Canada Has Death Panels. And that’s a good thing.

Canada Has Death Panels. And that is a good thing: Surprise, surprise, surprise. When a central authority has control over production and distribution it cannot anticipate needs nor can it address them. Just wait till they get control over the food supply. Then they can tell us how awesome starvation is.

This post was last modified on October 22, 2013

Kip Hooker:

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        • That's the problem with reading just one side of the story: it can easily mislead you.

          She wasn't arrested for squirting him. She was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, based on what witnesses told the police:

          Klearman interviewed three witnesses who were in the apartment and heard but did not see the couple's fight. They agreed that the boyfriend was quiet in his bedroom, where he was playing Xbox, before Borge started screaming at him.

          "They then heard scuffling and banging noises," Klearman wrote in the arrest report.

          "Get off me. Get off of me!" they heard the boyfriend scream, according to the report. This led Klearman to conclude that Borge was the aggressor, so he arrested her on suspicion of simple battery/domestic violence. She was taken to St. Lucie County Jail without incident.

          Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/fla-woman-arrested-spraying-boyfriend-water-gun-cops-article-1.1494496#ixzz2ifKfdvue

          And, yes, I know some of you are going to argue, "But that's stupid!" Still, when there's a question of domestic abuse, the police HAVE to separate the alleged aggressor from the victim, and find out exactly what happened, rather than just assume everything's okay. Even if other people seem to think it could be overkill.

          • 'Cept one problem, Skipper, the headline YOU link says: "Florida woman arrested for spraying boyfriend with water gun: cops"

            And further: "Giovanna Borge, 19, of Port St. Lucie, was arrested Sept. 27 on a battery charge "for squirting water on (her boyfriend) to antagonize and agitate him against his wishes," according to the arrest affidavit."

            No-one is denying that more happened. YOU seem to be the one denying that she was arrested for being a squirter.

          • Well, you've lost me completely. Exactly what are you trying to say? I'm giving our relationship one last chance here.

          • And my “for squirting water on (her boyfriend) to antagonize and agitate him against his wishes.” is from the police report.

          • No you don't know what I was going to argue. And in your haste you obviously didn't realize all the "facts" in your link are in the first one too plus more. You also don't seem to have seen the full police report (3 pages) pdf I saw @ TSG.com.

            Anyway, my only point from the beginning was I hope she learned her lesson; her boyfriend (hopefully ex, for her and the gene pools sake) is a wuss.

    • All I could say was "Yuck." If what he said is true, Tea Party women have zero taste.

      But that's hardly earth shattering news. ;>)

        • Hey, watch your language, pal. You don't do yourself any favors when you go around showing such poor impulse control during a discussion.

          And don't be so humorless. Obviously, I KNOW he made it up. But some of your buddies apparently don't, because they're saying he deserves to be killed for saying it.

          Are you going to tell THEM to "learn to fucking read," too?

          • What happened to:
            Hey, watch your language, pal. You don't do yourself any favors when you go around showing such poor impulse control on a board that's meant to be entertaining.

            This board used to be entertaining, then you showed up.

          • Well, of course. I challenge the pat ideas and misconceptions that you absorb from right wing talk radio, and you don't like it. It forces you to think.

          • Another pat answer from your handlers at Media Matters?
            We might believe it was your thought if it wasn't repeated so often. Do try to come up with an original thought.

          • I will, if you'll try to come up with something other than the same projection-deflection-and-name-calling battle plan taught to you by right wing hate radio. ;>)

            Don't you have a job to go to, by the way? The fact that you seem to be here 24/7 might have a little something to do with your claim that you can't afford health insurance, don't you think?

          • Since I don't listen to talk radio, that would be quite the feat. But then we've had this discussion before, as well as the one about me having to take care of my father in law, who has dementia. Which reminds me, you seem to be having memory lapses, maybe your age is catching up with you?

  • He really buried the lead in this story. It's not until the final paragraph that he states:"...modern medicine increasingly allows us to extend life indefinitely...". I must have missed it when the Canadians came with an immortality treatment.

