How ‘death panels’ work in other countries
There’s been plenty of speculative commentary about Democrats’ health-care proposals and the “death panels” that Sarah Palin has warned of. But Britain’s National Health Service, that supposed exemplar of government-run health care, is implementing a system that is more disturbing than even what Palin imagined.
Rupert Darwall, writing in The Wall Street Journal, describes the plan which is known as the Liverpool Care Pathway — a suitably Orwellian name given that it’s actually a pathway to non-care. Under the Liverpool program, British doctors stop giving fluids and food to certain patients considered to be near death. Instead, the patients are put on a steady drip of drugs to render them unconscious until they die. This is known as “terminal sedation.”
Now get this: In 2007-08, before the Liverpool program’s national roll-out, terminal sedation already accounted for 16.5 percent of deaths in Britain. That’s one in six. In the U.S., that would have made it the third-leading cause of death in 2006, behind only heart diseases and cancer, according to these statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Earlier this month, a group of doctors described the Liverpool program as “a tick-box approach” that results in “forecasting death…an inexact science.” They wrote:
As a result, a nationwide wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients. Syringe drivers are being used to give continuous terminal sedation, without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.
As they also noted, while some of these patients will surely die naturally in short order, it is also possible for other “‘dying’ patients [to] get better.”
Here’s where this is relevant to the American health-care debate. Darwall attributes the Liverpool program and its ilk to the “real justification for socialized medicine,” namely that:
Because health-care resources are assumed to be fixed, those resources should be prioritized for those who can benefit most from medical treatment. Thus the NHS acts as Britain’s national triage service, deciding who is most likely to respond best to treatment and allocating health care accordingly.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the NHS is institutionally ageist. The elderly have fewer years left to them; why then should they get health-care resources that would benefit a younger person more?
Democrats owe Americans an explanation of exactly how they would prevent this kind of thing from happening under their plan. “Trust us” doesn’t cut it.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Guides
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
60 comments Add your comment
Sam
September 15th, 2009
12:57 pm
Republicans owe Americans an explanation of exactly how they would prevent insurance companies from continuing to condemn sick Americans to death by dropping coverage and denying treatments for people who paid their premiums when they were well. “Trust us” doesn’t cut it.
jconservative
September 15th, 2009
1:04 pm
I agree with Sam.
Lyle is talking about something that may happen.
Sam is talking about something that does happen.
David Axelfraud
September 15th, 2009
1:12 pm
This is by far the funniest comment I have ever read on the AJC blog. Its from some guy on Bookmans blog who obviously can’t spell. The last line in his comment had me rolling!
GEORGE AMERICAN
September 15th, 2009
11:58 am
DRUDGE’S EXPOSE’ IS A SMALL EXAMPLE OF EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING IN AMERICA.
DECENT AMERICAN’S ARE BEING BEATEN DOWN BY TYRANTS AND BULLIES WHILE THE SOCIALIST STAND AROUND A CHEAR.
HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE IT? STAND UP AGAINST TRANNY!!!
Kyle Wingfield
September 15th, 2009
1:20 pm
jconservative: The point is that this is “something that does happen” elsewhere…and the left is starting to make the argument out loud that it ought to happen here, too: http://www.newsweek.com/id/215291
So let’s not pretend like this is irrelevant, or only the product of Palin’s imagination. Btw, this isn’t just a problem in Britain…the terminal sedation death rate is still about 8 percent in Belgium and the Netherlands according to this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html
At 8 percent, terminal sedation would still rank third among U.S. causes of death. We are not talking about small numbers of people here.
And to both jconservative and Sam: Fair enough. The GOP has to explain how its proposals would do just that. But that doesn’t excuse Democrats from making their own explanation. They are, after all, the ones with the bill(s) on the table and the majorities to pass something. As I think I’ve made clear all along, I don’t think either party deserves a pass on the trust issue. Let’s see written, legally enacted safeguards.
This wouldn’t be hard to do, btw. For example, Republicans have proposed (and Democrats rejected) amendments stating that federal money wouldn’t be spent on abortions. It’d suffice to have a provision to prevent terminal sedation in whatever health bill we end up getting.
