“Death panels” are part of our future, whether you are a lefty or rightie. We are declining and going broke, and that means telling the 95 year old with CHF that a double knee replacement just doesn’t make any sense.

Welcome to the Brave (ugly) new world.

Leftfield, Wisconsin

The term, “Death Panels” coined by Governor Palin–and adopted by Republicans as a battlecry against
‘ObamaCare’–should not be ascribed to this potential tragedy, looming in Arizona.

The phrase should not be used, here–because, in one way or another, the “Republican Attack Machine” will find a way, on the air waves, to twist this Medicaid funding matter around, and place the blame, erroneously, on the White House and the Democratic Majority in Washington.

It is a tragic hypocrisy perpetrated by Republicans everywhere–and that would include, of course, members of the G.O.P. in Arizona–to opt for tax cuts for the wealthy…..while, at the same time, deny such life-or-death measures for medicaid recipients.

It’s not only a matter of access to medical services. When you get to see the “specialist” he or she turns out to be a salesperson for drugs, tests and procedures you may not need, and a recruiter for commercially framed disease categories in which you may not belong.

I have even suspected several times, here in backward old North Carolina where ignorance is bliss, that people I knew were treated after false positives or even experimented on just to enhance revenue. I went with a relative to a cardiologist where the office ran like a mill. Every older person with good coverage was immediately scheduled for a heart catheterization.(a dangerous procedure) This dangerous diagnosis usually treated nothing, and if it caused problems, so much the better for business.

You can talk about transplants, but organs have to be harvested from another person, and the drug regimen to prevent rejection is debilitating in itself. Most of the hearts go to wealthy men who expect to remain alpha parasites forever. I do not begrudge a young person another chance at life but escalation in the number of transplants at the present crude level of technology is barbaric. Instead of preventive and regenerative medicine I expect the next step will be robot butchery. The percentage of competent humane physicians is dropping all the time.

So you see, even singlepayer for all would not solve the attitudinal and educational perversities inherent in predatory corporate capitalism. It would take many years to clear out the quacks. A doctor today is as brainwashed and servile to the Oligarchy as any newly minted economics doctorate. A good doctor today will be driven insane and cannot keep working. They might become a medical missionary in Haiti if they are really tough.

It our dysfunctional health care system. This is what causes out comes like the one looming in Arizona.

The health care discussion should also include end of life care. To call things death panels is an interesting semantic scare tactic. However it does not deal with the real issues of how we move forward with creating a good solid decent health care system. The one we have now is broken, period.

The future of health care in America! HMO – Healthy Members Only!

You can be denied a transplant by your primary care physician, in a well-established HMO. You’re not a viable candidate? Not worth my time? Dare you to go find a second and third and fourth opinion? Where are your lawyers? Where are your clamorous family members? There is always preferred service to some.
But by some perversity certain services that are not that curative, mainly time-consuming and a hassle, those treatments seem to get pushed; you have to do 6 months of X before you get to Y. And maybe Y is a waste of money too.
The privacy laws are making it MORE difficult for consumers (people) to figure out among themselves where to go or what to do to be well.

On Point,

Great show! When we allow someone else to run health care choices, which is what the last Congress desperately wanted with a single payer plan (i.e. the Government), this is where you end up.

The Affordable Care Act comes with no funding which means someone else will decide who gets the limited funds. In the backdrop of a harsh recession, that means many people in need will have someone else decide what type and how much of the limited health care resources you will receive. You can couch this in many ways, but it is rationing by any other name.

How have we come to this awful state in our Health Care?

– R (Ithaca, NY)

60 Minutes had a segment on Sunday night on the “Day Of Reckoning” that is coming regarding the fact that so many of our state goverments are basically bankrupt and not paying their bill. I guess that the reason is that taxes are not high enough and need to be raised. NOT. A big part of the problem is that the stinking unions (state employees workers, federal employees, postal unions, teachers unions, etc.), in bed with the Democrats, used their political muscle to get our spineless legistlators to approve rediculously general pay/benefit/retirement packages that we can’t afford. The answer is to renegotiate these contracts or simply wait until we are broke and can’t issue the checks as they will bounce.

