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.
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234 comments Add your comment
Paddy O
April 20th, 2011
9:40 pm
the liberal panderers are atheistic communists – ask them if they support ending the Earned Income Credit – what % do you think will say yes?
Kamchak
April 20th, 2011
9:43 pm
fine, please defend tucker then…..
Against whom?
The little Pomeranians that yap at her ankles here all day?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
She’s more than capable of handling you little rat dogs.
Ray
April 20th, 2011
10:02 pm
Tucker wants to get rid of people, so there will be more money to redistribute.
Get Real
April 20th, 2011
10:08 pm
Kamchak….don’t go away mad, just go away
Billybob
April 20th, 2011
10:10 pm
technique taught in Lib 101…..immediately change subject that you can’t defend, call names and attack character of your opponent……and you are right, she has defended herself great so far………that’s called sarcasm
Mid-South Philosopher
April 20th, 2011
10:11 pm
Ah, Miss Cynthia,
Thank you for being honest, which is much more than the vast majority of liberals or conservatives are these days. At least you and Jay have the intestinal fortitude to lay out your socialist views on “the brave new world.”
If you or Jay ever have to go before one of these “death panels”, I will not appear to speak in your behalf, but I will write a nice letter to the tribunal expressing my approval of the event and encouraging them to comply with your wishes!
worthington
April 20th, 2011
10:17 pm
The Republican agenda continues to be the dismantling of the social safety net for working people, the poor and the elderly.
Ponder
April 20th, 2011
10:23 pm
Yes, we need “death panels”
CT- your topic is spot on if directed to the following thugs —
Roughly two dozen teens, chanting the name of a well-known Atlanta gang, brought mob rule to MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and assaulting two Delta flight attendants.
CT – perhaps you should focus on getting your own house in order before worrying about your hopey-changey view of the world!!!!
worthington
April 20th, 2011
10:25 pm
“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.” ~ George W. Bush
Madison with a question
April 20th, 2011
10:35 pm
Has Kamchak taken Granny G place as the moron du jur?
Madison with a question
April 20th, 2011
10:36 pm
du jour sorry fast fingers
ATL in my rear view mirror
April 20th, 2011
10:39 pm
UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Always good to see our family made a great decision to move out of Atlanta two years ago….
Two out-of-state Delta employees were attacked late Saturday night after being, according to witnesses, “bum rushed” by nearly 30 teenagers on a MARTA train.
According to MARTA police and news reports, a large group of teenagers boarded the southbound train at downtown’s Garnett station around midnight.
One of the teens — a black male between the age of 13 and 18 years old — then allegedly pushed one of the victims to the ground before hitting him in the head with a can of soda and taking his wallet. The police report says one of the suspect’s friends — a black male between the age of 16 and 18 years old — started punching the other employee before snatching his wallet. Two MARTA riders then separated the victims from the suspects.
JKL2
April 20th, 2011
10:41 pm
Obama’s good buddy Bill Ayers said we needed to kill off about 25 million back in his Weather Underground terrorists days. Adjusting for population growth since then, I’m guessing the death panels will need to take out about 40 million people for obamaland to function properly. Is that what you had in mind CT?
JKL2
April 20th, 2011
10:43 pm
Madison- Has Kamchak taken Granny G place as the moron du jour?
Not replaced, just a compliment to. I think they share the same brain cell. Unfortunately it’s not his day…
worthington
April 20th, 2011
10:46 pm
When seventy percent of Tea Partiers are against changes in Medicare, how do the Generals placate the troops?
John Galt
April 20th, 2011
10:49 pm
Guess Cynthia has forgotten who I am and what I represent. Those of us that create wealth will not let the maligant scum take the world. We are not about to hand our lives to the state. No matter how toxic your lies are we shall reveal the truth.
worthington
April 20th, 2011
10:51 pm
A funny thing happened to the American ruling class: It stopped being concerned with the health of society as a whole and became almost entirely obsessed with money.
Tommy Maddox
April 20th, 2011
11:05 pm
Maybe young one you should check in w/us after you PAY on a tax return.
bman
April 20th, 2011
11:07 pm
wow wow wow !! Before you made these thoughts public, did you stop to think that this terminally ill 87 year old patient (that you would – as Palin said it – PULL THE PLUG ON) may have been marching in the streets in support of civil rights movement??
You should be ashamed of yourself. The AJC should be ashamed, too.
Don't Tread
April 20th, 2011
11:08 pm
A few months ago you were railing about the Republican “misinformation” and “lies” regarding your “health care” bill, rationing, and death panels. Now you say death panels (rationing) are necessary and financially the right thing to do.
You really can’t make this stuff up, folks.