    • "Extending life indefinitely" isn't the same thing as extending it forever, Joe. In fact, in my clinical experience, "extending life" is often just another term for "prolonging death" as long as possible.

      I gave you guys all a scenario of an elderly woman in very poor physical health, with a grim prognosis, and asked you if you felt that it would be appropriate to extend her life, using any and all means (including painful, invasive and debilitating ones) simply because a relative demanded it. I also asked you if you'd be willing to agree to a tax hike, to foot the bill for such extreme measures, since you don't seem to agree that the physician should have any say in such a situation.

      Not one of you responded.

      Clearly, you're more interesting in clinging to some histrionic Soylent Green image of socialized medicine than you are in facing the realities of end of life issues.

      • Actually, I did respond. I said all that all questions of procedures and payment should remain private between the doctor and patient, or her representative.

        • Doesn't always work that way, Psycho. For one thing, not every patient has a designated HCPOA. For another, sometimes the HCPOA can't be reached. And, for still another, if the next of kin says, "No extreme measures," but another family member says, "YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL GRANDMA!" what happens then? Does the one who wants the most extreme measures automatically win?

          I did make these points in my original post, so obviously you DIDN'T read it, much less respond to it.

          • Jeebus effin xmas, and what if aliens land and start probing patients? What if the price of cyanide goes too high? Any jerk can toss off a thousand cases of "What if?", it's what 5 year olds specialize in.

            And no, you come in here writing like you get paid a nickel a word by Media Matters (do you?) in volumes to make the authors of the Abominable Care Act get a case of pen envy, and then you piss yourself because we don't read every single precious word that drips from your fingers? Get over yourself, you're neither that clever nor interesting.

            I repeat: All medical issues and decisions should remain between the doctor and the patient. And in closing -- I DID respond, which you did not acknowledge. You just trolled and digressed. THAT was the issue.

          • Translation: "I obviously haven't thought this thing through at all, and my simplistic ideas just aren't cutting it here. TIme to try to shift focus by flinging a bunch of personal insults."

            No, Psycho, I don't get paid by anyone. (Which right wing pundit fed you that ridiculous idea?) The problem is that you've bought into some silly scare-'em-to-death lie spouted by professional ignoramus Sarah Palin, and of course you did so without even checking it out. Thus, you assume (wrongly) that these issues are always neatly and comfortably settled between doctor and patient beforehand, and that the Big Bad Canadian Guvmint is just trying to Kill Grandma for the fun of it. Which is just stupid.

            If you refuse to consider my point here, at least take the trouble to read Alien's post. You know, the one that several of you gave a (deserved) thumbs-up rating to, without apparently noticing what he was actually saying?

  • Or promote the goodness of Soylent Green.

    Not surprised Canada has a death panel and in many ways England has it too.. When they make decisions to not operate or whatever that is in essence a death panel.

    We just need to do what we can to make sure that doesn't happen here...

    • Kimmy, you have to be careful what you say. The editor and admin here are having to spend their healthcare premiums on buying more bandwidth every time my bitch posts another one of her long winded, nonsensical, diatribes.

      • What I said wasn't truly that involved for your b*tch to get all crazy. Your b*tch just wants attention. I have resolved not to bother answering to your b*tch troll. She bores me. It is now impossible to navigate most of this site due to the troll. Seriously at some point the Editor(s) and the Admin(s) is/are going to make a choice when it comes to trolls that over troll in desperate and boring ass ways...

        • Kimmy, I'm no troll. I just challenge you on your views, and you don't like that. But isn't exchanging views what discussion is all about?

          • That makes you a racist!
            If our challenging Obama's policies and ideals makes us racists, then you are racist for challenging Kimmy.

            DONE!

          • Now, Poopajoe, I've never said that challenging Obama's policies and ideals makes you a racist.

            It's repeating bigoted observations about people who don't look, talk, dress, vote or worship as you do that makes you a racist. Or at the very least a bigot.

