Yes, we need “death panels”
This morning, my colleague Jay Bookman had a very thoughtful post on why rationing health care — “death panels,” if you will — is quite necessary. I wrote on a similar subject in my Sunday column.
If we keeping spending our health care dollars disproportionately on the elderly, we will have little left to spend on children. That makes for an upside-down society that cannot thrive for long.
I happen to think the entire column is worth reading, but if your time (and patience) are short, focus on the grafs in which my brother, a Boston kidney doc, talks about dialysis for the elderly who are already dying:
If resources are limited (and they are), the nation needs to make choices – some more painful than others. My brother, Kevin, a Boston physician who treats kidney disease, talks about the Medicare program that pays for dialysis for anyone with failing kidneys — including the terminally ill. Started in the 1970s to help adults still in the workforce, its fastest-growing population is now over 65, he said. And it costs tens of billions a year.
“It may not be the best use of resources for the frail and infirm elderly, and it also forces many elderly patients to spend their last days in the hospital, rather than at home,” a more comfortable setting, Kevin told me.
Yet, many patients, even octogenarians who don’t expect to recover, find it difficult to turn down the treatment. “And physicians resist having a conversation with patients that recommends they forego dialysis because it’s an uncomfortable conversation to have. It’s easier just to recommend the treatment,” he said.
But those are exactly the adult conversations we ought to be having.
Those will undoubtedly be very painful conversations. But we simply don’t have the money to spend to prolong the life of a terminally ill 87-year-old for a few weeks.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
234 comments Add your comment
Kamchak
April 20th, 2011
5:10 pm
Lil’ Barry Bailout
January 24th, 2011
8:51 pm
I do my best to stay away from CT’s blog.
Try harder.
Really last word
April 20th, 2011
5:13 pm
Tundra Dude April 20th, 2011
4:55 pm
There are many reasons for claims to be denied . . wrong code, diagnosis code does match treatment code, claim submitted outside of time period required for submission, treatment requires prior approval/no prior approval obtained, insured no longer covered (may have dropped their coverage), facility not approved for treatment, treatment not approved by FDA; treatment considered experimental, duplicate claim, provider not approved provider, denied because other treatment is a prerequisite, etc.
frans ferdinand
April 20th, 2011
5:15 pm
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Looks like Jesus Christ is a bed-wetting liberal. Go figure.
Fed-Up
April 20th, 2011
5:19 pm
I’ll quote Ms. Tucker…”You may remember the infamous “death panels” fabrication, which reverberated through the political landscape in 2009. It was a falsehood jerry-rigged to a perfectly sane proposal — that Medicare pay doctors to ask patients a few questions: Have you thought about end-of-life directives? Do you want a living will?
The policy sought to take advantage of the great weakness of our health care system: it pays doctors for procedures, not outcomes. Given that, doctors would be more likely to raise the subject with patients if they were paid for the time they spent. If experience is any guide, patients are less likely to bring it up themselves. But any patient’s participation would have been purely voluntary. No one would have been forced to have the conversation.
From that thoughtful policy change, Sarah Palin and others spread the “death panels” lie, persuading millions of Americans that the federal government would empanel bureaucrats to decide when to “pull the plug on Granny.”
What happened Cynthia ?
Fed-Up
April 20th, 2011
5:20 pm
Typical lying, flip flopping luiberal pig.
Really last word
April 20th, 2011
5:23 pm
Tundra Dude April 20th, 2011
4:55 pm
So what’s your point . . insurance companies deny claims for numerous reasons. Too often people want to have procedures, prescriptions, treatment that they “think” they need when in actuality they don’t need them. That is why insurance companies have doctors, nurses, etc. employed. They want to keep the costs down that is why they have “managed care” … keeping the costs down also gives them the ability to “try” to keep the premiums down. But people see a new drug advertised on tv . . . or they have a friend who had a procedure . . and they decide they want that too! Then you have those people who don’t have insurance because they are healthy . . then they get a disease and they can’t understand why they can’t just go pick up coverage! That’s like having a car accident without having insurance and calling the auto insurance and saying I want auto insurance and btw please cover my accident I had today!
hobby
April 20th, 2011
5:32 pm
There is no way to respond to an article like this
martin the calvinist
April 20th, 2011
5:42 pm
It should be the decision of the person and their family exclusively. It is not the business of a government beaurecrat to make those kind of decisions.
Cynthia, for you to chide those who stated there were death panels in the health care bill discredits your intergrity.