Notice the common thread here. The federal goverment is broke (actually $14 trillion in debt). Medicare is bankrupt. Most of the states are broke. But we need bigger and bigger government to solve our problems.

message from Manhattan Kansas

Arizona’s “low tax Nirvana” has been siphoning people from the midwest (and weakening our economies) for decades. Now that life has proven to be not so cheap, Arizona, RAISE YOUR TAXES. You created your own mess. You fix it!!!!

The Docs have got to step up and quit milking the insurance system. My wife had fairly straightforward hand surgery. We had 3 preliminary meetings about the deal and a 20 page questionnaire to complete 2 weeks before the 1st meeting only to discover that the Doc hadn’t even read it yet. Just another billable appointment. Get to the medicine. I gave the Doc my cell number and told him we’d be back when he was ready to practice medicine.

Mark so would I. I lived in Scotland for many years and my ex’s mother had two liver transplants on the NH system.
She had rare disease and would have died over 20 years ago in this country due to having a preexisting condition.

The real story here is the dysfunctional health care system.

What the Republican governor and it’s legislators are doing here is starving the beast which is their agenda.
The Arizona state law makers are cutting taxes at the same time! The argument is so hollow, cruel and inhuman.

These horrific healthcare problems could be solved fairly easily with (1) ending the wars and taking a fraction of the money to bolster Medicaid AND Medicare. (2) Expanding Medicare downward to people who are 40 and older and requiring anyone paid through Medicare (e.g., medical equipment suppliers, etc., to document the existence and condition of the person on whose behalf the payment is being made–e.g., no payments for people “receiving services” after they’ve died or recovered. No payments to PO Boxes, etc. So cut the fraud. And (3) RAISE TAXES ON THE WEALTHY. Arizona cries “poor,” but refuses to ask those with several mansions (e.g., Ariz. Sen. John McCain) to kick in a few extra bucks to save people’s lives IN HIS OWN STATE! The blood is on the hands of those who refuse to face the political music. Higher taxes don’t kill people, but these death panels do.

Tom,

Those in the Reactionary Party claim they support a “Culture of Life” when it comes to abortion. However, once a person is actually born, they don’t care about that same life, because health-care is too expensive to provide.

The very wealthy in this country are not “sharing the pain” of this economic down turn.

If the taxes on the multimillionaires were raised that would begin to help preserve some programs that are being cut.

Tampa – I think the government needs to have a “death panel” on it’s spending programs. The President is bragging about a 4 billion dollar school lunch program and this guy is dying.

Single-payer health insurance would have eliminated the problem of people losinging their health insurance when they lose their jobs. I would be willing to bet that Gov. Brewer and the majority of residents of Arizona vigorously opposed single-payer during the health care legislative debate. When will people in this country learn to analyze policy issues rather than emotionally reacting to misinformation.

Toby Burleson
Columbia, SC

Omaha,
The cost is due to Patents w/o obligation to provide a generic or cost adjustments until such Patent has reached end date. The medical equipment and pharma companies spend years in court trying to extend patents.
New medical procedures and pharmaceuticals actually provide better care and more efficient cost effective. The greatest cost is to those who cannot get care receive crisis care only.
Having Heart Disease as well as other medical disabilities I have seen procedures that are more efficient and pharmaceuticals that protect and prolong quality life.

No wonder the world is turning against us! We don’t even treat our own people with dignity and respect. Tax cuts for the super wealthy and the rest of you are on your own! Shameful.

How much money could be saved by instead cutting the number of tests that are covered? When my mom first had ALS, doctors ordered the same test 3 times, and it was totally pointless–just to confirm her diagnosis, which was a given. It seems to me that more money could be saved by just cutting coverage of repeat tests.

Here’s a suggestion to the family of Douglas who needs the heart transplant. The family should be able to take out a no interest 30 year loan from the federal government to pay back the costs of the treatment. There’s no reason for the treatment to be free. If they want the heart transplant so much, then be willing to pay for it.

To say there is a death panel is a distortion of fact.

There are panels that control the public purse strings (which are the same purse strings every tax payer in the US controls). Denying coverage is not a death sentence only a denial of payment.

