, buh-bye."
Jay, in the quote I provide, Gingrich links the advanced care directive program and electronic records (which allow everyone who takes care of a patient to know about his or her advanced care directive) to the low cost of end of life care at Gundersen.
"Lincoln, reimbursing doctors for helping patients make advanced care directives is not a liberal position."
Yes, it its. Like all lib/prog stuff it assumes the average citizen is too stupid to make decisions on their own. They need gubmint to show them how to live and gubmint to show them how to die.
Here's a video showing how Gundersen explains its approach to advanced care directives: Respecting Choices.
I am not responsible for the music that plays in the background.
Lars, you really want to argue that the conservative position is to oppose advanced care directives?
While Palin was governor, she signed an order and officially proclaimed a “Healthcare Decisions Day." I guess that makes her a liberal, too.
Some of the text from her proclamation:
WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions.
Lincoln, do you oppose using Medicare funds or any other government reimbursement to pay doctors for sitting down with their patients to go over advanced care directives?
My support for advanced care directives has nothing to do with my skepticism about government programs or my misgivings about Obamacare.
Jay, in the quote I provide, Gingrich links the advanced care directive program and electronic records
Note how you now admit that e-records has something to do with it.
"Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions..."
Raising public awareness is fine, if it ever stopped there.
Remember when the Government "raised awareness" of global warming"? How long until they were banning plastic bags and lightbulbs? 10 years, max? Same thing happens whenever the rapacious bureaucracy gets involved. You want to do PSA's on the public dime, fine. Anything beyond that will ultimately be coercive, it's the nature of the beast.
Jay, you understand that Medicare reimbursing doctors for helping their patients with advanced care directives is not the same as a government mandate or rationing, don't you?
Hysterical.
Um, you can't tell me the last time the government didn't use the power of the purse to command & control.
Jay, you understand that Medicare reimbursing doctors for helping their patients with advanced care directives is not the same as a government mandate or rationing, don't you?
As lincolntf notes above, it is only a matter of time when they take you off the kidney transplant list when you don't have an advanced care directive.
Then, after they do that, they're going to edit your little directive if you're say 90 or above anyway to control costs.
I think you should go on making semantic points though. It gives you credidibility.
Really, it does.
Jay, did I ever deny that e-records had anything to do with it?
Gingrich ties the cost savings to advanced care directives.
If you study up on the Gundersen model, you'll learn that there was a community-wide effort to get people to start thinking about advanced care directives. If I recall correctly, everyone admitted into the Gundersen medical system is asked if they currently have an advanced care directive on file. If not, they are encouraged to fill one out.
It's not so much the effect of the term "death panels", it's the getting caught in a blatant, obvious and egregious act of complete and utter dishonesty.
Get's 'em (not) every time.
For years I have been hearing that health care needs to be between a doctor and his patient..now it seems that a lot of people want to drag a lawyer into the mix.
But a DNR/DNI is a legal document. I think people need to talk to a doctor AND a lawyer, but it’s really none of the government’s business, especially when they have a financial stake. (although I agree, this is not what I consider “death panels”, it is something that has potential to be misused so we should be a bit careful with it).
Lars, you really want to argue that the conservative position is to oppose advanced care directives?
The ethical underpinning of advanced directives is autonomy. That same principle always seemed to me to be at the core of what a conservative is.
"but it’s really none of the government’s business,"
Keep your laws off my body.
But a DNR/DNI is a legal document. I think people need to talk to a doctor AND a lawyer,
I'm no lawyer; I have taught physicians on advanced directives. The courts give a pretty wide berth to the documented wishes of an individual, with or without a lawyer. The Terry Schiavo case was a problem because there were not documented advanced directives.
The courts give a pretty wide berth to the documented wishes of an individual, with or without a lawyer.
Because it is a LEGAL document. If the courts and going to run with it, it would be wise for people to talk to a lawyer as well as a doctor to understand what it really means.
it would be wise for people to talk to a lawyer as well as a doctor to understand what it really means.
Maybe its just my professional bias (physician) but I cringe when I consider another opportunity for a lawyer to get his/her cut.
c3, isn't there a legal distinction between a living will and an advanced care directive?
If I recall correctly, dnr/dni was a separate form. Hospice advised us that the only thing that the EMTs would care about was the dnr/dni signed by the doctor.
Is it wrong to use the inflammatory rhetorical term "death panels"? It sure gets results!
Was it wrong to firebomb synagogues? It sure got results!
Peter;
isn't there a legal distinction between a living will and an advanced care directive?
They're both colloquial terms for a documentation of an individual's wishes regarding particular medical interventions. Hospitals have a regulatory obligation toask about a patient's advanced directives/living will (i.e. "Do you have one?") and the answer is no give them info on the process. (this is usually done by a clerical person so certainly not an "in depth" discussion). Unfortunately too many people think the task is completed when you clear whether you want CPR or not.
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