Andy McCarthy understands why the term "death panels" resonates

exactly is there to like when a writer (with a financial interest in mis-information) continues to exploit vulnerable readers?

End of Life counseling has been law since 2003. Enacted with bipartisan support because the purpose is to allow elderly people to ask a medical professional for guidance when the individual faces a dire situation.

There is no Mandatory implied, required, expected.

There is no government program proposed which will lead to rationing (another scare tactic of benefit to a struggling writer such as A McC).

There is every reason to believe that ordinary citizens will benefit from a reform of the current health insurance system.

better.

William, in HR 3200 check section 122, page 29, lines 4-16. See section 1121, page 239, lines 14-24. See section 1233, page 425-426, lines 4-12, 17-19, 22-25, and 1-3; then pages 429-430, lines 1-25 and 11-15.

For conservatives seeing is believing while for liberals believing is seeing.

I am not saying that any bill being floated proposes rationing or mandates counseling. I am saying that when the expenses exceed what was budgeted for them - as has happened with every single other federal "welfare"-type program and every single state "universal health" program, the people in charge of hard choices will be the government. That is what has happened in the U.K. That is what NICE does. My mother was just diagnosed with wet macular degeneration in one eye. Why would I want her to be in a system like England's, where a government body declares (as NICE did) that she could not receive the drug she takes now, until she loses the sight in one eye? That was a money-saving decision that the government agency made.

I do not worry about people receiving counseling about end-of-life options. I do worry when those doing the counseling (or paying for it) are the ones with a financial stake in the person's decision.

few years, evidently, away from that time when you will begin to think seriously about dying. You will ask the same professional who advises you now that you should see a dermatologist about the blotch on your cheek. If you do not shy from his/her profit-making motive now, why the hell would you in the future.

Just suppose that you learn that you have pancreatic cancer. At some early point you will learn that your doctor cannot make much profit on you since there is an early darkness in your future. But will that person cease to advise you?

I advise you to cease introducing any other country and those choices into your thinking. No, look to your own insurance policy. If rationing is possible, it will be revealed there.

It's difficult to understand why she would have a problem with people having the freedom to decide when it is time for them to "check out," or when they would bear a child.

She only wants the freedom to tell you what you have to do. Her and Pope Rat, the Nazi Pope.

Jack, your comments are inane and insane. (My husband tells me not to respond to trolls, but I just can't resist.)

This isn't about people having the freedom to decide, it is about them being pushed in a particular direction by the people in control of their care - or lack thereof.

The Pope doesn't have anything to do with this. Oh - unless you mean Pope Obama. Never mind - he doesn't just think he's the Pope; he thinks he's God.

Your comments are disingenuous -- well, let's just say "dishonest."

In a rational health care system, Terri Schiavo would have been allowed to die with dignity, as opposed to being kept in a vegetative state long after her brain turned to mush. But Nooooooooo! You religious nutters kept her alive long after any reasonable person would have wanted to have been kept alive. What a spectacular waste of valuable resources!

And then, there is the remarkable about-face of Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Fruitcake): "[U]nder no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions."

You'd think you were listening to Gloria Allred! Why don't you religious nutters get it? Funny how you always want the right to make your own decisions, but can't help but want to take the same rights away from others.

ss not death with dignity. But since you bring up Terri Schiavo, why don't you try to follow the facts? Terri Schiavo was not dying; she was profoundly mentally handicapped. Are you suggesting that all profoundly handicapped people without living wills should be euthanized?

Her parents were the one who wanted to take care of her. They were kept from doing so by
Schiavo's "husband," who was not removed as her guardian ad litem, despite the clear conflict interest he had created by moving in with another woman and fathering two illegitimate children.

At that point, he should have done the honorable thing - divorce his severely disabled wife, and allow her parents to care for her. Had he simply done so, none of it would have made the national news. But he refused, and in doing so, it was Michael Schiavo who thrust the case into the headlines. He insisted on having Terri dehydrated to death, which her parents understandably fought. The case galvanized the country, because many people understood Terri Schiavo's parents' position - that they were having their daughter taken from them and killed, by a man who had, to put it charitably - already moved on.

My interest in the case was primarily legal: Michael Schiavo had a clear conflict of interest, and should have been removed as G.A.L.

But he won, and Terri Schiavo was dehydrated to death, which is painful, and takes days. If you think that's great, and "dignified," then go ahead and push for Obamacare. Eventually, there will be plenty of stories like Terri Schiavo's.