Posted on 11/22/2009 5:09:27 PM PST by SoCalTransplant
Wondering if anyone else saw the 60 Minutes piece on the cost of Dying. If you missed it, the only thing missing was "My name is Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and I approve this message.
A brief synopsis was that they had 2 doctors on and a "taxpayer advocate" that said the answer to America's woes in healthcare costs were to go ahead and let terminally ill patients die, and give them less treatments and services. Rationing, it was explained, wasn't a dirty word, but in fact was the right path to not bankrupting ourselves. We must, as one of the "death doctors" put it, embrace the idea of what a moral, robust death looks like.
Particularly offensive to me was that they actually went into a man's death bed while this same "death doctor" tried to talk a patient into not having CPR preformed on him should his heart stop. When the man said he wanted all attempts to revive him to be made, should his heart stop, and we watched Dr. Death assure him his wishes would be followed, it immediately went to a cut scene where Dr. Death, in so many words, stated that the man had made the wrong choice. So I guess it was "we will honor your wishes, but reserve the right to skewer your wishes on national TV".
Then, after another cutaway while the narrator explained that Medicare was not allowed to deny coverage due to cost, and could even be required to require for a defibulator to be placed in the body of a 93 year old, it was back to Dr. Death. His comment was to lament that there wasn't some official policy by which he, as a doctor, could say "we dont do that proceedure for people your age".
I'm sure I missed parts that were important, but wanted to see who else was disgusted by this. I know the MSM are cheerleaders, but this was particularly vile; Taking advantage of a man on deaths door, to promote a policy that the man's very actions showed he wouldn't favor.
But no moral worry though..CBS informed us at the end of the piece that the man had died this week, and his family had agreed before his death that it was okay to ignore his request for revival.
So that makes it all okay for CBS, I suppose.
I was screaming at my television at the part where Dr. Death and the woman who agreed to allow her mother’s death to be used as a case study against the industry said “I think mainly all the tests were to cover their rear.” THEY WOULDN’T NEED TO DO ALL THOSE TESTS AND CALL IN ALL THOSE SPECIALISTS IF IT WEREN’T FOR AMBULANCE-CHASERS! Tort reform, competition across state lines, I guess you just can’t bring those up on the new state-run media.
Just take some pain pills and a six pack, you’ll die happy!!! /s
You could kind of tell that Kroft was leading him in that direction, and he may have indeed said fear of lawsuits was one of the reasons in the taping, but it looked liked the tape was quickly edited at that point.
I’m sorry, didn’t read this post.
One day, if I get the guts, I’ll have to give some of Mrs. Springman’s Medical issues, than you would know why we wake up in the middle of the night sometimes.
Scum of the earth. Glad to hear that you DEMANDED to see it.
I hope your mother’s doing better.
We were eating, some fat juicy burgers, so didn’t hear everything.
Guess we’ll be forced to eat Turkey Burger or Soy Burgers soon.
Helth Care “reform” is health care redistribution.
The $50,000 is going to be spent on somebody who does NOT pay into any system; low income, indigent, illegal immigrant.
The $50,000 was being spent at the end of the life of somebody who WAS paying into the system; employer/private insurance, own cash.
I intend to be a health care resister, if the government tries to tax me for a system I don’t want to be a part of.
I got chills watching it. They’re setting us up for what’s to come with Obamacare.
59 Minutes now advocating for death panels. Its one of the worst fake news shows on tv.
Baucus was there - or at least someone cast his vote for him. Voinovich was the only one not voting.
I bet nobody mentioned how much money was spent on Chappaquadick Ted for extending his life a few months. He did have what was probably a very expensive brain surgery on a tumor that all the medical experts agreed was a terminal case.
Thank God they backed off! Hang in there - prayers for your mom’s recovery.
they are going to have to start installing metal detectors in hospitals...
because anyone coming to unplug any of my family members will receive a rapid onset lead injection.