If you are on the public dole then you have little say in what is given, and should be thankful for everything you have already received.

What is perverse in this argument is to ignore the fact that it’s about choices. I hold my fellow citizens to blame for not thinking we need to pay taxes. But even within these limited budgets choices are made. Apparently Arizona has plenty of money to arrest Mexicans and hold them in for-profit jails. Is that the choice we want?

This is a tension between resources for population health and individual health. Arizona may be on the line now, but this is a conversation that the nation needs to have more of. It has surfaced in the past in Oregon in the late 70′s when its Medicaid program was stressed and in NY and the US when feeding tubes for end-stage Alzheimer’s patients were controversial. Whether government or privately paid, the more we spend on one individual, the less there is for the many across a variety of services.

It’s easy. If we would stop going to war , we could take care of our citizens. The idea that we should not have available the latest technology is crazy. A healthy populus is a productive populus
We could pay for everyone’s healthcare if we had the money we have wasted ,by being in Iraq.

Tom,
I would suggest to the gentleman caller from Murfreesboro regarding..WWJD, that Jesus would most likely oppose the entire system of privatized medical care. I believe He would be thinking more along the lines of a system of care by the people and for the people without profits for a few wealthy doctors or corporate stockholders. I fail to understand why those who would ask “WWJD”, would be opposed to a move toward a nation free-access medical system for all.
John West
Cookeville, TN

This is an outrage. This country bails out reckless

We’re already making decisions every day, in a thousand ways, about the value we place on life.

When you decide whether or not a particular safety feature should be on cars, or in a factory – we place a clearly identifiable value on the cost of a human life.

The real question is whether we are being consistent in the way the tradeoffs are made. For example, are the years and quality of life saved with the tremendous end-of-life expenditures we make valued in the same way as these other procedures and treatments?

That’s the real question, it’s a shame you never really discussed it.

This country bails out reckless companies, and they are going to let people die because they won’t because they

Our current health care insurance system is a tragedy and national embarassment. That people do not want to pay more taxes or do not sorry about the care of their fellow citizens if they have health insurance is a red herring. It is easy to look at the issue solely from a budget perspective when addressed in the abstract. However, politicians and policy makers have done a terrible job of putting a face on the problem. Like the guest on this show, who wants to tell their neighbor they will die because when a cure exists but no one wants to share in the costs of care? My wife and I have outstanding medical insurance, and I am willing to pay higher taxes to insure my fellow citizens have the same care. Most of our friends are willing to share in the costs as well. A loud and vocal minority are keeping the status quo.

I agree with the caller asking “what would Jesus do” when he spoke about the influence of cost. However, this is capitalism. The bottom line is the dollar bill. This is very unfortunate, but Arizona isn’t deciding who lives and who dies. The dollar bill holds the power.

The movie Sicko seems to have not been watched by a majority of posters here.
I mean, you knew this was coming right?

I know we have heard alot about European Health Care…there are different programs for different countries…bottom line is that no one really worries about receiving healthcare…they also pay higher taxes in order to receive the services…they encourage large government but they expect good government. I feel very much for the guests brother, if he had the money or the right job it would not be an issue. Rencently my daughter had to have an emergency operation…she was one month from receiving medical insurance from her company but since it had not kicked in she is saddled with a $25,000.00 bill plus student loans. We need to really look at being a true community in this country when it comes to medical care, education and just plain taking care of each other. Thanks for listening. Ross

It’s so easy – spend other people’s money, without limit.

Oh yea – don’t buy insurance, but ask for compassion when the ‘unexpected’ happens.

If a person works one 11 hour shift each weekend, at McDonald’s, they can buy their own health insurance (that’s what I do).

Anyone who refuses to do this does not deserve our help. Our sympathy, of course, but we should not bail them out. Let’s make it clear – you should get off your butt and buy health insurance, because it sucks when you don’t.

With all due respect, will the female call-in guest (not Monica…her name escapes me) please stop preceding her comments with the expression, “You know what?”