            Hope that clears it up for you.

          • Another OUTSTANDING example of liberal tolerance and compassion, you calling him "poopa". And you wonder why you are not taken seriously and your posts get T'D.

          • Liberals are indeed tolerant and compassionate, Blonde, but that doesn't mean they're pansies. Poopajoe has called me far more vulgar names than that, but of course you didn't happen to notice them, did you? ;>)

            Sorry, but I've no time for posters who try to hold me to a higher standard than that of their buddies. Poopajoe has already proved he has a very high tolerance for vulgar name calling, so I suspect he can take care of himself on this one.

          • Olivia, you could NEVER reach Joe's standard, my dear. He is one of the finest men to walk this planet! I have known him for almost 10 years now. He is a REAL man who proudly served his country, is devoted to his family, friends and God. He goes out of his way to help those in need.

            You may disagree with his politics, however acting like a juvenile attention whore is beneath even you.

          • Funny thing though, the only time I use language like that is when you're here or when we had the pedophile here.
            What does that tell you?

          • LOL!! It doesn't bother me babe. I consider the source, and knowing she has nothing else, let it pass.

          • Interesting... I remember clearly being told that I was a racist for not supporting Obama even though it was clear and understood that I myself was Black... Interesting...

            This is the reason why trolls just need to be collectively ignored. This is the one time I embrace collectivism.

    • Not surprised Canada has a death panel and in many ways England has it too.. When they make decisions to not operate or whatever that is in essence a death panel.
      **************
      No, it isn't. That's called "treating conservatively." (No, I'm not using the term "conservatively" in a political sense.)

      Everyone who's ever worked in health care is probably familiar with situations in which the family has trouble letting go, and demands that the doctor do "everything for Mom." What they often don't realize is that "everything" often means a painful, humiliating and disfiguring prolongation of death. But, in emotionally charged situations, they tend to hear what they want to hear, or to rationalize "doctors don't know everything."

      So the patient (who might or might not have asked to be a full code) is subjected to countless interventions, none of which can fix the fact that s/he's old and/or debilitated and/or "circling the drain," as hospital personnel call it. I'm not just talking about things like feeding tubes or IVs. I'm talking about calling codes every time the patient's heart rate drops, doing CPR (and inevitably fracturing a few ribs in the process), shoving endotracheal tubes down the throat, and generating huge bills (to say nothing of tying up hospital personnel, at the expense of other patients)....all because a few family members aren't comfortable saying, "Let her go."

      Then there's the problem that we face in the ER every single day: an elderly patient in poor condition arrives in the ER via ambulance. No evidence of an advance directive, so we don't know whether or not to code this patient if s/he stops breathing or if his/her heart stops. We look at the paperwork, and see that the patient's only relatives live in Omaha, NE, and the Philippines. We can't reach either of them. What do we do, and what happens if the doctor DOESN'T code the patient, and then a family member later accuses him of "killing Grandma"? On the other hand, what if he treats this patient (who is in poor condition, don't forget) very aggressively, and then finds out that s/he was a DNR?

      In other words, the doctor's GOT to have room to use his medical judgment in such cases. In no way does that mean that doctors want to go around killing people, or to hold "panels" choosing which patients to off this week. It just ensures that they aren't 100% subject to the whims of family members, who may or may not be thinking clearly at that point, and who may or may not understand the situation.

      Incidentally, Kimmy, what do they call it when an uninsured or underinsured American patient goes without, say, a needed heart or lung transplant, simply because s/he can't afford to go to the doctor? Or don't those patients matter as much to you as the ones in Canada?

      • Chilling that he admits that it is financial call. And grotesque that he invokes the Hippocratic Oath.

        • Anyone who understands socialized health care knows the individual means nothing. It's all about the system, the system will exist to protect itself, & you or anyone else has to be sacrificed in the name of the system, so be it. As I've said, if you or someone you love & care about is on the wrong side of the IPAB("death panel") & you supported Obamacare & those who promoted it, I'll say no prayers for the dying. None.

