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Mrs_C
Rochester, MN
Posted on 10/31/2009 at 12:34:30 AM
I can picture the “Death Panels” that Sarah Palin taks of right now.
A panel dressed as Grim Reapers, unrecognizable faces, pointing their bony fingers upwards for DEATH. AS frightened people sit opposite them.
When I hear the term, “Death Panels” used over and over by Republicans to scare people on purpose, that is the false picture that comes to mind. Dam you Sarah Palin! See what you started???
ProAmeric
an
Byron, MN
Posted on 10/31/2009 at 5:24:18 AM
It is intuitively obvious that are legislatures are totally out of control on trying to solve the healthcare problems!
A 2,000 plus page convoluted document riddled with pointers to reference other laws sounds like a government takeover to me. What elected official is able to grasp this law or be able to help refine it. Will they know what they are really working with or voting on? How in the heck will it be implemented?
What will it cost you and your family? Will it make it easier for the healthcare industry or will it add extra burden?
It costs a bunch of money people;how much more will you be paying? Will it crater our healthcare industry? If it does not work where can we go for healthcare?
I think that our senators and representative should scrap what they have and start over. The risk of implementing what they have now is to great.
They should focus on separate bills that are smaller ,understandable and that bring home real savings. Something that can be implemented now instead of waiting until 2013. If we have a healthcare crisis then why wait until 2013 to implement changes. Lets not have the government takeover our healthcare system and ruin it.
charlie
Rochester, Mn
Posted on 10/31/2009 at 11:37:32 PM
MrsC, you shouldn’t watch so much TV. Here’s my version of “Death Panels”. My grandma is advised by her doctor to have “end of life counseling” because there’s nothing he can do about her throat disorder, causing food to enter her lungs, causing her to get pneumonia. She then passes away. I discover a month later that a simple out-patient procedure was not approved by the “Death Panel” due to it’s cost and because my grandmother is 85 years old. The procedure may have given her another five years of life instead of her dieing three months later. That’s my fear.
charlie
Rochester, Mn
Posted on 10/31/2009 at 11:38:57 PM
Trust me on this MrsC, mine’s a lot closer to real life.
JGreg
Rochester, MN
Posted on 11/1/2009 at 12:00:22 AM
There is no such thing as a “death panel” and no provision in the bill for any panel to do any counseling on end of life provisions, much less any provision for this non-existant panel to withhold any treatments. The provision merely states that once every five years medicare will pay for a patient’s appointment with a doctor to discuss living wills and the like, just as they would for most othr medical situations. To claim anything else is to either be deliberately lying to push a political agenda or to be displaying a depth of willfull ignorance staggering to behold.
Ripper
SE, MN
Posted on 11/3/2009 at 10:56:25 AM
You go to the ER, they ask that question about living wills right there, or advice on Advance Directives. They have been doing this for some years now. If you want the info, they will provide it, but if not, no big deal. My daughter and my wife have theirs all done, and I just have to get mine done.
Atilla
Rochester, Mn
Posted on 11/3/2009 at 11:32:43 AM
Well geez, you don’t really think they come out and say “death panels” do you?
They’re sneaky. This bill was crafted in back rooms, with its contents hidden. They refused to let anyone see the bill. They have done everything possible to HIDE THE TRUE CONTENTS of this bill from the people. So much for transparency. So much for the “most honest, open and ethical congress ever”!!
It’s all in the wording. They are expanding MEDICAID and stealing health care from senior citizens/medicare.
They are stealing $426 billion from FUTURE MEDICARE SPENDING.
Or effectively rationing treatment, which can also effectively be denying life saving treatment, to “pay for” universal coverage.
AND Medicare’s price controls on doctors and hospitals will be tightened and lowered. This has already been started - by lowering cardiac and cancer physician reimbursement rates.
They will also gut Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. According to the WSJ, Democrats “loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.”
They are cutting care for senior citizens to EXPAND Medicaid.
They will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion.
A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled.
Look also at these 111 New
Bureaucracies in the bill designed to expand government, not reform health care:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/111-new-bureaucracies-in-house-bill
FrankWHaw
thorne
Rochester, MN
Posted on 11/3/2009 at 12:45:39 PM
Did we miss something?? Let’s read that one part again:
“The provision allows Medicare to pay for VOLUNTARY counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.”
But there is none “sneakier” than Atilla, a guy who could have been really useful a generation ago, in the patriotic fight against water fluoridation...You know, the pro-teeth/anti-freedom stuff that has impurified our bodily fluids & turned us Americans into howling Euro-style Socialists.
His relentless parroting of idiotic distractions (like “Death Panels“) and pointless digressions (like bogus “threats” to Medicare) should give us all pause to ask: Say Whaaa?!?!?
Though it’s been said many times before—and should go w/o saying again—let’s remind ourselves that Real people & Real doctors—and even Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (in April 2008)-- have long welcomed & promoted professionally & sensitively managed end-of-life couseling.
Try googling “Hospice Care;” and then asking the logical question: Why shouldn’t that whole, compassionate process be covered by my insurance??
And Atilla’s citing of numerous Worse-case-“Anti-Medicare” scenarios (while ignoring the Current substandard-outcomes Trainwreck that is our present healthcare delivery system)is typically dishonest & disingenuous GOP boiler plate.
Let us All remember that for generations these are the kind of fringe folks who have fought Medicare & Medicaid & Social-Security tooth-&-nail; till now they think they can use the Fear of Senior Citizens (of losing their benefits) to defeat larger healthcare reforms.
Are these jokers nefarious, or merely shameless??
[Posted from Home.]
Atilla
Rochester, Mn
Posted on 11/3/2009 at 12:56:42 PM
FrankWHawthorne,
Does the Roch public library get the Wall Street Journal?
Read this; “The Worst Bill Ever!
Epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, RATIONED CARE, DISHONEST ACCOUNTING: The Pelosi health bill has it all.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399
204574505423751140690.html
FrankWHaw
thorne
Rochester, MN
Posted on 11/3/2009 at 2:10:32 PM
I couldn’t link (for whatever reason) to that particular article, but I can respond to the general sentiment.
Of course Rochester Public Library subscribes to the WSJ. I know you guys won’t think me “elitist” if I admit to appreciating for years its professional & qualitative news reporting (and to even finding of occasional interest its editorials).
Without question, it still ranks with the New York Times as one of America’s great newspapers.
Since August of 2007 it has however been owned by one Rupert Murdoch (Mr. Fox News himself) & to think that I could be swayed by a lead editorial in one of His CONservative publications is truly a Laugh Out Loud moment.
mdb325
Kasson, MN
Posted on 11/3/2009 at 10:52:32 PM
Too bad we can’t get any honesty from the people writing this legislation either. While the CONservatives use inflamatory language to draw attention to issues they have with this insanity, the DUMBocrats like to use numbers based on dreams and ignore glaring discrepencies between how they see this going down and how things have been shown to work in reality-land.
Somehow, the truth lies in the middle somewhere. The middle has been shoved to the side by this administration in a misguided attempt to get back at the last administration for shoving them aside. Real mature.