We go back to taxes here. Sometime during the late 70s and early 80s, when there was still this quaint word, “stagflation”, kicking around, it was decided to address the various problems of paying for a grotesquely expensive Cold War with the boondoggles of deregulation of the financial markets, and radically reducing taxes on the richest.

This inflated bubble after bubble, allowed the creation of false wealth by pushing little pieces of paper around, and saw the beginning of the great Outsourcing we’re now reaping the fruits of.

We’re living in a country where a banker makes more than a doctor. That’s a problem. And it’s only been that way for thirty years. Re-regulate the markets, let the bankers and super rich wail and moan for a few years, and squeeze them for the good of the rest of us. After the last ten years, how about we have a Progressive Decade to balance things out a little.

Medicare works? Arizona can’t do something as well as the rest of the country so they should quit trying? I’m inarticulate but at least I try to tell the truth. It’s a race to the bottom with a lot of people who are criminally incompetent making bad excuses for being mean.

And so, the worm, as it were, has turned in a spectacular way. From the absurd chants about “Death Panels” in the health care “reform” that was finally passed and signed into law (along with interminable court challenges), which was, in fact, only little more than a profit-protection plan for the health “care” cartel, we are now witnessing the spectacle of actual Death Panels – here in the United States of America. Perhaps this will serve as a dramatic “wake-up call” and useful instructional moment.

When the discussion on health care reform began, thoughtful, well-informed, reasonable and decent people argued eloquently for a single-payer system of health care delivery in the U.S., similar – but by no means identical – to systems that have been successfully employed in other nations for generations. At the very least, they argued for a “public option” Their voices were drowned out by those representing the greed of their corporate masters comprising the health care cartel and uninformed – and purposefully misinformed – people whipped into a frenzy by money-grubbing misanthropes (and perverts who believe in a profoundly warped world view that if your health is failing and you have no resources available, it not only YOUR fault, but [their] god hates you).

Health insurance is manifestly NOT Health Care. It is long past time to give every American the right of access to health care, and the way to do that is simple, obvious and efficient: eliminate the antiquated behemoths called health insurance companies by enacting a plan similar to Medicare that covers everyone.

As Arnold Relman, M.D. and Marcia Angell, M.D., two former Editors-In-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine have long advocated (among many others), profit must be removed from health-care delivery in this country. Concomitant to that is what has become popularly referred to as Medicare for All – single-payer coverage (see, for example this piece by Dr. Relman: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22798).

Indeed, the solution is quite simpler — merely lower the eligibility age for Medicare to birth. Medicare has an overhead of 4%; the for-profit health insurance companies have an overhead greater than 25% (of course, with the U.S. placing so far down on the list of math skills of nations, that fact may be hollow).

The absolute minimum that should be acceptable in any future legislation is a “public option.” Far and away the best overall system would be to place each and every American into a single risk pool – “Medicare for All.” On an actuarial basis, this would provide THE lowest premiums across the population; this is a fact which cannot be disputed.

By adding the huge number of new – and generally very healthy – young people to Medicare, its trust fund will finally be solvent in the long term, and there will be no more worries for seniors about inadequate funding – nor for anyone else. Furthermore, we will save the well over 800 billion per year now wasted by insurance companies on processing and paperwork alone – not to mention the billions siphoned-off for “administration” – and as staggering profits. The fine details will always be an evolving dynamic set. But, a system created to serve the public’s interest – We, the People – and managed by professionals who operate under transparent oversight, and who ultimately answer to us through our elected representatives in response to changing needs, is how a democratic republic works – or should.

Everyone talks about how the poor need to accept it that there are certain expensive procedures the government is unable to provide for people in certain conditions or at certain ages. Nobody ever says such things when a person of means has such procedures performed, however. Richard Cheney, for example, who had either government-funded health care or privately insured health care through a private corporation that benefited primarily with our tax dollars had many expensive heart procedures performed. I’m glad the former vice president was able to prolong his life to enjoy more time with his children and family. But why should other people be denied the same thing, simply because they lost their health insurance through a job eliminated by a recession? Where is the compassion in this country?