        • Tell me, Psycho. If a physician has an elderly, debilitated patient with a very poor prognosis----let's say she has metastatic cancer, COPD and Alzheimer's, and is in constant pain, has no veins left to insert IVs; can't swallow, can't control her bowels and bladder, can't talk----but the family INSISTS that he order every costly test and surgery in the book, what should he be expected to do?

          Who pays for it?

          Would you be willing to accept a tax hike, to enable unlimited and drastic procedures for these patients, whether or not it's likely to add to their quality of life, whether or not they would have wanted it that way, and whether or not the patient's doctors think it's a prudent approach?

          At what point do you say, "This is ridiculous. LET THE PATIENT GO"?

          You do realize, don't you, that physicians face this kind of problem every day? That they end up ordering aggressive and painful treatments for patients who have long passed the point of having any quality of life left, simply because one or more family members can't let go?

          THAT is the purpose of this kind of legislation. It's got nothing to do with Sarah Palin's silly and frivolous "death panels" accusation. Nor is it about ignoring the wishes of the patient.

          By the way, I noticed no one has responded to my comment about uninsured Americans who can't afford livesaving surgeries or treatments. So you're oozing sympathy for Canadian patients (even though you have zero evidence that they're being deliberately offed by sadistic doctors), but have none at all for Americans?

          • Sorry, we're not talking about unnecessary tests. We're talking about homicide.

            And the article is specifically talking about and defending doctors who are pulling the switch on people, against their wishes and those of their families. No-one said "sadistic," we know that's just you trolling and being inflammatory. On the contrary, it is all frighteningly rational, as all the greatest evils of mankind have been, from the French Revolution to the Bolshevik Revolution to the carefully planned death factories of the New Order. It is the cold rationality which calculates the worth of one human life against the value of "The State, or "The People" or "The Proletariat" or "The Race."

            Like anything else -- the patient, or family, pays. It all remains between doctor and client. I don't see why that concept should be difficult or controversial.

          • Article doesn't say doctors are pulling switches.. They are advising against further treatment, or refusing to treat because its hopeless.. Homicide?

            In Canada, it may be more difficult to take that patient to another doctor (simply because the socialized system is so pervasive). If this family could've afforded to take their man to the U.S., or found private care elsewhere, then they wouldn't have sued the system (via the doctors). But that's still all about choices... right? They've could've chosen to afford it, years before in life.

            If that system is funded by the taxpayers, and this death panel is funded by the taxpayers, then the taxpayers have a vested interest in preventing end-of-life abuse of said funding.

            Who wants to spend a billion ad absurdum dollars on a coma vegetable and all their associated life-support tubing and longevity apparatus..?

            I'll tell ya who doesn't: private insurance companies. Its no less scary to me that an insurance company may employ a group of medical experts & actuaries, focused-like-bookies, on the company finances vis-a-vis the care of the dying or irreparably comatose.

            Lets call them "panels", of some sort, for giggles. Hell, these panels don't even have to work that hard.. So, lazy panels. Most of the big decisions are baked right into the deductables, and the lifetime caps, and the exclusions and co-pays..

            Sure, we have a ton of panels to choose from. They're stealthy, yeah, but don't anyone fool themselves into thinking we already don't live under them.

            Now I can't complain because my company negotiates fantastic insurance for us, year after year. We rarely feel financial pain for any of our various medical ordeals.. One day i surprised myself by actually looking and HOLY SHIT THAT'S HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO DELIVER A BABY?? Insane.

