Thursday, November 28, 2013

Death Panels in ACA?

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/mark-halperin-obamacare-death-panels/2013/11/26/id/538886?ns_mail_uid=83696670&ns_mail_job=1548056_11272013&promo_code=15C53-1#ooid=8zZ25waDoa-OQmTBjFMWJwiJssrg_QuX

I agree that we cannot afford to spend many thousands of dollars on health procedures that buy only one to three years of life.  If the patient is also suffering from Alzheimer's disease or cancer, one would not sensibly do a heart bypass.  It would only extend the period of suffering a little longer.

I will not say more until I have studied the issue.  However, if you believe in God and a better life after death, then why prolong it except for the sake of family and friends.  I just had a good lady friend die of cervical cancer.  She was 44 years old.  My own father had a brain injury from a motorcycle accident. Knowing him and how he would have felt about a life of limitations, I told the doctor not to use any extraordinary measures to keep him alive.  Another man I knew was in his eighties, but worked part-time in a recycling plant.  Not hearing well, he did not know a fork lift was coming his way.  The fork lift stopped, but a heavy piece of steel fell off and crushed his leg.

At the hospital he ( I will call him Sarge ) gave orders not to amputate and leave him a cripple.  Later the surgeon came out and told his wife that they could not stop the bleeding without amputating the leg.  She said "Well give him more blood."  That gave the doctors a catch 22, waste the blood and increase the cost indefinitely or ignore the wife's wishes.

Opinion of Robert Burlison

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