Crooks & Liars: "We Already Have 'Death Panels.' If You Can't Pay the Bill, You're Sent Home to Die"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

We Already Have 'Death Panels.' If You Can't Pay the Bill, You're Sent Home to Die.

By Susie Madrak Monday Aug 10, 2009 11:00am

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/we-already-have-death-panels-if-you-c

From Southern Beale, a very important point:

Don’t talk to me about death panels, Sarah Palin.

You, who so carelessly bolstered a lie about healthcare reform to score a cheap political point; you, the most craven of political opportunists, who fearmongers about some dystopian socialist/fascist fantasyland; you, who earlier this year were only too happy to accept free medical, dental and veterinary care from the U.S. military for Alaska’s remote villages; you, dear lady, are an idiot.

In your free market wonderland everyone somehow manages to get healthcare, even those who are poor or live in isolated areas, though the poor and isolated in your own state required assistance from the federal government.

And despite all of this, you appear blithely unaware that the free market healthcare system we have now does, indeed, have “death panels.” I’ve been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.

You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.

Amen.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Dupe, but worth repeating!

[HughMoran]

2. It's true - ignorant morons are helping explain why we desperately need reform

lol

[ThomCat]

3. If any Essential Service is dependent on the (not so) Free Market

then Poor people are always left to die. There isn't always an actual death panel, but there might as well be, choosing to serve the rich and eject the non-rich-enough.

This is why essential services are and should be socialized.

These insane clown prancing about for the GOP shouting about the evils of socialized medicine should be forced to do without all socialized services. Can we move them to a remote area that has no public service? No public roads. No public utilities. No public police or fire departments. No National Guard during emergencies. No access to Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment Social Security, SSI, SSDI, food stamps, or public assistance. Every one of them that insists that socialism is evil, let them put give up all evil and live "pure" lives!

x(

[Wednesdays]

4. K&R

:kick:

[applegrove]

5. As usual the GOP is projecting the worst of themselves onto the democratic health care

plans which will save lives and keep people from going into bankruptcy.

[Turborama]

6. K&R n/t

:kick:

[Frank Cannon]

7. QED

It really doesn't get any more plain than that. K&R.

[nashville_brook]

8. very much worth repeating / nt