Free Republic

At a stroke, Medicare chief Donald Berwick has revived the "death panel" debate from two summers ago. Allow us to referee, because this topic has been badly distorted by the political process—and in a rational world, it wouldn't be a political question at all. On Sunday, Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that Medicare will now pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling as part of seniors' annual physicals. A similar provision was originally included in ObamaCare, but Democrats stripped it out amid the death panel furor. Now Medicare will enact the same policy through regulation. We hadn't heard about...

Sarah Palin deserves an apology. When she said that the new health-care law would lead to "death panels" deciding who gets life-saving treatment and who does not, she was roundly denounced and ridiculed. Now we learn, courtesy of one of the ridiculers -- the New York Times -- that she was right. Under a new policy not included in the law for fear the administration's real end-of-life game would be exposed, a rule issued by the recess-appointed Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, calls for the government to pay doctors to advise patients...

New end-of-life care policy is an update of Bush regulations. Advocating end-of-life care planning does not equal end-of-life advocacy. That critical distinction is deliberately buried by irresponsible health care reform opponents in the long, ludicrous debate over nonexistent "death panels.'' This ugly discourse is shamefully flaring anew with a recent New York Times story detailing a new Obama administration policy to reimburse health care providers who advise Medicare patients on advance care planning during an annual wellness exam. Those recklessly claiming that "death panels are back" are at best ill-informed and at worst are engaging in prevarication. The planning is...

I’m going to take the death panel end-of-life planning conundrum down one point at a time to make this very clear for Americans to understand what the Pelosi-led Democrats have done to your healthcare and their attempt to take cover under a Bush-era law–the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008. The Hill reported that the Obama White House attempted to calm Americans’ fears of the dreaded death panels: The Medicare policy will pay doctors for holding end-of-life-care discussions with patients, according to the Times. A similar provision was dropped from the new healthcare reform law after Republicans...

When a politician tells you he wants to give you something for “free,” he really means it will be rationed. The currency of the State is compulsion – it has no other resource. Its money is extracted from taxpayers by force. Its mandates are implemented by force. The use of force to control distribution of a limited resource is rationing. It can be prettied up with flowery language and high minded promises - and of course a stiff measure of hatred for those who resist having their resources taken away to fulfill the promises of the State - but its...

“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.” Moreover, the e-mail said: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded. The e-mail continued: “Thus...

When I learned today that the federal bureaucracy had promulgated a rule compensating physicians for the time they spend counseling patients on end-of-life health-care decisions, I wasn’t surprised. A similar provision was dropped from the Obamacare bill, but anyone who understands the profoundly bureaucratic nature of contemporary government knew that that was not necessarily the end of it. The 2,700-page law is destined — if it is not rolled way back or repealed — to generate over 100,000 pages of enabling regulations. In such a milieu, that which can’t be obtained legislatively, can often be gotten through the bureaucratic back...

Health Care: Unable to attach it directly to ObamaCare, a new Medicare rule will offer incentive to doctors who advise patients on end-of-life care in a program that seeks to control costs. Connect those dots, grandma. The GOP House that comes in January has pledged to chip away, defund and neuter ObamaCare in any way it can, since outright repeal is problematical until 2012. President Obama's veto pen looms large, even if such a bill makes it through the Senate. Target one should be a Medicare regulation that says it will cover doctors as part of an annual covered "wellness"...

The debate over the death panels that appear to have been added back to the ObamaCare law continues and the complexity of federal regulations is causing considerable confusion.Early reports indicated the death panels, the annual discussions authorized under ObamaCare at taxpayer expense where physicians confer with patients about end-of-life decisions, indicated they could possible include a discussion of assisted suicide in the three states where one may be obtained.But a key word — making the discussions voluntary — appears to have eliminated that possibility as does the fact that the discussions will center on advanced directives, which can’t include...

In August of 2009 the “Oh- so- much- wiser- than- we-are” Jonathan Turley mocked Sarah Palin’s warnings that Obama’s healthcare scheme included what she rightfully called “death panels.” In his column, haughtily titled “Res Ipsa Loquitor” (The thing itself speaks), Turley compared Palin’s warnings about Obamcare’s intensions to kill those who were no longer “meaningful users” of healthcare to a monster in a movie. Turley wrote that Palin’s characterization of the dangerous program as “downright evil” put her in the category of people who believe in a “Death Star” one might see in a movie. Presumably the liberals who read...