0311/0317 -1811/1801
April 20th, 2011
5:48 pm
Ms. Cynthia:
1) They should call themselves the “Metabolically Disadvantaged Panel”. It sounds so much better.
2) I hope the “Skull and Crossed Bones” flag flies in front of all their buildings.
3) “Heil Tucker” !!!
0311/0317 -1811/1801
April 20th, 2011
5:49 pm
Egads, just wait until a higher percentage of minorities get the early ride to the morgue. Then it will hit the fan.
Lil' Barry Bailout
April 20th, 2011
5:51 pm
Kamchak: Try harder.
——————
Kammy gets all warm “down there” when it sees me post!
Kamchak
April 20th, 2011
6:02 pm
No lil’bb brain
Merely pointing out that you are just a silly con with zero credibility.
You say one thing, yet do the opposite.
0311/0317 -1811/1801
April 20th, 2011
6:08 pm
BADA BING:
Obama spelled backwards is Amabo.
Hummmmm ……………… could be something there.
Thulsa Doom
April 20th, 2011
6:14 pm
So tundra dude’s mind believes that insurance companies like blue cross, pacificare, and kaiser routinely deny between 1/4 and over 40% of all claims. That is so preposterous that I can’t believe a rational person would post it. Tundra dude that study is obviously flawed or very misleading. Use some common sense sir.
Kamchak
April 20th, 2011
6:17 pm
Just remember, birthers spelled backwards is srehtrib.
Billybob
April 20th, 2011
6:37 pm
It’s official…..you in heap big doo-doo and have ‘left the reservation’ tucker….these decisions are NOT the gubt’s business….class in session…when you allow someone, anyone(GOVT) to put a $$$$$ number on what a human life is worth and then that same entity (GOVT)tells you that you are not getting your lifesaving treatment because they DEEM someone else $$$$worthier, you are in a realm that does not include traditional american values and this mindset is not what made this country great…..this leftist drivel is bled all over papers across the country…..this class warfare played by the libs and press is being understood by more and more people every day tucker…..it’s a lib 101 template that apparently you know miss tucker, class warfare is a big marxist tenet and in this article your beliefs bled through in only the second paragraph when you pitted the elderly(who would be sacrificed) against the children in these DEATH PANELS that you claimed were made up…….hypocrisy people, i think so, class dismissed
Mr Right
April 20th, 2011
6:37 pm
So Sarah Palin was right all along !
Billybob
April 20th, 2011
6:40 pm
Are these death panels what pelosi meant when she told us we would just have to pass the bill so we can find out what is in it tucker? Liars lie people….
Bob
April 20th, 2011
6:41 pm
CT-Palin was discussing death panels that were tied to end of life care in section 1233 of the HR3200
“Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens….An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” [10] Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.” [11]
President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.”
- Sarah Palin
Thulsa Doom
April 20th, 2011
6:52 pm
I remember the dominant liberal media jumping all over Sarah Palin for bringing up “death panels”. And now what do we see? Lib columnists writing about the necessity of “death panels”. Oh but the irony of it all.
guy
April 20th, 2011
7:03 pm
Shean,
What happened on the marta bus this morning won’t be mentioned very long by the liberal press in this country.The victims were white and they don’t count. What happened in the Death Wish movies will be what it takes to get the low rent scums(all races) attention.It’ coming!!!!!
Thulsa Doom
April 20th, 2011
7:05 pm
Death Panels? Just put the elderly, sick people on their last legs on the MARTA. They’ll get culled out of the population by these young thugs running in packs like predators.
Thulsa Doom
April 20th, 2011
7:07 pm
So the only victims were white and were attacked by 20 or so young black men. Please don’t tell me some of you folks are thinking this will be prosecuted as a hate crime. Now if the 2 victims were black and the 20 person gang were white then of course that would be a whole different story. Not to mention that it would be national news.
Fed-Up
April 20th, 2011
7:11 pm
No comment Cybthia??? There’s a shocker ! I will quote you again. This were your words only a few short months ago. It’s no wonder that being a drug dealer is 2 notches above being a modern day journalist in the respectability scale.
“You may remember the infamous “death panels” fabrication, which reverberated through the political landscape in 2009. It was a falsehood jerry-rigged to a perfectly sane proposal — that Medicare pay doctors to ask patients a few questions: Have you thought about end-of-life directives? Do you want a living will?
The policy sought to take advantage of the great weakness of our health care system: it pays doctors for procedures, not outcomes. Given that, doctors would be more likely to raise the subject with patients if they were paid for the time they spent. If experience is any guide, patients are less likely to bring it up themselves. But any patient’s participation would have been purely voluntary. No one would have been forced to have the conversation.