JackLeg
September 15th, 2009
1:22 pm
Why don’t you 2 go look at HR3400, the Republicans have had this bill since April and Obozo’s “Open Door” has been closed. Nancy Pelosi keeps asking for the Republican option but claims she has yet to see one. All she has to do is look in the rejected pile in her office; she controls what the Congress sees so she conveniently will not let this bill get to the floor.
Road Scholar
September 15th, 2009
1:28 pm
“Terminal sedation”- isn’t that what the conservatives are doing to our country?
“Palin’s imagination”- do you really want to go there?
Ray Pugh
September 15th, 2009
1:31 pm
Kyle,
While I am certainly in favor of both terminal sedation and death panels, I prefer my original idea of putting the elderly and the terminally ill on space shuttles and sending them into the sun. What say you?
Mother Faulkner
September 15th, 2009
1:41 pm
Oh dear young Kyle, you still have much to learn:
1) the Hyde Amendment (1976) already banned federal funding for abortions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment
2) Constitutional provisions, specifically Ams. 5 and 14, would prevent the implementation of “death panels” or any functional equivalent. Also, any party that sanctioned such a practice would be swiftly voted out of office and new legislation would be written. In other words, why even concern yourself with an issue so unlikely to materialize? Could it be simply to demonize the opposition?
Will
September 15th, 2009
1:53 pm
It is my hope and desire that each and every morning Sarah Palin wakes up more committed to running in 2012. With Palin, Huckabee and others splitting the votes of republican radical right wing, Mitt Romney will be assured the nomination.
This country needs a proven businessman who is not distracted by the silliness of the radical right’s social issue fixation or the radical left’s fixation on “peace, jobs and freedom”.
Cutty
September 15th, 2009
2:29 pm
Mother Faulkner has already pointed out the Hyde Amendment. Does this not settle the issue of Federal funding being used for abortions?
dd
September 15th, 2009
2:37 pm
re the Hyde amendment……..I’m thinking that congress reverses prior laws regularly? Unless it’s in the constitution, saying that some previous law settles anything is silly.
pd
September 15th, 2009
2:38 pm
So your argument is that the public should not be given a public option on healthcare because the public option might deny some elderly patients a proceedure that they need?
However, you readily admit that private insurance does the same thing.
You don’t want the government to provide ANYONE ANY healthcare because the government might not provide Healthcare for the elderly.
Its like you are arguing against yourself. On one hand you don’t want the government to provide healthcare. On the other, you are aghast that the government might not provide someone healthcare.
By the way, get a hair cut.
Sunshine and Thunder
September 15th, 2009
2:47 pm
Would someone please give some links/examples of situations where Americans died because of coverage denial that was the fault of the insurance company?
pd
September 15th, 2009
2:55 pm
Sunshine and Thunder, my friend who is in remission from lukemia cannot obtain private insurance. The company he worked for did not provide group insurance. He had to find another job with another company making less money so that he could have coverage.
A relative of mine is a diabetic. She is otherwise healthy and did not obtain this as a result of diet. her health insurance premium, for catastrophic coverage only is $1100 a month. The coverage doe not cover anything related to her “pre-existing condition”
By the way, Kyle, your statement regarding terminal sedation as a “cause of death” is misleading. Terminal sedation is simply the practice of relieving distress in a terminally ill person in the last hours or days of a patient’s life, usually by means of a continuous intravenous or subcutaneous infusion of a sedative drug.
Therefore a person does not die of “Terminal Sedation”. They die from cancer, heart attacks, car crashes, ect… They just die without pain.
Mother Faulkner
September 15th, 2009
2:59 pm
dd,
Constitutional amendments outside of the Bill of Rights can be overturned or modified with 2/3 majority state vote, so therefore they are not “settled” within the context in which you speak.
By the way, the Hyde Amendment is still good law, and will remain good law once health insurance reform is passed.
NeverTrustARepublican
September 15th, 2009
3:13 pm
The thing is, we already do this but we, typically, don’t talk about it. Kyle knows this but would prefer to scare the gullible with the evils of existing government health care plans. No, see, we should let people die in agony, like God intended.
pd
September 15th, 2009
3:16 pm
And another misleading part of your “journalism”, Kyle, is your statement,
“British doctors stop giving fluids and food to certain patients considered to be near death. Instead, the patients are put on a steady drip of drugs to render them unconscious until they die.”
