No one opposes people making decisions on how they want end of life handled. What we do oppose is making it mandatory that people forced into counseling to encourage them to choose death or as it would become in such a system "an encouraged choice" or "the reasonable choice".
Just recently my Wife's grandmother who is in her late 70s had an incident when she was switched from pills that she took to control her sugar to insulin injections, her kidney's failed, her liver failed, Doctors didn't expect her to live through the next day. Well she didn't die and though some were ready to just pull the plug because she was old and suffering. She was aware enough to agree to be put on a respirator temporarily. Luckily the person with medical power of attorney felt the need to ask her what she wanted.
Today her liver has fully recovered and her kidneys are recovering, the doctors on revaluation of her medication found she no longer needed half of it. She is off the respirator and well on her road to being her old self. If a government system had been in control of administering her wishes I believe she would now be dead rather than talking on the phone with her 2 year old grandson Jason as she was yesterday.
All of us have encountered blind bureaucracy. Do we want to turn our lives and those we love over to such a system?
This guy needs his head examined.
This guy is basically taking the position that anyone who disagrees with him is irrational. Of course the fact that he is the one wanting to nationalize a huge portion of the economy doesn’t indicate extremism on his part. Oh no, never.
....Psychiatrists have the highest suicide rate among doctors and doctors have a higher rate than the public at large.
It’s called a “Living Will”. Why do I need a government official for these decisions??? Just WHO ARE the extremists here, Doc???
America has tolerated extremist politics since at least the 1930s, if not longer. Still waiting for the voters to reject socialist extremism and return to Constitutional normalcy. Not holding my breath.
with the rationing heaped on ahead of this “discussion”, there will surely be less options than this guy pretends
I look forward to when there are no more communists/liberals/socialists/fascists (they’re all the same) and mooslum terrorists.
The members of the American Psychological community of the 20’s and 30’s were the architechs of the National Socialist Policies made reality in Germany.
For this JO shrink:
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”
Winston Churchill
If you don't want to fight then that is up to you, Doc. Just don't have government paid doctors pushing it as the preferred option. I want to be hooked up to every expensive machine possible to keep me alive. I want a squad of Marines at my bedside to lay down suppressive fire if the Grim Reaper shows up in person, or more likely if a doctor tries to unplug some life support equipment. I want specialists flown in from the four corners of the world to fight death every step of the way.
I hear far too many stories of people who doctors tell are done for except for cutting off the life support who end up making a full recovery to want to give up too early.
>>”it is a far cry from the notion of death panels that ex-Gov. Palin and others are screeching about in a cynical and manipulative way.”
The word “screeching” takes this out of the arena of professional discourse, and into the realm of “propaganda.”
DG
Trig Palin would not be affected by the end-of-life panels for some years, but would be effected immediately if Downs Syndrome patients are put in a class where it's not considered economically efficient to do much more than prescribe aspirin.
The Death Panels include that panel that decides that 100 (or whatever number) is the right number of cardiac patients to handle in a given area, and the 101st should just take aspirin and wait.
By deciding how many should live, they are deciding how many should die.
How many times do we have to say this. The Death Panels are not the discussion between the doctor and the patient about long term options. The Death Panels are the Washington bureaucrats who will decide how many angioplasties, MRIs, hip replacements, etc. will be allowed in a fiscal year and how they will be distributed. Tough luck if the quota for angioplasties runs out in April and you have to wait until the next fiscal year starts in October before you're treated. Hope you don't die in the interim (or maybe hope you do die to clear the backlog).
On the other side, we pretty much have to stop them from breeding.
Notice the pure fabrication this putz attributes to Palin and various other Rs. Palin and the opposition in general are intent on retaining what little free market health care exists. That's the only marketplace that allows the choice this putz says the Rs are attempting to take. This fabrication is intended to fool folks into believing their lower level of care is appropriate and that all should be required to support it w/o objection and with whatever reasources and treasures are demanded of them.
So then whats the problem?
This would toss, of course — Joan of Arc, Thomas Paine, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln .... Great idea, buddy, total conformity.
Dear Dr. Joe,
The kinds of discussions you speak of should be a daily part of your practice with your patients. You should encourage them to have advance care directives, and durable powers of attorney for medical decisions. That’s for you and your patient to discuss and decide. But in no uncertain terms - those discussions should NEVER, EVER happen as a result of a government mandate. The government should NEVER have a say in someone’s care choices. Try standing up for that doctor.
Regards,
Me.