From that thoughtful policy change, Sarah Palin and others spread the “death panels” lie, persuading millions of Americans that the federal government would empanel bureaucrats to decide when to “pull the plug on Granny.” “
Tundra Dude
April 20th, 2011
7:13 pm
Thulsa Doom@6:14 wrote, in part:
Tundra dude that study is obviously flawed or very misleading. Use some common sense sir.
Not a study. These figures were obtained via subpoena by the Calif. Attorney General in 09.
They are now publicly available at Calif. Dep’t of Managed Care.
Bob
April 20th, 2011
7:18 pm
Let me get this straight;
Libs trying to pass Obamacare.
Palin and other conservatives discuss death panels and rationing of health care.
Libs are afraid because of the negative press for death panels.
Libs call these concerns BS and claim Insurance companies are denying treatment.
Alan Grayson states that Republicans want old people to die.
Pelosi pushes quick passage after all the back room deals.
Pelosi “We need to pass if to see what’s in it”.
Obamacare passes.
Libs call for rationing health care (denied it before Obamacare was passed).
Libs are proven HUGE hypocrites and show they can not be trusted.
Libs continue spinning with their friends (lies and deception)
John Galt
April 20th, 2011
7:21 pm
Frans-
You are clearly biblically illiterate. Please show me the verse that says “Thou shalt take thy brother’s coat, or his food, or his ass, and give it to thy other brother if it will make thee feel better about thyself”.
Christ would NOT condone the practice of liberals using other people’s money to purchase political constituencies. He was instructing people to give of their own belongings to aid the needy, NOT have it done through involuntary confidcation by some government entity.
On another note, I wonder if Ms. Tucker will tell us how many times she has called Sarah Palin a liar and a fool for referencing “death panels” as created by ObamaCare.
Kamchak
April 20th, 2011
7:39 pm
The protagonist from a novel about moral objectivism written by an atheist is channeling Christ.
Too funny.
Just can’t make this shyt up.
Billybob
April 20th, 2011
7:42 pm
you and bookman’s credibility has taken a serious hit today with this prose……keep talking about this stuff…please!
Jack
April 20th, 2011
8:03 pm
Apparently neither Tucker nor Bookman have ever had to pull the plug on a loved one. It ain’t easy.
Paddy O
April 20th, 2011
8:13 pm
The deficiency in this argument is: The elderly person has contributed to the care he/she is receiving. The PARENTS of the proposed child should have done some very careful consideration prior to engaging in sex to bring that child into the world. THE PARENTS are responsible/accountable for that childs well being and existence, NOT the government. This is the uber liberal’s nanny state utilitarianism brought to its final argument for consideration, and one that ALL liberals who believe (quite erroneously & UnAmerican) that health care is a “right” that must be supplied by the government (what other rights are SUPPLIED by the government, freedom to assemble? NO; freedom of speech and the press (to write down your thoughts – notice the word “expression” is NOT included in this section of the bill of rights) – NO. this is why the entire artifice of liberal “rights thought” is noting more than bleeding heart governmental dependency, and freedom loving Americans should reject it, and reject all those honest liberals who know what the end game (utilitarianism combined with misplaced liberal “idealism” (that is the masquerade – in reality it is socialism/communism – McCarthy was right – this writer is a godless, bleeding heart [have to help the poor children- who we don’t abort – communist)).
ck hall
April 20th, 2011
8:13 pm
You have got to be crazy!
Drifter
April 20th, 2011
8:20 pm
I wouldn’t call them death panels, but rather rational decision making on what should be done with limited funding. I know the AMA, the drug companies and the health insurance companies desire to divide up the entire wealth of the country among themselves, but we can’t afford to do that. The bottom line is these guys are stripping a greater percentage of wealth from its citizens than any other country, they’re not covering everyone and they’re getting poor results. The greatest nation in the world should be doing better.
kayaker 71
April 20th, 2011
8:21 pm
Tucker, I have defended you on several occasions regarding your rhetoric, although I have disagreed with you on most topics. But this is about the end of the line. Your hypocritical approach to this subject is beyond reason. I cannot tell you how much respect that I have lost for you as you write this thread. You have some moments of light but lately, you have descended into some dark place where it appears, only the irrational live. You called Palin everything but sane for saying the same things you have just admitted. How do you liberals look yourselves in the mirror each day?