The patient receiving this pain relief is in the last days or hours of their life. There have not been any conclusive studies showing any benefit to artificial nutrition or hydration during terminal sedation. However, it is mandatory that a doctor discuss that with a patient or the patient’s family before undergoing sedation.
pd
September 15th, 2009
3:20 pm
“The thing is, we already do this but we, typically, don’t talk about it.”
Thats true. Terminal sedation is completely legal in the US. Basically, the UK is about to legalize something that is already legal in the US, and somehow thats relevant in Kyle’s thinking.
Kyle, are you the one who won the ajc’s contest to become a conservative blogger?
Can you imagine what the people that lost that contest must be like?
I hear conservatives say that the ajc is a liberal newspaper, and now I agree. I agree that it must be because they go out of their way to hire the worst possible candidates to represent the “right” side.
Will
September 15th, 2009
3:25 pm
Republicans demand the President “listen to the people”, citing consistent polling of the American public that reflects opposition to the democrat health reform proposal. These same republicans remain silent regarding consistent polling of the American public that reflects declining support for the Afghan war.
Democrats demand that the “will of the people” drive commitments relating to the Afghan war. They remain silent regarding the “will of the people” and health care reform.
And the band plays on…………
JF McNamara
September 15th, 2009
3:26 pm
Kyle,
What is the terminal sedation rate in the United States today? It’s legal and occurring as we speak.
Here’s an AMA article on the topic, and it clearly says that it is for those with incurable diseases. Essentially, you can allow people a graceful death through sedation once it is determined they will no longer live.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/369/ceja_5a08.pdf
If you are against this, you should’ve been against it from the outset not now that it fits your political motivations. Regardless, you would have to know the difference in the rates of sedation prior and post healthcare reform in order to draw any non-political conclusion. The rate could be the same before and after healthcare reform as there are no protections against sedation today.
Right now, its the equivalent of the sedation wild, wild west.
Kyle Wingfield
September 15th, 2009
3:32 pm
pd: You are right. I misread what the doctors wrote in their letter, so my comparison of it with other causes of death doesn’t stand up. But the Liverpool program — not giving patients fluids or food once they are believed to be near death, and using terminal sedation to make sure they don’t feel the effects of this deprivation — is still abhorrent.
As for all the talk about the Hyde Amendment…it does not “ban federal funding for abortion.” It isn’t even a standing law. It is an amendment that has been attached each year since 1976 to the Health and Human Services appropriations bill, and it prohibits the use of the funds in that particular bill to pay for abortions. There is a big difference.
The Hyde Amendment might apply to whatever health reform bill the Democrats eventually pass, but it might not. It also might not be renewed at some point in the future. The point is that President Obama is pledging that federal funds won’t be used for abortions on the one hand, while on the other hand Democrats in the House and Senate are voting down amendments to their respective bills that would make that pledge explicit — and in fact are passing amendments (Capps in the House, Mikulski in the Senate) that may well undermine his pledge.
I just don’t think you can have it both ways on such a divisive issue. Give the promise some teeth, or people will continue to have legitimate doubts.
UGA Law
September 15th, 2009
3:33 pm
Shame on Mr. Wingfield for continuing this vicious and unhealthy rumor. There is no such thing as a death panel in the bill, nor anything close to it. And Democrats, again and again, have explained that what they want is for Medicare to cover end of life counseling, which lets patients be the ones in control of their fate, and not doctors or family members. Mr. Wingfield is not listening to Democrats’ explanations; he doesn’t have to. All he needs is an audience to preach to, and some outrageous anecdote, to further a Republican conspiracy to prevent serious health reform.
Shame on Mr. Wingfield, and shame on the AJC for allowing him to continue this vicious rumor.
pd
September 15th, 2009
3:34 pm
My mother-in-law died in hospice care run by a Catholic Charity. As she lie there in constant pain from the tumor in her brain, the nurse/sister kept her on morphine. After a week of her drifting in and out of consciousness, the wonderful nun gave her a dose to induce unconsciousness for the last time.
If a loved one of yours, Kyle, is ever in that situtaion, I pray that they will recieve a caregiver kind enough, and brave enough to do that for them. I also hope that you won’t selfishly deny them that to prove your political convictions.