The Martine from MA and the Rick Stewart’s of the world are the real problem. Their lack of compassion is off the charts and is based on nothing more than the idea that it’s all about them. This attitude and ideology is why our nation is going down the tubes. Imagine it’s Christmas week and people like Rick Steven’s can’t even find one ounce of compassion. Amazing.

No matter what we legislate, no matter what expenditures we allow, no matter what incentives we create or competition we encourage, humanity will continue to be subject to biological realities of life, the passage of time, the circumstances of genetics and fate, and eventually death. Sometimes I think that the “health care debate” is a childish lashing out against a sad but undeniable certainty: there is suffering, there is death. We are all finding someone else to blame for those facts of life and insisting that there is a system we can invent to improve on it.

I pity the officials having to parse out scant resources. I pity the people waiting for transplants. I pity the advocate so certain that there is a solution without knowing the repurcussions that some other source of funding will have. Face it people! We are all pitiful…that’s bad news and good news. We are all in this together. Despite his cardiomyopathy and the holy grail of surgical transplant that he seeks, I hope that Doug can appreciate the time he does have and that he does not squander it with anger and sadness. When it comes right down to it, none of us are guaranteed a minute of the life we live. Not one breath is a right. It is a gift. It is not forever. Let’s live our best life and let’s not fight about these difficult decisions. Be glad and gracious for what we have, and trust those who govern who see a bigger picture than any one of us can see.

What would Jesus do? Remember that Jesus was able to work miracles becuase people had faith in him. They came to Him humbly, not with a loud sense of entitlement and insistance that they had a right to new organs.

Posted by gefffe
–”Rick Steven’s can’t even find one ounce of compassion. Amazing.”

–
Hmm.
No one named Rick Steven so were you referring to Rick Evans? If so how is it lacking compassion to ask if AZ covers the transplants of lifer felons while leaving law abiding poor people to fend for themselves? Think about it.

To help address the national problem of insuffcient financial resources to deliver substantially unlimited healthcare services ( regardless of success rates ), I suggest that each voter and each member of state and federal legislatures ask themselves this question:

“If I am 80 years old and am suffering from a form of luekemia for which the sucess rate of treatment is only about 10% to extend life by 6 months at a cost of $100,000, and there are very young children awaiting heart transplants that for which an operation would extend life on average by 30 years with a success rate of 80% and a cost of $100,000 each, would I choose to have federal or state money spent on myself or these children?” I’m almost 75 and the answer to me is very clear.

I suspect that relatives of older people such as me, choose to make choices largely dependent on what they ( the spouse or offspring ) want as opposed to what the person with the illness would elect, if they had their full mental faculties. Adults would be well advised to be sure they have a living will that directs healthcare providers on what they ( the patient ) want so that the right care will be provided.

Richard, from Connecticut

Ref. On Point Show 12/21/10

Yes, rationing has always been there: it’s just that when it’s rationed on the basis of who can pay enough, we don’t call it that. You may be fine with that if you believe that the Market is fundamentally normative—that people with more money deserve more because they (or an ancestor) are more useful to more people—but don’t pretend it’s not rationing.

But if you do want a truly free market without State interference, let’s start by abolishing patents, copyrights, and artificial (State-created!) persons.

geffe posted ,–”I meant Rick Stevens. However your question is an interesting one. I don’t think inmates get to many heart transplants.” –

Thanks.

A problem with the Obama healthcare law is that it it does not limit the amount spent on healthcare, i.e. no rationing. There must be some form of rationing. There is not enough money in the world to pay for EVERYTHING that could be done to prolong the life of EVERYONE if only for a few days. If an individual wants to pay for their own healthcare, either through insurance or their own funds, let them, but don’t expect the government (the taxpayers) to pay for everything for those who receive subsidized benefits.

Why isn’t anyone discussing the idea that AZ has the ability to look to other states for policy and budget ideas. Considering the fact that people’s lives are on the line, it would be worth it to do things like standardizing procedure costs state wide, as they have in other states. This would prevent unnecessary high costs of routine procedures, while freeing up money for the critically ill.

The caller from Tenessee asked what Jesus would do. He appeared to have knowledge of Biblical texts but could not answer his own question. Of course Jesus would have performed a miracle and healed the sick person.

