[Girlene]

So, Sarah Palin had it right all along after all, she just should have said Death Book rather than Death Panel

LOL.....kinda. Chris Wallace did an outstanding job this morning on Fox News fleshing out the "Death Book" used by the VA. The book, "Your Life, Your Choices" has to do with end of life questions/planning.

Sarah Palin's reference to "Death Panels" had to do with the advisory board/committees that the health care reform sets up. The "panels" will decide on benefit standards, treatments, costs, etc. These panels will have the power of determining the most "effective" treatment allowed for a condition. People fear the top-down approach where the physican's recommended treatment is decided by govt vs what's best for the patient. People fear they will have the potential of deciding on life and death issues by denying treatment to certain groups, ages, whathaveyou.

[nathanbedford]

I never understood how Sarah Palin's wonderfully evocative phrase, "death panels" got conflated with the provisions concerning payment of physicians for end-of-life counseling. Nor have I ever understood why Sarah Palin should not be permitted the same forensic license that everyone else gets when engaging in good old fashioned political polemic.

[Fred Hayek]

Chris Wallace did an outstanding job this morning on Fox News fleshing out the “Death Book” used by the VA.

Chris’ father Mike Wallace is one who thinks handicapped people have no right to live. I would bet the gatherings of the Wallace family are lots of fun. How does Chris put up with it?

[okie01]

People fear they will have the potential of deciding on life and death issues by denying treatment to certain groups, ages, whathaveyou.

Of course, they will. Under the National Health Service, the British have NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). NICE is a "death panel" by any other name. And Tom Daschle, evidently still very much involved in the administration's health care policy, thinks NICE is a great idea.

NICE is responsible for determining the cost/benefit ratio for patients and setting an appropriate standard. Currently, if they estimate it will cost more than $45,000/yr to keep you alive until your life expectancy expires, you're going to get the pain pills and end-of-life counseling -- as opposed to treatment.

If one is a dialysis patient, for example, nobody over 55 qualifies for treatment.

I'm over 55. And I'm a dialysis patient. As a consequence, I've got a bone to pick with President Obama, little Tommy Daschle and the Democrats.

[Arthur McGowan]

Was the “death book” in print when Seinfeld was still on? I heard part of the book, and it sounded exactly like the scene with Ben Stein, Elaine, and Kramer: “You can’t walk, or talk, but you can eat.” “You can speak, but you have no liver function.”