Six years ago, my father in law was near death in a hospital in Fargo, ND. The hospital case worker came in and told my spouse and brothers in law that he needed to be moved out. The doctor objected, he stayed and died within 24 hours. This year, my father had a stroke, was unable to move his right side, unable to speak, and unable to swallow, after he was in the hospital in San Antonio for 6 days, the caseworker told us we needed to take him home or decide where to send him. His doctor objected, he stayed and passed away 4 days later. The government wants to take those pesky doctors out of the loop and force their own values on all of us without any recourse.
I though that the part about the 93 year old getting the defib was an apparent planted statement to defend a specific charge against Obama.
Remember back, I think it was during the campaign, when this woman stood up in some kind of a town hall and told this story about her mother who had gone on and gotten a pacemaker at 95, and then had gone on to have 10 more good, active years?
That seemed to me to be the point of the 93 year old defib patient...right after that spot, Dr. Death starts advocating for what I can only describe as “zero tolerance” when it comes to such operations on people of a certain, yet undefined, age. He specifically said that he wished they could just give the blanket statement that they didnt do “this proceedure” for someone of that age, without taking quality of life, or level of activity into question. I couldn’t help thinking about zero tolerance policies in schools, wherein if there is a fight, the principal doesn’t want to have to deal with who started it, or why, but rather just suspends both kids because fighting is “bad”.
This to me represents a step beyond a death panel; its more of a mandatory age limit. Logans run here we come. I have to believe that its because with the massive push for cradle to grave government dependance, they’ve run the numbers and figured out that one way to keep costs down is to move up the finish line as much as they can. The glory days of social security were back when very few people lived to collect more than a few years worth of checks. Is it so far fetched to believe that rather than admit the failure of the plan, they would rather just take us back to the good old days when there weren’t that many old people around?
rofl I agree I don’t really think real Americans will stand for doctors telling them when their family members have to leave. Most people who end up in the hospital want to leave anyway, its not like we are just begging doctors to let us stay, we just want to get better and then leave! Then when theres people who really really need to stay or they won’t live, the doctors say “society can’t afford you! you have to get out and go die”!
And then what do they propose they do about all our families, when they kick them out on the streets because some government death zar is in charge? Are we supposed to just take themn home and just deal with it? For being all about helping out the poor, those liberals really don’t think things thru - isn’t having really really unhealthy people in your house all the time kind of dangerous? I had a friend who said that when her dad, tom, died, he and her grandma had a siezure and knocked over a coat rack and they had to sedate him with drugs. He was really old and all she wanted to do was help him but she is just a girl, how can she fight a 140 pound man, even really old?? Imagine if the democrats had their way and Dr. Death got to throw him out on his butt, he would probably end up at home with them in her living room or something, assuming they didnt just kill him right then and there. and he was really really scary after a year ago, she said he had had a stroke and would shout at her and called her some other name, and anyway he probably would have ended up turning over his dinner plate and burning the house down or something then. And are the democrats gonna wanna pay for that when that stuff starts happening!? When we have to keep old dying people around our house until they keel over or get us all killed?
Anyway she said that then, because of what he did, the doctors wanted to charge her family for a tv and a chair that got broken. Why should we give our taxes to these people when they nickel and dime us for everything they can think of already anyway? I mean people have to die and yeah thats sad and everything, but its not fair that rich people with lawyers can sue the hospital whenever they want and the hospital has to pay them, and thats all ok, but we have to pay the hospital whenever they say so. Maybe there should be a death panel for all the lawyers, that would kill two birds with one stone!
Oh but that is right, typical leftist trash, these rules are for thee not for me.
These simplistic, knee-jerk, and emotional responses are useless in the discussion that has to be had about a person’s “right” to health care. The CBS piece was timely, as I for one am tired of putting in breathing tubes and feeding tubes into dying patients who want “everything done”.
Fact is, far too many people keep Grandma alive because of familial guilt or worse; collecting Granny’s Social Security check for instance. It’s an obscenity to God and man.
No one is talking about denial of care, though as a physician, I am not obligated to provide futile care.
Smoke? No exercise? How many pills do you pop? What’s your diet really look like? The vast majority of chronic illnesses are self-inflicted. New research is showing you CAN turn off cancer genes. Oh, and have “that talk” with your family NOW, before the sad days we all face.
FlynnMD
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