Sarah Palin speaks out on healthcare

From her Facebook page: ( I added my own thoughts re: death panel below)

"As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late."

- Sarah Palin

Many say that "death panel" is a gross exaggeration. But I was reading Charles Lane in the WaPo, who at first saw that sort of talk as rubbish, and wondered why Democratic strategists were hesitant to refute these kind of claims because it might agitate already worried seniors.

What he found was that maybe seniors did have a right to be worried. If you try to read through the gobbly gook in the bill regarding end of life care, there are disturbing things. Saying it's a "death panel" is not too strong of a way to describe it. Considering that these end of life counseling sessions are addressed in the measure to "bend the curve" on health care costs, makes it clear that costs will confront the decisions on what kind of care you receive.

As Lane explain , the left may claim that these end of life counseling sessions are voluntary and a patient may refuse them, but as stated in the measure ,the Doctor is paid to initiate these sessions. What patient is going to interrupt a Doctor explaining end of life care for them? How would a patient even know that was what the discussion was, until after it underway? And I must say it does bother me that Doctors will be PAID specifically for having these end of life discussions. In other words, it won't be about you asking these questions. It will be about a Doctor being paid to bring them up.

Then, most disturbing of all, the government controls the "content" of these discussions between Doctor and patient.The doctor is instructed to discuss "advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to"; "an explanation of . . . living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses" and "a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families." The doctor is THEN instructed to explain that Medicare pays for hospice care. As Lane says..."hint, hint."

In other words they want doctors to explain how expensive your care will be, and well, you are old, and do you really what to go through all this expense? After all Medicare picks up the bill for a nice relaxing stay in hospice while you die.

Death panals indeed.

Lane ends with this:

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.