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Try as I might, I can't seem to find anything about a “death panel”. A majority of medical costs occur in the last stages of life, and unfortunately most people don't plan ahead (living wills, heath care directives, DNRs, etc). I don't see anything wrong with folks developing a strategy to ease the transition for themselves and their families.

Do you mean the actual WORDING of ‘death panel’? OF COURSE those words are not in the plan....the death panel refers to the statistics that will be set that determine who has a nice enough quality of life, determined again, by the death mongers, to earn a few more years of life using equipment needed to support that life. IE...are those dependent on that expensive ozygen contributing members to society, etc.

Oreders for life sustaining treatment:

is guided by a coalition of stakeholders includes representatives from emergenc medical services, emergency department physicians or nurses, state long-term care association, state medical association, state surveyors, agency responsible for senior services, state department of health, state hospital association, home health association, state bar association, and state hospice association

There is no problem with people doing this for themselves, with their Doctor, you know, the one they chose, and their familites...it's when statists and others want to interject government and their "complete lives" calculations and government bureaucrats and "stake holders" that is the issue.

With me and most people I know.

Here's a clue. If you want top consult with the government on your end of life issues...knock yourself out. But don't try and force it on me and mine or most folks I know.

My mother has severe diminsia. She's 84 years old and we take care of her and get her the treatment she needs. Ezekiel believes such people should not get any treatment.

We have done this for five years and my mother has interacted with her great grandkids...and they with her. Government will not deprive me of that experience as long as I draw breath. God may...and I have faith in Him and His timing and control of such matters. But not the governemtn.

You expected to see the term 'death panel' used by the statists? How disingenuous. You would argue that these 'consultations' do not (or will not, very shortly) evolve into de facto death panels? How utterly naive. Goobermint has never -- never means not once -- acquired any power that it has not, typically sooner than later, abused. And so here. And so, already, in the UK. Read up on their vaunted 'National Plan', boyo.

Nothing wrong with folks developing a strategy to 'ease the transition'...VOLUNTARILY, on their own hook. EVERYTHING is wrong when goobermint gets involved with 'developing' such 'strategies'.

--------‘‘(iii) A program for orders for life sustaining treatment for a States described in this clause is a program that— ...‘‘(IV) is guided by a coalition of stakeholders includes representatives from emergenc medical services, emergency department physicians or nurses, state long-term care association, state medical association, state surveyors, agency responsible for senior services, state department of health, state hospital association, home health association, state bar association, and state hospice association.

The death panel will have a benign title, something like "Advanced Care Planning Healthcare Coalition." You have to realize, bills are written to deliberately obscure as much as they delineate and define. That's how they get people to go along with the music without reading the words.

I don't see anything wrong with folks developing a strategy to ease the transition for themselves and their families.

The state of Oregon has already resorted to these types of measures. A woman dying from cancer was refused treatment because it could not heal her, only relieve her discomfort as she died. The state told her they wouldn't pay for treatment, but offered to pay for assisted suicide meds.

Do you think the federal government wouldn't resort to this type of pressure or worse?

There's nothing wrong with famlies and individuals discussing things like living wills , long term care etc. It's when government gets involved that it's just a little creepy. It's a fairly short leap from discussing end of life options to encouraging one option, from there it's easy to go from , you've no hope for a produtive life so lets spend resources elsewhere. Finally, you're an undesirable so society has no obligation to keep you alive. The slippery slope argument

Remember Hitler's final solution was the final step, there were smaller steps before that, starting with denial of medical care to the "non productive".

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"Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda". : Dr Zeke Emanual

I read a relevant post by Paul on Powerline this morning. In part:

“(Charles)Lane (Washington Post) argues that the “consultations” provided for in Section 1233, while not mandatory, are not “purely voluntary” either as the Democrats have claimed. Thus, he writes, “Section 1233 lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive — money — to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.” As Lane notes, common sense tells us that Section 1233 would place senior citizens in a situation where they will feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign.

The federal govenment should not be in the business of skewing end-of-life counsel, and thus end-of-life decisions. Lane concludes:

Ideally, the delicate decisions about how to manage life’s end would be made in a setting that is neutral in both appearance and fact. Yes, it’s good to have a doctor’s perspective. But Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party — the government — recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations. You don’t have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach.”