Now please tell us again how Democrats cut taxes for the middle class? My tax software must be broken.
Verbotten
April 20th, 2011
11:33 pm
Jeez, now she’s down to cut&pasting Bookman’s column. She can’t even make the effort to dig up something from some other paper. Pulitzer Prize to cut&paste queen, how sad.
On topic: these would be the same “death panels” that you all so screamingly denied even existed? For which you mocked unrelentingly anyone with the temerity to utter the words?
scott
April 20th, 2011
11:47 pm
Okay, Cynthia, you are definitely infirm, so you are outta here.
Ret
April 20th, 2011
11:57 pm
I dispute this part of the premise of your argument–we’re not spending OUR $, we’re spending the $ of our children, grandchildren….
bman
April 21st, 2011
12:06 am
Ret – and $ that could be better used towards patient care for the millions who are here illegally, feeding & housing convicted murderers. I mean….I’m with you.
Tommy
April 21st, 2011
12:21 am
It sounds very similar to what the Nazis used in WWII to me. I would be ashamed to look a person in the eye and tell them “your life is not worth anything to us.” We now are going to send you home to die. What kind of society does Obama and his fans think we are?
It shames me to even think Americans would do this to each other. We spend billions of dollars on needless wars, on aid to countries that hate America and you propose Death Panels.
I would pose a question to you CT what if that were you child, brother or sister, husband, mom or dad laying there with cancer or some other life threatening problem do you want a Death Panel to vote on there fate? Or do you want a team of doctors to keep them alive and let the family decide what is best?
The liberal party of this country is determined to ruin or society. You want this country to be a socialist state so bad it is unreal. You have the president in place leading the charge and people like you with a public forum preaching his message every day.
All i can hope far the madness will end on Nov. 2, 2012.
ken
April 21st, 2011
12:25 am
We have had them for years. Many dead babies in trah cans.
The Thin Guy
April 21st, 2011
12:27 am
There are betters ways of cutting medical costs. First, eliminate all medical treatment for illegal aliens. Second, outlaw medical malpractice lawsuits. Even better outlaw lawyers. Eliminate all non essential medical treatment such as hair transplants, breast implants, change of sex operations, plastic surgery, etc. Impose a fat tax on all obese patients. But Cynthia loves Death Panels because the government gets to decide who lives and who dies.
Hypocrites
April 21st, 2011
12:38 am
It cracks me up all of the conservative hypocrites on here that are all of a sudden so concerned about publicly funded health care to the elderly, and are outraged that there be any discussion of limiting such in any way. What do you think Paul Ryan’s plan was going to do?
0311/0317 -1811/1801
April 21st, 2011
1:10 am
Cynthia:
You had better think this through carefully.
There are a lot of half-dead senior black citizens bused out every election to make that important vote. Now add all of that black abortion genocide and you guys could really be losing influence down the road. “Don’t cut off your nose despite your face” !
Tom Middleton
April 21st, 2011
2:14 am
I vote No to your death panels for the terminally ill, Cynthia, unless you’ll also give them the right to die well before as a personal matter of dignity. Hey, the kids will love us for it..lolol!
Chappy
April 21st, 2011
2:32 am
All this dems and repos misses a huge point.
We are ALL going to die.
Hey Cindi Lou, I couldn’t imagine I’d ever read about you again. Your still at it! Good for you. I bet there is one point you and I would agree on. The crash should have come. We should not have bailed out the animals who created a situation that destroyed so many working people’s lives. The result was that even more wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a couple few. I would never have believed in “wealth redistribution”, but since our government tried to foil the natural correction cycle of everybody starting over, now I do think it would be horribly painful but the best thing that could happen, because that 1% will become lords of unbearable and evil power.
I don’t mean to hijack your death panel thread – but would like to hear your opinion. Because you yourself entertained power desires, you are unlikely to offer the powerful opinion of the poor any longer but I’ll look for you in the future to see if you’d still support this. The 1% of wealth holders needs to be taken down for the sake of the VAST majority.
And since insurance companies are ALL ABOUT denying care to anybody for the sake of profits to their shareholders, with the honest result that death panels are not new, I support the idea of grossly ill people sucking up millions in care for one individual that IS about to die anyway.
But, since your brother is a doctor (you sound like an old jewish mother there) you’ve probably been cued to start buying insurance stock and profit from these decisions so I’m only disappointed in seeing you are no longer a flaming crazy adamant about the rights of the poor, because you DO know who will receive the majority of these termination notices for care. You ought fully well take a look in the mirror now and realize it aint just old white men who use and abuse others for their gain. tsk tsk tsk.