As for Adrian in R.I. – he suffers from the far right wing delusion that is Libertarianism — rugged individualism and ambitious greed from Ayn Rand’s ‘Objectivist’ philosophy. First of all, Ayn Rand is the pen name for Alisa Zinoyenia Rosenbaum, a Russian emigre novelist of bourgeios who fled St. Petersburg in 1925. Her brand of Libertarianism is to the right as Karl Marx’s Communism is to the left. Her major works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are best sellers, but so was The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. We humans are by definition societal creatures — Marxist/Lenninist communism rejects individualism just as Rand’s ‘Objectivist’ philosophy or Libertarianism rejects the societal context of human experience in favor of a distorted, egotistical individualism.

The happy medium is the humane capitalism or Social Democracy of Western Europe. Look to contemporary Germany with its relatively low unemployment, trade surplus, broad & prosperious middle class as a model. In Germany, health insurance companies (Krankenkassen) are government regulated non-profit corporations. The emphasis is on preventative medicine — per capita medical expenditures are less than half than in the USA, and average life expectancy is now longer. Originally Blue Cross/Blue Shield were patterned after this model, but now many Blue Cross providers have been bought up by for-profit corporations such as Well Point.

Craig in Omaha

The way forward is

What troubles me most is the readiness of supporters of the Arizona’s Governor’s approach to government to look back into history ONLY AS FAR back in time as 2007, when the Director of Arizona’s “medicare” program, blaming the “economic downturn”, stated that they had started to draw attention to the $1 BILLION problem in 2007; AND, at the same time fervently avoid accepting responsibility for G.W. BUSH’s hard-headed economic policy, imperialist wars, and that same “economic downturn”, which they caused and which Mr. Bush’s leadership, back in 2001.

Also, the size of the pot (of money) is not at all like he weather blowing into
Tucson; rather, it’s a direct reflection of the ideology that suits “the haves” at the expense of “the have-nots” (much as a certain K. Marx wrote a century and a half ago).

I live in central Ohio.
I found this morning’s broadcast to be disturbing by its lack of setting clear definitions. The host should be embarrassed, repeatedly demanding the AZ spokeswoman to talk about “how it feels.” Our lack of leadership is showing in so many ways:
1) We need an honest debate on whether or not we are going to care for all Americans, or whether we continue the current patchwork of profitable health businesses. We have never had a comprehensive system, only private medical practices with a few public programs for carefully defined subgroups.
2) We need to acknowledge that there are different levels of health care. The AZ family agonizing about a heart transplant should not be allowed to squash discussion of the less dramatic needs that have long term impact, such as nutrition regulations for schools. A program that does not generate emotional hysteria may actually offer excellent payback in terms of overall public and individual health.
3) Just because the politicians and their fanatical supporters are using labels as excuses not to have serious discussions doesn’t mean the rest of us have to follow suit. That includes media workers, who should be leading the charge for careful research and responsible discussion, balanced with both good information and emotion–not just interviewing people in an extreme state of distress.

Thank you for listening.
Kristina from Ohio

from Massachusetts: I can’t even believe that denying critical care is even up for discussion. Anyone ok with that here lets see what you say if and when you are faced with the issue. the lack of empathy is astounding. and furthermore, I can’t believe that anyone is just accepting that money runs out and people die? So let me get this straight, blame is not on the state, these things just happen? NO other states are taking away lives because of their in competencies. What is wrong with people? this is just insane.
I LOVE what Craig wrote about libertarianism. Thank you!
This form of conservatism doesn’t work. It proves to us over and over that it doesn’t, yet people cling hard to it’s claims. Dogma

I did not like this discussion.

The opening BBC sound bite set a poor one-sided tone for the overall program. The BBC reporter cornered Jan Brewer into giving a fumbling defensive answer by posing a question that was a thinly veiled insult. This is not a way to start a “discussion”.

That was followed with endless “I know there are budget cuts, BUUUUUUUUT here’s a tragic personal story. And, by the way, you’re a bad person if you support this program cut.”

Seriously?! All complaints and no thanks to AHCCCS that supports soooooooo many other programs that people take advantage of every day! As an Arizona resident, I see the hardships facing our state. It’s time for people to stop vilifying government agencies that are doing the best they can with the limited resources they have.

