In 1995 Newt Gingrich was accused of wanting to let Medicare patients “wither on the vine” - That’s not what he said, but the lie was repeated often enough to become a KnownFact. Now we have ObamaCare where people will be forced to wither on the vine and people like the Times are rapturous about it.

Everybody stop having sex and become practicing pro-life Catholics who take a vow of obedience to the Bishop of their diocese.

Pick and choose those liberals do.

“The problem with this rhetoric is that it denies the simple fact that should these concepts become federalized in a national healthcare system…”

Medicare is already federalized. And the problem is the growth of the cost of providing health care outpaces both inflation and GDP growth over time. So what are you going to do about the cost? You can make the argument that cost doesn’t matter - no expense should be spared. And Americans can decide to spend 12% of GDP on Medicare. But then there are consequences and you have to figure out how to pay for it.

Otherwise you can: a) lower prices; b) cut benefits; c) change the way you approach end-of-life care.

I don’t think anyone is advocating to restrict spending on whatever care you think you need. It’s just that Medicare can’t pay for it all. And most people just don’t have the cash it takes to pay for this stuff.

Regards.

For about a year, I went to my doctor’s office once a month to have my PT level checked because I was taking Coumadin after a pulmonary embolism. I was by far the youngest person in the waiting room and the one in the best general health. Most people were upwards of 80 and many were bent with age and in pain.

Yet there was joking and laughter as people made light of their conditions and many of the men who were WW2 vets who had lively stories to tell of those years.

Not one of them ever said they wished to die and I as a tax payer have no wish to ration the care they receive to keep them alive. How dare the Obama thugocrisy even broach the subject.

Our economy is not a finite. It can expand indefinitely if We, the People, are left alone to do what we do best, excel in free trade.

First of all any end of life setting where nuns are involved is going to be excellent care. If we all could be so fortunate to end up in one of the few nursing homes left that still have ties to nun.

” just let ourselves die without trying too hard to keep on living”
There is a really bad example to use with to illustrate how rationing will take place. There is a difference between not trying to hard to keep on living and not making your last few weeks or days hell because you had a feeding tube inserted when your body is shutting down. I sure would not want that for myself or a parent. That really isn’t fair what you wrote.
There are plenty of other nazis practices with elderly or the less than desirable in the healthcare workers eyes that go on in hopsitals that should be called out. I would not call out this out as not trying to keep to keep on living. I would focus on the lack of treatment in acute care situations when there should be extraordinary efforts like feeding tubes inserted or better monitoring of the patient and it isn’t done.

is the fraud, abuse, corruption and duplication in the Medicare Department. Some healthcare providers, as well as the elderly have been abusing the system for so long, it has become normal practice. While I think it is important to point out that Obamacare will ration care, and, especially with the elderly, it is as important to talk about cleaning up a very expensive cesspool within the Medicare Department. Imagine the money that would be saved if someone took the time to get a better check on all the claims being paid. Those truly needing a doctors care, should never be denied that care, but, so many elderly run to the doctor every time they cough or sneeze. I personally know an 88 year old woman who goes to a podiatrist to have her toe nails trimmed. I asked if she paid for that, and she said “oh no, he submits it to medicare.” That is abuse at it’s best. If the Government can’t run medical issues for one group of people, the elderly, how in the heck can they run healthcare for the entire population? It appears that Living Wills will be moot if Obamacare comes to America.

“…that American black-and-white way of thinking: Either we have to throw everything we’ve got at keeping people alive or leave them on the sidewalk to die.”

Dr. Carstensen has it exactly backwards - it is the current system provides the true nuance and gray-area thinking.

Take for example the two sisters mentioned in the article who have different views of what steps should be taken to extend their lives. Each is allowed to pursue her own path according to her own conscience. It is the government system that would impose a rigid “black-and-white” regime on these two women.

“…that American black-and-white way of thinking: Either we have to throw everything we’ve got at keeping people alive or leave them on the sidewalk to die.”

Dr. Carstensen has it exactly backwards - it is the current system provides the true nuance and gray-area thinking.

Take for example the two sisters mentioned in the article who have different views of what steps should be taken to extend their lives. Each is allowed to pursue her own path according to her own conscience. It is the government system that would impose a rigid “black-and-white” regime on these two women.

as a moments reflection will recall. More so them in a demographic sense but rationing of care will be spread “liberally”.
Hospitals are already closing, young doctors starting out are not opening their own practices but are opting for full time work in hospitals, hospitallers as they are being called, the trends are there now.
Progressives, [that's what people who emulate the practices of Egyptian pharaoh's call themselves] will for a while think this is a good thing, but less the true statist elite they will awake sadly to the fact that the mess includes them as well as the normal people.

In any case Death and Decay are the provenience of this curse known as Liberalism, so we ought not to be surprised by their macabre desires, their ghoulish lusts.

hopsitalists and liberalism? I don’t get it.

Amazing how the word “KILL” has become the elephant in the room that no one wishes to acknowledge.

Such an “inconvenient” word; it should be purged from the dictionary.

In the Obama Newspeak dictionary, it probaly wont exist.

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Who do you want to make life or death judgments on your life, a doctor or someone that just as well could work at the State Department of Motor Vehicle Registration. ??

Odds are with the government, there will be some faceless bureaucrat counting pennies instead of looking at a patient’s viability.

But, as with most things, as long as it is someone you don’t know, the outcome doesn’t matter….