[LoveTTatall]

Yes, Gov. Brewer, Arizona does have a death panel

Gov. Grim Reaper and the fallen angels of the Republican-controlled Legislature do not like being called a death panel.

But that is what they are.

If elected officials make budget decisions that determine whether sick people live or die - and they choose the latter - they are a death panel.

If, in turn, Gov. Jan Brewer (with the blessing of those same dark angels) chooses to take an expensive trip to Washington to attend a Supreme Court hearing at which she cannot speak and during which the state's lawyers defend an employer-sanctions law that has been completely ineffective - and she does this rather than call a special session to address the needs of seriously ill citizens - then, yes, death panel is the appropriate description.

It could be that legislators will change their minds and decide to renew funding for the life-saving transplant operations that had been eliminated for some AHCCCS patients.

Some seem to be leaning that way.

But the governor says that she first wants them to come up with a solution to the state's $1 billion budget deficit.

It's a cruel political card to play.

The budgetary savings projected from allowing gravely ill working people to die for lack of transplants has been described as somewhere between $1.4 million and $5 million for a year.

Arizona's budget is about $8.5 billion.

Does anyone doubt that a determined budget cutter could find other ways to trim those billions without condemning sick people to death?

Particularly since even some of those who supported the cuts now admit that they may have based their decisions on statistics about survival rates that weren't exactly accurate.

This is an easy call, though it illustrates a joke sent to me recently by a man who has worked for a long time at the state Capitol. It goes:

Question: How is Arizona like Oz?

Answer: It's the story of a naive female traveler being led through dangerous territory by people with no brains, no heart and no courage.

In the past couple of days I've written online for azcentral.com about the death panel.

I've heard back from a number of people who support the governor's position. Readers such as "ms15," who quotes one of the Founding Fathers, James Madison, as saying, "Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."

Others, such as "vrevering," take a more humane approach, asking, "To all those that think this is OK, if your granddaughter were on Medicaid and needed a heart transplant, you'd be OK with letting her die? Compassion, people. Put yourself in these people's shoes and see if you think it's still the right thing to do."

Still others, Such as the reader "Genio," want only to know, "Will Obamacare cover Montini's brain transplant?"

I've also heard from people who claim that covering transplants for those who cannot afford the surgeries would be "un-American."

To them I might suggest something sent in by reader "bobunf." It is an excerpt from "The Great Law; Or, The Body of Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania" passed by William Penn and an assembly of our earliest settlers in December 1682. There are 69 sections to the Great Law. One of them reads:

"That if any person shall fall into Decay and poverty, and not be able to maintain themselves and children, with their honest Endeavors, or shall die and leave poor orphans, That upon complaint to the next Justices of the Peace of the same County, the said Justices, finding the complaint to be true, shall make provision for them that then care shall be taken for their comfortable subsistence."

You can't get more American than that.

[konanoileaski]

It was republicans who first proposed the legislation that Palin would later called "Death Panels."

[Michaelnewerb]

*cough*

A bit old, but I can't be bothered to search or what we all know is there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/249938.stm
Patients suffer from NHS rationing

Patients are suffering and some have died as a result of rationing in the NHS, doctors have claimed.

A survey of almost 3,000 doctors by Doctor and Hospital Doctor newspapers found that one in five doctors know patients who have suffered harm as a result of rationing.

More than 5% of GPs surveyed also said they knew of patients who had died as a result of being denied treatment on the NHS.

Among those doctors was Sidcup GP Dr Richard Money who reported the case of a 70-year-old man who was awaiting surgery while acting as the sole carer for his wife, who had developed Alzheimer's Disease.

Dr Money said the patient was referred for surgery in 1997. Despite the fact that he had a poor outlook without surgery, he was kept on the waiting list for more than six months.

Eventually, his condition deteriorated, and he died after about a year after the initial referral while he was still awaiting surgery.

Nearly half - 45% - of GPs who responded to the survey said they were aware of patients whose treatment had been delayed on grounds of cost.

Ministers have repeatedly argued that rationing is not necessary in the NHS.

But doctors claim that, with finite resources, rationing is inevitable.

The British Medical Association wants the government to accept responsibility for rationing decisions and to consult the public over which treatments should be restricted on the NHS.