Chappy
April 21st, 2011
2:36 am
sorry there is a cat on my keyboard, I DON’T support terminally ill patients sucking up millions in health care when they have already lived into old age and are terribly sick. I see to many people with no quality of life who would have actually died were it not for extreme machines who only prolong the wait for no quality in return.
My last post incorrectly states I think they should. but the cat here apparently has another opinion.
Jeff
April 21st, 2011
3:10 am
Glad you can admit Sarah Palin was right. Too bad you waited a year to late to do it.
brain of con
April 21st, 2011
4:06 am
Nuance, Your’e Fired!
J Moore
April 21st, 2011
5:00 am
Fed up said it all! Liberals are godless heatherns who have no respect for life–except theirs of course.
We shoulda picked our own cotton.
finn mccool
April 21st, 2011
5:08 am
Deny, deny, deny…and now admit it.
Obama Supporter
April 21st, 2011
6:18 am
Thank goodness, the government knows best. I want more pie, but I do not want to work for it. I want the same medical benefits as you, but I want to watch Jerry Springer and soap operas all day. Glad CT is here to continue the lies, so we can march like liberal lemmings over the cliff. I love me some entitlement.
seabeau
April 21st, 2011
6:49 am
ctucker !!! It was said many years ago by conservatives when abortion was legalized that abortion was the the beginning of a long slippery slope where all human life could be debased and threatened. It looks like we were right. Cynthia, lets take your liberal idea a bit futher,lets only give medical benefits to PRODUCTIVE menbers of society. TAX PAYERS!! No medical benefits to those on the DOLE!! “The Liberals Moral Delemma, Murder the Innocents(Abortion),and Pardon the Murderers(Anti-Capital Punishment)”.
Dave
April 21st, 2011
6:53 am
Love you hypocrit liberaals. “Old people, just go die.” Blame it on the Republicans. Just give us your votes and get the H— out of the way. AARP are you listening? So, in reality, President Obama’s cost saving health care program is to insure only the healthy and kill everyone else.
Dave
April 21st, 2011
7:00 am
Chappy, you are a rare Dummycrap, honest in your total hate of anyone more successful that you.
Gordon
April 21st, 2011
7:01 am
Didn’t Bookman just write this? Don’t you guys communicate with each other?
Mongo
April 21st, 2011
7:18 am
LOL. I love all the little Connies wailing and gnashing their teeth about evil Medicare and death panels when their only proposal is a voucher system where the elderly would run out of money before they even need end of life care.
Steal Granny’s Medicare to fund more tax cuts for the idle rich. That’s the way to go. What scum.
bigjet
April 21st, 2011
7:25 am
This is the first time, ever, that I have agreed with your thoughts. It is well past time to reconsider expensive treatments for those who are too far gone to benefit. There is much to be said for dying with dignity,
IloveGeorgia
April 21st, 2011
7:31 am
You make me sick! That is all I have to say. I hope you do not need any life saving treatment in your senior years, which are not far off!!!!!!!!
They cut hair, don't they?
April 21st, 2011
7:33 am
Isn’t “very thoughtful post” an oxymoron if you’re talking about Jay Bookman? He hacked the entire blog from me, as usual.
90% of our healtcare costs are spent on the last six months of a patients life.
Any questions? Good, then stfu. You Mayo Clinicians don’t understand the facts, worse, you don’t care enough about logic to advance any discussion. You are all children. You frame your argument from a platform of fear. You’re afraid of not just your own death, but also of your own minds. You may have to make choices and it paralyzes you. Instead you hack reheated mealworm opinions you steal from the media. And your data mining is so convoluted, that it makes strip mining coal look like planting corn.
None of you deserve a farthing of compassion. (now watch the blog hosts use the word farthing where before they have never used it in their entire pathetic hacked out lives).
proxymorons. all.
We’re spending our Healthcare resources on patients who have six months to live or less. Let Donald Trump house them in his empty building projects. PERIOD.
Cosby
April 21st, 2011
7:43 am
Ahh…now we let the government play God….another reason to dump the government programs and let the people take care of themsleves.
SouthernGal
April 21st, 2011
7:49 am
When a persons quality of life is nil…why not euthanasia?
shellybean
April 21st, 2011
7:50 am
You are everything that is wrong with this society Ms. Tucker.
BOB
April 21st, 2011
7:52 am
cidy – i thought you claimed in one of your last years articles that we already had death panels – the INSURANCE COMPANY.
Not Blind
April 21st, 2011
7:59 am
Great, we can quit spending money on old people that are dying. What’s the next step to huge savings ? Hey, how about denying coverage for ‘not old’ people, say 40 or 50 yr olds ?? Then how about no treatment for newborns with terrible birth defects?? Then no treatment for newborns with minor birth defects.