Death Panels

There has been much debate on the impact of President Obama’s new healthcare proposal, with both sides having various arguments for and against this new reform.  I consider myself to be apolitical in most respects, because I believe our government quit caring about their citizens a long time ago – that includes the asses and pachyderms.  But one of the most interesting (and utterly insane) viewpoints comes from those who strongly oppose Obama’s plan; in the 1,000 page bill, there is a small section about something called ”advanced care planning consultations”.  In layman’s terms, this is nothing more than a consultation every five years between a patient (usually elderly) and doctor.  It is basically along the same lines as a living will; an example of such a consultation would be telling your doctor, “If I am suffering from Alzheimers and losing my mind, I want to die in my house and not a nursing home.”  It seems pretty simple, and helpful, but opponents of the plan have dubbed this to be a “Death Panel”.  Angry, fearful senior citizens (is there any other kind?) and Republicans have somehow interpreted this to be a form of euthanasia, and seem to believe that consultations such as these will be handled by disciples of Dr. Kevorkian. Everyone’s favorite Alaskan moose-hunting former VP nominee Sarah Palin had this to say on her Facebook page:

 ”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. 

If Palin intended to make senior citizens soil their Depends, or wanted to do further damage to her crediblity, then I’d say she accomplished both of those goals.  If she wanted to actually inform people (which politicians hardly ever do) of the program’s drawbacks, then she has once again failed miserably.  A couple of things Palin failed to mention is that these consultations will in no way be mandatory, and the ”bureaucrat” (or doctor, as you & I call them) won’t be the judge, jury, or executioner when it comes to the patient’s final decision – or will they?