GPs fear the blame

GPs are concerned that they will be blamed by the public when treatments are denied, particularly from next April when they will be in charge of primary care groups, set up to decide how NHS money should be spent locally.

BMA GP negotiator Dr Hamish Meldrum said: "We have to make choices and set priorities, but that is increasingly having to be done in a uncoordinated way.

"People have been mucking around trying to avoid the word 'rationing' - what we would like is a whole public debate."

Three-quarters of GP respondents feared rationing would increase complaints against them, and nearly 80% thought it would cause friction in the doctor-patient relationship.

The survey also confirmed that there is real fear among GPs about the effect primary care groups will have on their public image.

Eighty-two per cent said they thought GPs would be held more personally accountable for rationing decisions.

GP fundholders are more likely to consider the cost of treatment when making the decision to refer or treat individual patients and are more likely to refuse treatment for cost reasons.

Thirty-nine per cent of GP fundholders admitted to refusing treatment for resource reasons, compared to just 30% of GPs overall.

North-south divide

The survey also revealed a stark north-south divide in healthcare, with southern patients the poor relation to those in the north.

Higher percentages of GPs in London (61%), the South-West/Wales (48%) and the South-East (47%) reported rationing or withdrawal of services in their areas than in the Midlands/East Anglia (45%), the North (41%) and Northern Ireland/Scotland (28%).

GPs in the South-east reported the highest knowledge of patients suffering harm as a result of treatment being delayed or refused and are also under the greatest pressure to reduce costs by not prescribing certain drugs.

According to the survey, family doctors are far more likely to be aware of services being rationed or withdrawn than their colleagues in the hospital sector.

Eighty-two per cent of GPs reported knowledge of rationing compared to 57% of consultants and 42% of doctors in the training grades.

GPs are asked more often than consultants (70% compared with 47% respectively) not to prescribe certain drugs and nearly half of GPs have been asked not to refer patients for particular procedures, compared to just 28% of consultants.


Stones, glass houses, lack of food for trolls, etc.

[MormefWrarebe]

How can the supposedly richest and most powerful country in the world let its citizens die like they were living in some 3rd world country!!? For shame, American, for shame...

[RLRWai4B]

"Death panels" exist no matter which system you use. If anything, they're most prevalent in the private system.

[caseferter]

*cough*

A bit old, but I can't be bothered to search or what we all know is there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/249938.stm
Patients suffer from NHS rationing

Patients are suffering and some have died as a result of rationing in the NHS, doctors have claimed.

A survey of almost 3,000 doctors by Doctor and Hospital Doctor newspapers found that one in five doctors know patients who have suffered harm as a result of rationing.

More than 5% of GPs surveyed also said they knew of patients who had died as a result of being denied treatment on the NHS.

Among those doctors was Sidcup GP Dr Richard Money who reported the case of a 70-year-old man who was awaiting surgery while acting as the sole carer for his wife, who had developed Alzheimer's Disease.

Dr Money said the patient was referred for surgery in 1997. Despite the fact that he had a poor outlook without surgery, he was kept on the waiting list for more than six months.

Eventually, his condition deteriorated, and he died after about a year after the initial referral while he was still awaiting surgery.

Nearly half - 45% - of GPs who responded to the survey said they were aware of patients whose treatment had been delayed on grounds of cost.

Ministers have repeatedly argued that rationing is not necessary in the NHS.

But doctors claim that, with finite resources, rationing is inevitable.

The British Medical Association wants the government to accept responsibility for rationing decisions and to consult the public over which treatments should be restricted on the NHS.

GPs fear the blame

GPs are concerned that they will be blamed by the public when treatments are denied, particularly from next April when they will be in charge of primary care groups, set up to decide how NHS money should be spent locally.

BMA GP negotiator Dr Hamish Meldrum said: "We have to make choices and set priorities, but that is increasingly having to be done in a uncoordinated way.

"People have been mucking around trying to avoid the word 'rationing' - what we would like is a whole public debate."

Three-quarters of GP respondents feared rationing would increase complaints against them, and nearly 80% thought it would cause friction in the doctor-patient relationship.

The survey also confirmed that there is real fear among GPs about the effect primary care groups will have on their public image.

Eighty-two per cent said they thought GPs would be held more personally accountable for rationing decisions.