David S
September 15th, 2009
3:36 pm
Republicans (other than Ron Paul) need to explain to americans why they don’t support restoring the free market in medicine and ending all of the reguluations, tax subsidies, protectionism, and tax benefits that chronically distort the market. Only a free market will restrict rising prices, guarantee the maximum availability of services, allow personal ownership of insurance policies, and undermine the current insurance and AMA monopolies on health care delivery.
Instead of complaining about the socialist plans of the democrats, the republicans need to stop promoting their own socialist agenda and promote the free market instead.
Sunshine and Thunder
September 15th, 2009
3:40 pm
PD: You wrote @ 2:55pm -
“Sunshine and Thunder, my friend who is in remission from lukemia cannot obtain private insurance. The company he worked for did not provide group insurance. He had to find another job with another company making less money so that he could have coverage. ”
“A relative of mine is a diabetic. She is otherwise healthy and did not obtain this as a result of diet. her health insurance premium, for catastrophic coverage only is $1100 a month. The coverage doe not cover anything related to her “pre-existing condition”
Did either of them die? I asked a specific question.
Do you believe that motorists should be able to obtain collision coverage after an accident? In both cases you cite I have to assume that the individuals could have obtained health insurance as healthy young people and kept it for life. Of course Federal and state mandates preventing interstate issuance could interfere with that.
pd
September 15th, 2009
3:53 pm
At a For Profit insurance company, a claims agent’s sole job is to figure out ways to not pay claims. Thats what they do. They look for loopholes and clauses. ANY corporation, by definition’s priority is always increasing share holder’s wealth. I am not saying thats evil. Just stating it as fact. You don’t make a profit by covering claims. You make a profit by taking in more in premiums than you pay in claims.
God forbid you ever be deemed “too risky” for an insurance company’s coverage in the current system
The thing is, by introducing a public option that would be available to anyone regardless of risk class, you wouldn’t be getting rid of the private option.
By the way, I work for a For Profit Insurance Company and I support a Public Option.
Dan
September 15th, 2009
3:57 pm
Republicans have put forth a number of plans, but the Whitehouse has not met with them since April and the main media outlets ignore it
The most obvious is allowing for private citizens to deduct medical expenses and insurance premiums from their taxable income. This would result in their being able to purchase their own insurance rather than relying on their company to do it for them. This would promote more competition. They also are promoting tort reform, liability insurance is perhaps a doctors single largest expense.
pd
September 15th, 2009
3:58 pm
And Sunshine and Thunder, your assumption that my examples could have bought private insurance as healthy young people is just that, an assumption.
I don’t know who covered your insurace premiums when you became an adult, but at some point, either through employment or through the purchase of privately held coverage, you had to obtain that coverage. With group policies, you cannot be denied, however fewer companies are offering group policies due to the rising costs. If your parents did not cover you as a child, your first opportunity to purchase insurance came around age 18. Do you think its possible that someone could develop a pre-existing condition prior to obtaining that age?
I get it though. “Sorry your parents didn’t cover you, but its not my problem”
MJ
September 15th, 2009
3:59 pm
Kyle,
It is known that when the human body is near death, there is no need for nutrition provided by food or fluids. As a natural reaction, the body will reject any attempts to do the aforementioned. As a person whose Grandfather was on hospice care in the latter days of his life, we were counseled on this matter. Also, trying to go against the natural process can actually prove to be more cruel as it can cause aspirative pneumonia and prolong the suffering of the terminally ill. I find it irresponsible that you would proliferate such falsehoods when the proper research hasn’t been done.
pd
September 15th, 2009
4:02 pm
“The most obvious is allowing for private citizens to deduct medical expenses and insurance premiums from their taxable income.”
Currently, if your medical expenses are greater than 7.5% of your AGI, then you DO get to deduct your premiums and all other expenses.
“They also are promoting tort reform, liability insurance is perhaps a doctors single largest expense.”
Medical School is currently a doctor’s single largest expense. I am not an opponent of tort reform per say, however, I am not for capping punitive damages. I would favor a modified “loser pays” system so long as there were barriers that would prevent large corporations from simply spending a plaintiff out of a case.
I would like to see more money spent to send our most talented people through medical school so that they would not have to take out such huge loans that we, the consumers, ultimately pay back.