            Yes, i've looked at the exchanges for Colorado (competently build site btw, dispatched to quickly from healthcare.gov as soon as it identified my state). They are pricey and the numbers all basically suck, compared to my current plan. There seemed to be about a dozen plans or so. But they're already less then COBRA so if I had to (say i lost job and started contracting), i'd be considering them along with other options..

            aaaaand I'm certain each option has a little Death Panel hidden in the corner. Now, whether they are individually breaking ground for their newly planned private death factories, or not, is a whole sci-fi plot I don't have time or talent to dive into right now

          • OK i stand corrected on the switch/plug thing. I wasn't arguing about the proper euphemism; I just didn't notice it

            I did allow for doctor's refusal to give care, which I suppose is what the deadly widget euphemism means, or what you mean by omissive homicide. I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine homicide is a legal term (more legally plastic then murder?) Can Canada define it in a different way? Alright, potentially scary there.. You selected an extremely harsh word to characterize this scenario. Homicide can also be noncriminal, so fair enough.

            I kinda think we skipped over something here.. The issue was between doctor and patient, or a proxy for the patient.. and the family in question sued, so they brought the government into it, because they didn't like what the doctor said.

            Now, even the doctors can't decide to pull the plug.. Panel does. All hail Panel!

            Who should, otherwise? Does the family get to spend and spend taxpayer money as long as they want..? Sure, family gets first shot at calling the game on a loved one. But what happens when the tech exists to keep a body's cells alive virtually forever? Its like an EBT bug at Walmart, and we all agreed earlier we didn't like that shit at all..

            Would an insurance company (i.e the Payer) allow eternal spending?

            I know what I wrote was long, and I'm not seeing it reflected in your response that you read beyond the first couple paragraphs, but I'll also reiterate my main point: I'm not grasping why you find a Canadian(!) Death Panel any scarier then an American Insurance Company Death Panel.

            Shit, they even put it up front, much of the time: You can enter into this contract with us, but we'll be cutting you off at $1 million for your lifetime Or they can dump you at a virtual whim.. Well, some of that is pre-ACA, anyway

            In closing.. Canadians!!! They're like teddybears

          • You know, there are unsolvable issues. Something like 70% of a person's total lifetime medical costs can be consumed in the last six months of his life and he dies anyway. There are two choices that can be made: choose to cease treatment and keep the patient comfortable until he dies or spend enormous resources for a futile effort and he dies anyway. Neither are good options but literally, that's life.

            I don't like the Dutch infatuation with euthanasia but I'm not opposed to the the idea that terminally ill people be given an array of options including to choose to cease treatment because it only delays the inevitable. It is an ethics question that in a perfect world only the patient or family would answer but it isn't a perfect world. When the state decides that is a loss of liberty. It is a question without a good answer in the world we live in but in no way should the state have the power of life and death like this, IMO, because there is no recourse or appeal process.

          • Kick, your post made a lot of sense, and I agreed with almost all of it. It made so much sense, in fact, that I looked into this issue a little more closely, to find out more about this so-called "death panel" (Consent and Capacity Board).

            It turns out that the board is no more "the state" than any other courtroom. It's made up of a combination of legal professionals, psychiatrists and community members, not government employees (although participants are appointed by the lieutenant governor).

            It's a bona fide hearing, which all interested parties and family members are invited to attend (and any or all of them may speak up at it), even to bring legal counsel if they wish. The idea is not to make decisions IN SPITE OF the wishes of the family, but to decide what's in the best interest of the patient. Seen in that light, it makes sense----much more sense than a doctor reluctantly ordering pointless further testing and interventions, in hopes of avoiding lawsuits. And much more sense than the family of a dying patient going away with the uncomfortable feeling that the doctor is just refusing to perform radical surgery on Grandma because he doesn't want to be bothered.

            The thing is, many, many family members really don't understand very much about medicine. And one thing they're most likely to misunderstand is the fact that the doctor is a scientist, making decisions based on objective signs and symptoms, not wild hunches or impulses. I see this all the time at work---for example, family members wondering why the doctor and nurse aren't concerned when they see a lot of artifact on the patient's cardiac monitor. Or why the ER doctor doesn't address a blood pressure of 169/96 in a patient who just got his hand slammed in a car door.