GP fundholders are more likely to consider the cost of treatment when making the decision to refer or treat individual patients and are more likely to refuse treatment for cost reasons.

Thirty-nine per cent of GP fundholders admitted to refusing treatment for resource reasons, compared to just 30% of GPs overall.

North-south divide

The survey also revealed a stark north-south divide in healthcare, with southern patients the poor relation to those in the north.

Higher percentages of GPs in London (61%), the South-West/Wales (48%) and the South-East (47%) reported rationing or withdrawal of services in their areas than in the Midlands/East Anglia (45%), the North (41%) and Northern Ireland/Scotland (28%).

GPs in the South-east reported the highest knowledge of patients suffering harm as a result of treatment being delayed or refused and are also under the greatest pressure to reduce costs by not prescribing certain drugs.

According to the survey, family doctors are far more likely to be aware of services being rationed or withdrawn than their colleagues in the hospital sector.

Eighty-two per cent of GPs reported knowledge of rationing compared to 57% of consultants and 42% of doctors in the training grades.

GPs are asked more often than consultants (70% compared with 47% respectively) not to prescribe certain drugs and nearly half of GPs have been asked not to refer patients for particular procedures, compared to just 28% of consultants.

Stones, glass houses, lack of food for trolls, etc. Interesting that you should go back that far nye to a story that has its roots in 1997...

1997 was the year that Labour finally kicked out the Tories (The nearest thing we have to the Republicans!) who had allowed the NHS to seriously degrade after almost two decades of underfunding and mismanagement to the extent that it was literally falling apart at the seams!

I therefore think that it is entirely reasonable that after less than two years in power, Labour and the NHS would still be massively struggling to get our healthcare system back on track after the Repub... sorry Tory party ****ed it up the arse.

Also, your article refers to rationing: a delay of service provision that *may* have indeed caused extra deaths due to the increased time waiting for operations.

The Republican policy in AZ represents an outright denial of service - these people won't be getting a transplant in a longer time than they'd hoped for - they won't be getting one at all!!!

It is a death sentence, pure and simple. Brewer might as well be pulling the trigger herself!

[daguy]

She could dress them up in moose suits and pretend she's hunting!

[Esmeralfaf]

I'd be the first to admit that the NHS is an imperfect institution, but having to go back over a decade for a bad story about it - especially one that doesn't even compare like for like - is pretty ****ing lame!

[EliteFranceska]

I'd say wilfully sentencing people to death is about as imperfect as you can get!

[Espacamlisa]

I thought that particular lie of hers had been exposed during the presidential election.

So, I notice that not one member of the considerable Republican population on this forum has even tried to defend these death sentences - too embarrassed about their rampant hypocrisy or the blatant lies spread by Palin and co, I expect!

Slowwie's probably for it: pro death penalty - pro death panel, I guess he's thinking 'same difference'...

[mirzaterak]

Stones, glass houses, lack of food for trolls, etc.

So--just to be clear--in your view, the rationing of health services for low-income people is worse than the nonavailability of said services for low-income people. Gotcha.

[UltraSearchs]

A seven year blot on your credit history seems a small price to pay.

[AnriXuinriZ]

So--just to be clear--in your view, the rationing of health services for low-income people is worse than the nonavailability of said services for low-income people. Gotcha.

You're not clear at all.

I think I made it clear why I posted what I posted.

A refresher:
How can the supposedly richest and most powerful country in the world let its citizens die like they were living in some 3rd world country!!? For shame, American, for shame...

Note: I only came across this story because it was reporting in the news in the UK. Do any of you US posters realise just how much of a global laughing stock the US has become to the rest of the world!!?

What a ****ed up country, that it can't even look after the health of its own citizens!

[zlopikanikanz]

Exactly. Our point was never that the NHS doesn't have to do that, it was that EVERY health service, no matter how well funded has to do it. And Republican scaremongering about it was ridiculous, stupid and disgusting.

I think MOBIUS is just using some of the same language Republican Nutters were using about the NHS when they were attacking it against them. Making the point about the hypocrisy more than anything.

The super rich will never want for whatever care their millions and billions can buy.

Lower income earners would benefit greatly from a national health system.

Americans with high incomes, but who are not rich, stand to lose some of the quality of care they have come to expect through their more expensive, better plans. I suspect the Republicans were talking to these people, who happen to comprise a lot of their base.