This is a topic that needs to be talked about. Needs to stay in the news. The Democrats want us to overlook it. So too add to DrJohn's post yesterday about the return of the Death Panels check out this interview of Dr. Mark Seigel on Fox: [VIDEO AT SITE] or HEREPartial transcript: Dr. Mark Seigel - Think about it Greg, every year I'm gonna talk about that? [end of life care] The first problem is, as a practicing physician, I could tell you that that discussion is often unnecessary or overblown when you actually get into the trenches...

What did you get for Christmas? Maybe a new cell phone, some clothes, a TV or video game? You also got the beginnings of a federally funded death panel. Merry Christmas! When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo...

The Constitution of the United States begins with the words "We the people." But neither the Constitution nor "we the people" will mean anything if politicians and judges can continue to do end runs around both. Bills passed too fast for anyone to read them are blatant examples of these end runs. But last week, another of these end runs appeared in a different institution when the medical "end of life consultations" rejected by Congress were quietly enacted through bureaucratic fiat by administrators of Medicare. Although Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Senator Jay Rockefeller had led an effort by a group...

Return of the ‘death panels’ Posted by Mollie Even in a health care bill that was unpopular, the panels that would make end-of-life recommendations in order to save the government on health care costs (said recommendations being passed on by paying doctors to share them with patients) were even more unpopular. Some people call these panels that make end-of-life recommendations “death panels.” Others, thought the term inaccurate and prefer terms like “end-of-life planning” and “consultation” and “directives.” These end-of-life panels in Section 1233 of the health care legislation were so unpopular, in fact, that they were removed from the bill...

In a Friday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Sarah Palin takes aim at a bipartisan commission's recent recommendations on reducing the deficit, calling its suggestions "a disappointment" and claiming that the plan "implicitly endorses the use of 'death panel'-like rationing." Palin lambastes the panel's consideration of the health care law in its examination, and warns that, "not only does it leave ObamaCare intact," but "its proposals would lead to a public option being introduced by the backdoor."

"Death Panels" could be back, Sarah Palin says. But this time they are not the creation of the Obama administration. No, these are the handiwork of the bipartisan debt commission. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the former Alaska governor takes aim at several of the controversial commission's recommendations, saying the cuts it proposes "implicitly endorses the use of 'death panel'-like rationing." Palin highlights the commission's proposal for an Independent Payments Advisory Board, a committee, she says, that will make "bureaucrats, not medical professionals, the ultimate arbiters of what types of treatment will (and especially will not) be...

The good news for Barack Obama: the Associated Press reports today that Obama’s deficit commission wants to keep most of ObamaCare in place. The bad news: they pronounce it unsustainable — unless it includes hard caps on c0verage and decisions made to stop care. Doesn’t this sound a little familiar?

The good news for Barack Obama: the Associated Press reports today that Obama’s deficit commission wants to keep most of ObamaCare in place. The bad news: they pronounce it unsustainable — unless it includes hard caps on c0verage and decisions made to stop care. Doesn’t this sound a little familiar? For the first time, the government would set — and enforce — an overall budget for Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs that cover more than 100 million people, from Alzheimer’s patients in nursing homes to premature babies in hospital intensive care. Palin attracted wide attention by denouncing nonexistent “death...

Death Panels? NYC Will Send Ambulances to Save Organs of People Deemed Likely to Die Wednesday, December 01, 2010 By Susan Jones (CNSNews.com) - Some 911 Calls in Manhattan will bring out two ambulances, one hurrying to the scene in an attempt to save the patient's life, and the other arriving to save the patient's organs in case the person dies, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. "After months of grappling with the ethical and legal implications, New York City medical officials are beginning to test a system that they hope will one day greatly increase the number of...

Health Reform: The left's favorite economist, who condemned others for saying ObamaCare would require death panels, now admits they are real and necessary. The way to control costs, he says, is death and taxes. Paul Krugman has long extolled the virtues of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence with the Orwellian acronym of NICE. Krugman has been anything but nice to NHS critics and those who've said that what have been called its "death panels" would be brought to America via ObamaCare. In a roundtable discussion on ABC's "This Week," the New York Times columnist...