            (Okay, Poopajoe, this is going to be a long one, so feel free to move on to someone else's post. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

            I remember experiencing this myself, when I was a teenager, watching my mother die. She had a cerebral aneurysm, and we'd been called in by the nursing staff, told that there was "no hope."

            Well, I couldn't see how they could possibly know such a thing. She'd been in a coma for the past few days, and she looked exactly the same then as she had the day before. In fact, she'd looked much worse before, when I'd happened to be at her bedside during a seizure. I wondered if I ought to be insisting that they "do something" instead of just calling us in and letting her die in front of us.

            I didn't say or do anything, but for a long time afterward I felt guilty that I hadn't been a better advocate for her. It was only after I became a critical care nurse that I finally understood what had been going on. My mother had started to herniate. ICU nurses are trained to recognize early signs of herniation. That's a very grave condition, in which the brain, swollen from internal hemorrhage, starts to get displaced downward, as it follows the path of least resistance. Back then, it was a sign of certain impending death, because once it started there was no way of reversing it.

            The nurses knew this. The doctor knew it. But I didn't. I'd assumed that the nurses just thought she LOOKED worse, and that I was just as capable as they were of deciding how she looked. Like anyone who isn't a professional in a particular field, I tended to underestimate just how much they had to know, to assess a critical neuro patient.

            A tribunal like this would provide a neutral setting for the patient's family and physician(s) to discuss their concerns, and clear up misconceptions. There would be a lawyer to explain the legalities; a mental health professional to defuse the situation and (since psychiatrists are physicians) possibly help interpret the patient's doctor's concerns to the family; and a lay community member who could empathize with the concerns of the family.

            Seen in that light, it doesn't sound quite like the grim 'death panel' that some are assuming it is.

          • Why am I not surprised that this information was promptly voted thumbs-down to hide it, but not one poster here tried to dispute it in any way?

            Evidence enough that most here are less interested in getting at the truth, than in parroting the opinions they've been coached to have.

          • Homicide -- the act of taking a human life. May be deliberate and premeditated, may be negligent. In some cases, may be by omission.

            FTA: " When Rasouli’s doctors determined that he had no reasonable prospect of recovery, they sought to pull the plug." Pull the plug, throw the switch, push the button -- we're really debating which euphemism is appropriate? C'mon.

            In point of fact, it's virtually impossible in Canada to take a patient to another doctor, because private care is illegal. You don't even get the "My body, my choice" argument.

            I reiterate -- the problem, the dangerous problem, is that what should remain a private matter between doctor and patient has of necessity been made into a government, i.e., public, affair. Enough people complain about the government having the power to decree death on certain criminals, and now many of these same people are cheerleading for the government to have that power over those who have done nothing wrong -- but live too long?

          • Who said anything about the government having "power over those who have done nothing wrong but live too long"?

            This is about medical, not governmental, decisions. And no one is "cheerleading" anything here. Nor is anyone talking about a doctor actively killing a viable patient. I think you've been watching too many science fiction melodramas.

          • In point of fact, it’s virtually impossible in Canada to take a patient to another doctor, because private care is illegal. You don’t even get the “My body, my choice” argument.
            ************
            Wrong. It is absolutely legal, and appropriate, in Canada's health care system, to ask for and get a second opinion:
            http://www.canada.com/health/Patients+should+unafraid+seek+second+opinion/2640644/story.html

            TORONTO — Patients who question medical test results or diagnoses from their doctors should be "unafraid" to ask for a second opinion, because mistakes, although uncommon, can be made, according to the Canadian Medical Association.

            "There are things that fall through the cracks. There are outright errors," said CMA president Dr. Anne Doig on Wednesday. "But I don't want people to become distrustful about things that are said to them by their doctors. Yet if they are facing a momentous life decision about their health, there should be no question that a second opinion is an option available to them."

            You guys really need to stop wailing and wringing your hands and repeating "information" about socialized medicine, because about 99% of what you're saying here is pure, unadulterated, stinky BS. And the other 1% is errors.

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