Craig Spinks/ Evans
April 20th, 2011
8:25 pm
Might there be more, much more, money to be made in providing high-tech care to terminally ill elderly patients than in providing prophylactic care to youngsters?
frans ferdinand
April 20th, 2011
8:30 pm
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil (insurance companies): for thou art with me(Jesus and Single-Payer); thy rod and thy staff they comfort me sans pre-exiisting clauses. Amen.
(Psalm 23:4)
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
April 20th, 2011
8:37 pm
Hopefully you and Jay will be some of the first to benefit from the collective wisdom of a death panel. Just kidding, where would we go to read all of your almost non-stop, mad-cap, hilarious inanities? The comic relief the two of you provide would be difficult to duplicate.
On a different subject, I look forward to reading your various reasons why S&P’s placement of U.S. government debt on the “negative watch” list is actually good for everybody, just like $4.00 a gallon gas. Your mental gymnastics are admirable. Anything for the cause.
Billybob
April 20th, 2011
8:48 pm
well said vrwc
DawgDad
April 20th, 2011
8:57 pm
Ms. Tucker, you are one very sick individual. I would like to thank you and Jay for going public with the TRUTH of who and what you are.
Our forefathers (mine at least) fought and in some cases died for our freedoms. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit by and hand over my freedom and the freedom of my family, friends, and future generations without sounding off and standing firm in defense. Your kind cannot be trusted with your own unborn children; why in the world would we trust you and your kind with our health care and end of life decisions??? Never. Never. Never. This fight is at the ballot box and in the court of public opinion. Let’s get it on.
For the record, I have absolutely NO PROBLEM paying higher health care costs in the PRIVATE SECTOR to cover the cost of charitable care. This, for the record, is REAL charity, not the false kind you promote funded with my tax dollars or leveraged future. I will never willingly surrender this Constitutional freedom to the Federal Government. My health care choices are mine, not yours.
Log Cabin Al
April 20th, 2011
9:06 pm
DawgDad,
Thanks! I think it moved.
Billybob
April 20th, 2011
9:11 pm
the silence of tucker’s hit squad is deafening out here………..
Kamchak
April 20th, 2011
9:14 pm
Poor little billy-poo.
Just can’t fathom,
We’re just not that into you.
Tech Man
April 20th, 2011
9:18 pm
CT – Dancing the Texas Sidestep (Best Little Worehouse in Texas).
Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Nelson and now Tucker!
Billybob
April 20th, 2011
9:19 pm
fine, please defend tucker then…..
Lavonia Jane
April 20th, 2011
9:20 pm
What happened to all the scorn about death panels a few months ago? Lying? Again?
Do you really want the government who is the one who is paying for the healthcare to be the ones making the decisons? Is there anything that you don’t trust the government to do?
oldguy
April 20th, 2011
9:33 pm
Hey CT
News flash, we are all terminally ill….We are all dying, its just a matter of when. I forgot who it was that said “you are born, then you
begin to die!”
So who decides you have used up your “good time” on this planet?
Some bored inept government bureaucrat? A computer program that kicks out your name as having exhausted your services limit?
That is apparently what you want.
if you are too old forget any more medical services!!
As a 69 year old with Diabetes when does my clock run out??
Is my medicine too expensive for the Imperial Federal Government to afford?
When do my services resources “reach its limit?” (like a credit card).
Please feel free to let me know!!
p.s. I just get back from out pateint skin cancer surgery. Maybe I am too old for the Gov to spend that money under Obamba care!!!
Keep your “gov run health care”
TruthBe
April 20th, 2011
9:34 pm
Hey democrat liars didn’t you accuse the GOP for death panels when all along it’s been Obama, Reid, Pelois, and the democrats with obamacare that created “Death Panels” Once again the corrupt media and the corrupt DNC are the real villians. Cynthia Tucker, Jay Bookman, and the rest of the ajc are corrupt racist, dishonest wantab journalists.
oldguy
April 20th, 2011
9:37 pm
pps
Please let me know when “Dirty Harry Reed’s” service time maxes out. I’ll be more that happy to serve on that Death Panel!!
Paddy O
April 20th, 2011
9:38 pm
the guy who decides is the fired FAA guy who was caught snoozing while a plane ran down the wrong run, which was too short, and hit the tree off the end of that short run way. Yeah, that guy who was overseeing the airport in kentucky.
Chris
April 20th, 2011
9:39 pm
Probably the most honest piece I have read by Ms. Tucker. Rationing healthcare is on the table!