NeverTrustARepublican
September 15th, 2009
4:24 pm
As for tort reform, a large part of the money awarded is for the future medical cost of treating the damage done. If you are on a government health plan that’s no longer an issue and thus the judgements go down.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
September 15th, 2009
4:32 pm
The is a core difference between conservative and leftist proposals to reform healthcare. Our leftist friends uniformly propose abhorrent political solutions contrary to the wishes of individuals, and the conservatives uniformly propose empowering individuals with more choices.
The mere discussions of “illegal” immigrants and abortion both prove the point. The leftists are determined to compel all to accept a uniform version of appropriate health care, mostly funded through theft from the productive economy. Conservatives, on the other hand, affirm that their funds ought not be stolen, and that such use of stolen funds to satisfy the whims of leftists is impolite.
Incidentally, surely Hank Johnson’s house floor condemnation (as “racists”) – of all of those who believe Rep. Wilson’s truthful, if inartful, allegations do not merit a resolution of disapproval – is more offensive than anything Rep Wilson said,
pd
September 15th, 2009
4:40 pm
Universal health care is implemented in all industrialized countries, with the exception of the United States.
“The leftists are determined to compel all to accept a uniform version of appropriate health care, mostly funded through theft from the productive economy.”
Are roads funded through theft?
How about the military?
pd
September 15th, 2009
4:48 pm
“Our leftist friends uniformly propose abhorrent political solutions contrary to the wishes of individuals, and the conservatives uniformly propose empowering individuals with more choices.
The mere discussions of “illegal” immigrants and abortion both prove the point. ”
I don’t understand what you mean. Conservatives want to empower individuals with more choice?
Abortion and illegal immigration?
Lets say I have been laid off from my job and as a result, I have lost my health coverage. In the mean while, I have developed a brain tumor. What choices would conservatives like to empower me with?
NeverTrustARepublican
September 15th, 2009
4:50 pm
So how is adding a non-mandatory public option (notice word OPTION) not ‘empowering individuals with more choices’.
I’d add schools to pd’s list (and I’m betting that, yes, our regressive friend does think of their funding theft).
Sunshine and Thunder
September 15th, 2009
4:51 pm
PD. You wrote:
“At a For Profit insurance company, a claims agent’s sole job is to figure out ways to not pay claims. Thats what they do. ”
Sorry. That’s not true no matter how many times you say it.
In a competitive world a company that pays its claims in a timely and efficient manner will win our business over one that doesn’t. In a world where government is the sole payer you are at their mercy period.
Now why is it that so many assume that political motives are so much nobler than economic ones? After all, at the end of the day political motives are purely economic.
pd
September 15th, 2009
5:00 pm
“In a world where government is the sole payer you are at their mercy period.”
The current proposal is not for a single payer system.
While every single industrialized nation offers Universal Health Coverage, only a few have single payer systems.
NeverTrustARepublican
September 15th, 2009
5:05 pm
S&T; a reputable insurance company does pay its claims but only if it has no other option. It also wants to manage risk and meaning they will not insure what exceeds their risk appetite, hence the issue with pre-existing conditions. Its not a question of noble versus ignoble motives, its an issue of what should be an arena for profit. Healthcare shouldn’t.
‘In a world where government is the sole payer you are at their mercy period’. So how many private health plans are you on at one time?
Hatin'on the stupid
September 15th, 2009
5:21 pm
Very good folks. I am impressed that so far there has been a substantive discussion here on the topic at hand without resorting to name calling. I am impressed as well at how informed the commentors are. This is more like it!
Sunshine and Thunder
September 15th, 2009
5:29 pm
PD. You wrote:
“While every single industrialized nation offers Universal Health Coverage, only a few have single payer systems.”
I still say that America is an industrialized nation. It was that industrialization that led to the greatest health care system in the world. The very best doctor in America is in the business for the money. I really have to stop and think that sometimes democrats just hate it when Republicans make money.
NEVER: You wrote:
“Its not a question of noble versus ignoble motives, its an issue of what should be an arena for profit. Healthcare shouldn’t. ”
And what is so evil about profit? Do you work for free? If so do you do windows?
Hatin'on the stupid
September 15th, 2009
5:47 pm
S&T: No one resents or wants your money. You flatter yourself. Also there is a difference in compensation for work received and profit. I don’t know anyone who thinks healthcare workers shouldn’t be handsomely compensated. But should insurers be allowed to shed all risk, syphoning only the profits. Something has to give.
