LTE: "Death panels" are the official policy platform of conservative whiners, not Obama.

[eridani]

Insurance company CEOs profit to the tune of billions from their death panels which refuse to insure sick people and refuse to pay claims to enhance their bottom lines. 22,000 Americans a year die because they don't have the money to pay for the care that would have enabled them to live. Apologists for our current system think that this is a good thing and want it to continue.

Every whining teabagger who dosen't want any of his tax money spent on health care for unemployed or sick losers is a member of our national death panel auxiliary. Everyone who does not agree that health care is a right is cheerleading on its behalf.

All American death panels, whether formal organizations of beancounters or informal organizations of cheerleaders are private and for profit. There are no American government death panels at all, with one single exception. That would be in the state of Texas. George W Bush signed a law in 1999 that gave hospital boards the right to decide to discontinue treatment in cases they jusge to be futile 10 days after notifying the families, and against those families' wishes. That has happened to at least three babies from 1999 to 2005. I'll give you three guesses what color those babies were, and the first two don't count.


References included after signature

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004294.php

Six-month-old Knya Dismuke-Howard had leukemia that spread to her brain. Doctors at Memorial Hermann Children's hospital said continued care would be futile and a hospital ethics committee decided last week to remove her from life support Monday, despite objections from her family.

The case is the third in Houston this spring to publicly test a 1999 state law that allows hospitals to discontinue treatment in futile cases 10 days after notifying loved ones of their intentions.


http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2005/03/sun_hudson_terr.htm
Six days ago, a 6-month-old baby boy named Sun Hudson died when Texas Children's Hospital disconnected his life support, against the wishes of his mother, because they decided that further treatment was "futile" and Wanda Hudson, the boy's mother, had no medical insurance. The Houston Chronicle reported:

Sun's death marks the first time a hospital has been allowed by a U.S. judge to discontinue an infant's life-sustaining care against a parent's wishes, according to bioethical experts

Texas law allows hospitals can discontinue life sustaining care, even if patient family members disagree.

[chelsea0011]

1. I'm not sure what part of Disneyland the RW lives in but death issues

are on the table if you are insured or not. Haven't any in the scream crowd sat down with doctors or had family members sit down with the medical staff when a family member is near death and decisions need to be made? And this happens with the insured. And as the poster points out, people without medical insurance may have those decisions made for them. The media and the Dems need to aggrerssively point out that every issue the screamers and RW bring up already happen. These next couple of months will show how much resove President Obama has with healthcare. The Dems are already showing signs of caving on some fronts and the President must not let it happen. The President was right that this issue needed to be settled before the break, and we can now see why.