An excerpt from last Sunday’s 60 Minutes segment, “The Cost of Dying”:
Charlie Haggart is 68 years old and suffering from liver and kidney failure. He wants a double transplant, which would cost about $450,000. But doctors have told him he’s currently too weak to be a candidate for the procedure.
At a meeting with Haggart’s family and his doctors, Dr. Byock raised the awkward question of what should be done if he got worse and his heart or lungs were to give out.
He said that all of the available data showed that CPR very rarely works on someone in Haggart’s condition, and that it could lead to a drawn out death in the ICU.
“Either way you decide, we will honor your choice, and that’s the truth,” Byock reassured Haggart. “Should we do CPR if your heart were to suddenly stop?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“You’d be okay with being in the ICU again?” Byock asked.
“Yes,” Haggart said.
“I know it’s an awkward conversation,” Byock said.
“It beats second place,” Haggart joked, laughing.
“You don’t think it makes any sense?” Kroft asked the doctor.
“It wouldn’t be my choice. It’s not what I advise people. At the present time, it’s their right to request it. And Medicare pays for it,” Byock said.
Watch the entire piece:
“I think you cannot make these decisions on a case-by-case basis,” Byock said. “It would be much easier for us to say ‘We simply do not put defibrillators into people in this condition.’ Meaning your age, your functional status, the ability to make full benefit of the defibrillator. Now that’s going to outrage a lot of people.”
“But you think that should happen?” Kroft asked.
“I think at some point it has to happen,” Byock said.
“Well, this is a version then of pulling Grandma off the machine?” Kroft asked.
“You know, I have to say, I think that’s offensive. I spend my life in the service of affirming life. I really do. To say we’re gonna pull Grandma off the machine by not offering her liver transplant or her fourth cardiac bypass surgery or something is really just scurrilous. And it’s certainly scurrilous when we have 46 million Americans who are uninsured,” Byock said.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
Palin was 100% correct. And if Obamacare passes anyone that is 55 or over will see them first hand within the decade
When these fricking retarded radicals find a little lump in their bodies and they have to wait six months to see a doctor for “free”, they will understand the meaning of death panels.
Cancer does not discriminate.
I believe that Obama wants “Death Panels”. Just think of the millions of “Conservative Baby Boomers” that are entering Medicare. If the Libbies can deny care to them, then the Libbie problem of funding Medicare, medical treatment, and Conservative voting will be solved. Obama is like Hitler in this regard….Obama’s Final Solution.
To Slatrat:
I also think he will keep the War on Terror in Irak and Afghanistan.
Radicals want to curve the population of this earth….in America, get ride of old conservatives(via Obamacare)and in Irak and Afghanistan, get ride of the young conservatives(via Taliban-Obama Axis)
That’s what he really meant by War of Necessity!
I’m waiting for Obama’s new policy to lower medical cost. Draft men and women over the age of 60 to fight in Afganistan! Think about it, it will solve a lot of his problems in one new law. Getting rid of the expensive end of healath care and stopping a lot of SSS payments at the same time. Those nursing homes could be turned into dormitories for ACORN workers and the scooter store would quit advertising on TV. Well that would be one positive thing.
Former Head for Red Cross, NIH: Damn Right Death Panels Are a Part of Obamacare
See also here…
http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2009/11/obamacare-establishes-a-rationing-commission-for-seniors-health-care.html
It is their way of cutting the cost of SSA payments. Just think of the bundle that will be saved on medicare once the old and sick die off.
I see that moonbats are lining up to join the future death panels.
They are drooling at the prospect.
Palin was 100% correct on this. We got a preview of it earlier this week. A “panel” of distinguished doctors and health care specialist (not one oncologist in the bunch) got together and just up and decided that women under 50 didn’t need mammograms unless they fell into certain risk groups. They totally ignored the number of women younger than 50 that come down with some form of breast cancer despite the statistics. Now the Dems may say no death panels, but for the women that would die as a result of such a ruling I think they’d agree that for them it WAS a death panel.
Of course, Sarah Palin got it right. In the legislative draft, it’s called “commissions.” And, there are, by one count, 117 of them. So if one panel doesn’t get you, there’s another, or two, (or three …) panels to make sure you’re not treated.
alot of effort is put into keeping some newborns alive and many require life long care. i know one 20 year old who beat the odds [with hundreds of thousands dollars worth of medical procedures] up to 100 operations – two 4 organ transplants…….. he now goes to college and has a part time job. will a panel weight the viability of these newborns – leaving some to their fate in a bassinette.
UPDATE
Why does America keep electing “Liberals” who’s agenda is so perverse?
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/12/life-unworthy-of-life-democrat-eugenics.html