BiteMe
September 15th, 2009
6:18 pm
OMG, both you Democrats AND Republicans are annoying as HELL.
NeverTrustARepublican
September 15th, 2009
6:19 pm
Who said anything about ‘evil’? Its just untenable. On limited funds people discard those expenses not considered of immediate importance, like health insurance for instance. One middling illness later and, viola, financial ruin, which beyond the milk-of-human-kindness aspect is an expense on all of us. How difficult is that to grasp?
Stressedbyhate
September 15th, 2009
6:40 pm
Kyle,
Last year, when my grandmother’s internal organs stopped processing the fluids and nutrients the doctors were pumping into her, the fluids found their own way out; it was awful, and I can’t imagine that my grandmother would have wanted to prolong her suffering just in case she might rally to live another day of silence, sightlessness, and immobility. Her family, not her doctor, insisted that she be taken off the life sustaining fluids and given pain meds to keep her comfortable. She did not die of “terminal sedation,” although she was terminally sedated in her final hours; she died of old age. Giving the dying peace in their final moments instead of prolonging nature’s course, God’s plan, is not wrong. Playing God with the dying is no one’s business, but denying death to the dying is playing God.
NeverTrustARepublican
September 15th, 2009
6:47 pm
‘I still say that America is an industrialized nation.’ Um…what?
‘It was that industrialization that led to the greatest health care system in the world.’ Health care technology? yes; health care system? no; Health? Not even close.
‘The very best doctor in America is in the business for the money. I really have to stop and think that sometimes democrats just hate it when Republicans make money.’ Really? You’ve identified America’s best doctor and he’s in it for the money. I submit the latter disqualifies him from consideration as the former. And, is it your contention that all M.D.s are Republicans?
More to the point, who the hell is talking about the compensation of doctors? Hmm, I’m beginning to suspect that you’ve missed the point of the discussion.
gee
September 15th, 2009
7:17 pm
Jay Bookman is a censor monkey.
Finn McCool
September 15th, 2009
7:52 pm
Kyle, people die. That’s life.
Scares you, eh?
Michael Honohan
September 15th, 2009
9:58 pm
I can easily agree that end of life decisions should be handled by the patient and the family. However, it is ludicrous to have a culture willing to bankrupt the farm and prolong life even in people who would prefer to die peacefully. Or for hosptitals and doctors to encourage such actions for profit.
But the reality the Republican like to ignore is that our current system, that one that on one hand will collect 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars to keep Grandma’s carcass going, will let people with families to raise or young people with promise ahead of them die for lack of money. In the totalilty of it all, that is sick, evil, and demented. While perhaps misguided, those British doctors are trying to allocate limited resources on an equitable basis, not on the basis of greed. A doctor is at least more quailified than “the market” do termine who deserves treatment.
People don’t dislike Republicans because the want limited government, or gun rights, or even an end to abortion; they hate Republicans because they support so much of the true evil in the world.
And for the record, nothing in the health care proposals advocates involuntary euthansia, it is only in the minds of the Ditto Heads and the brain trust the fawns over Sarah Palin.
Michael Honohan
September 15th, 2009
10:10 pm
kyle: Yes, it is part of Sarah Palin’s imagination because she contended it was part of the active legislation effort. You can find some sector of America that is for any kind of wacky movement. I’ll bet any amount there are more members of the Repubican Party who would endore a return to slavery of blacks than Democrats who would support this on a forced basis. That doesn’t mean I would accuse the GOP of actively seeking to craft legislation for the return to slavery. (Though Georgia Republicans recently voted to assert its States Right over the US Constition!) A little basis in fact on the issues would be appreciated
[I for the life of me cannot understand the Rights love for a woman who claimed knowledge in foriegn affairs because she could see Russia from her house. Conservative do not watch the evil liberal mainstream press; I do. I heard it with my own ears! These same people doubtfully know of MIT and Harvard grad John E Sununu - a man with 100% conservative rating!]
Michael Honohan
September 15th, 2009
10:14 pm
Eh, hum. End of life counceling was originally introduced by Christian Conservative Senator Johnny Isakson 3 years ago.
[Isakson, by the way, should be held up as a model to Christian Conservatives across American as how to act in a secular society. John E Sununu too, but unfortunately he is way too intelligent for the Fox News crowd to get behind.]