I appreciate Monica Coury for coming on the show and think she did a good job not taking personally the mud being thrown at her. Thank you Monica for plainly explaining the state’s decisions and know that you do have some supporters that value and understand the difficult choices that you have to make on our behalf every day.

I’ve seen opinions that the cuts are pure “meanness”.

This mentality reminds me of “crazy cat lady” who, feeling sorry for starving cats, adopts all that she can find. Laudable. But before you know it she has 200 of them in a two bedroom apartment. And we know the rest of the story…they suffer more as a result.

I feel for those who can’t afford all that this country offers, but there IS a breaking point. Unless you WANT an ineffective, oppressive, and incompetent gov’t (e.g. Communism), inequality is a FACT OF LIFE. And even under Communism, it’s still a FACT OF LIFE.

When there isn’t enough to go around, there isn’t enough to go around. And lying to oneself doesn’t change that.

I think OnPoint was right to get the bleeding hearts part of the debate right up front and specific to one individual with a life at stake.
This approach is much simpler than making callers or theorists hypothesize this or that times the millions of people whose health would be improved or lives would be saved with greater health care provisions. It gets to the heart of the problem, it seems to me, which is that 20 years ago, individuals might be able to afford their own care even without insurance. Nowadays, the care available for the same rather common conditions cost many multiples. Decisions have to be made. There are political decisions and personal decisions and medical decisions. I think they managed to sort of nail down the Help-Me-I’m-Dying corner of the debate with exactly the example we had. There are at least three other corners.

“Death Panels” is tied to Obama like “Neo-Cons” is tied to President Bush. Both sides have their little play on words to obtain certain results.

How much will it take to convince people that the question is not “do we have the money for this?”, but rather “do we have the resources for this?” The answer is “yes, yes we do have the technology, skills, people, etc. etc. etc.” It’s not Arizona’s fault – it’s not anyone’s fault. We are addicted to a money-based economy and that is the only reason why this crisis exists.

Maybe this financial crisis will at last motivate humanity to move beyond money to a resource-based economy. I can only wish and hope!

PS: Bottom line of this forum for the past three or four years seems to be that the Republicans can’t be beaten. Republicans have apparently created a national and global disaster in every realm, but the democrats can’t seem to make a difference. I’m all ears.

The root of this problem is our wildly out of control healthcare system. If our legislators would have REALLY fixed this problem with a meaningful healthcare reform bill, this discussion would not be taking place

Why does a heart transplant cost $250,000!! Who is cashing in on healthcare?!? The costs are out of control.

whidbey island, washington
i am one of those people who had a brain tumor and had to declare medical bankruptcy and it changed my life…probably will never be able to buy a home. you have not addressed the people who are getting (obscenely) rich off of the medical industry, doctors, pharmeciutical (sp) companies and insurance companies….costs? why are we not talking about getting the paperwork costs in control, limiting the obnoxious amount of profit that is being made off of people who are ill. you want to charge obscene prices for plastic surgery/elective surgery fine…but to gouge someone who needs a heart transplant??? this is a major part of the problem that our congress and the medical industry refuses to address…

I do believe it was Tea Party pin-up girl Sarah Palin who first coined the term “death panel.” Not that Governor Brewer and Arizona Republicans are being accused of forming a death panel I can’t help but think “what goes around comes around.”

Though when Palin talked about death panels she was trying to raise fears that a public health care system if instituted would make health care decisions based on medical efficacy and quality of life issues, actually the sort of “triage” one caller stated Arizona was just implementing. It is quite evident from the arguments put forth by Arizona for implementing just such a “triage” is that it is not the “triage” that is objectionable to them, it is just that it should only be applied on the basis of the patient’s ability to pay for the medical treatment. This is consistent with the general philosophy of conservatives and Tea Party types like Palin that as a society we should just toss everyone into deep water and force them to sink or swim on their own.

I think that one of the ‘elephants in the room’ is being ignored when discussing health care and the costs.
Why did the hospital my mother stayed in for 10 days(colon surgery and recovery) charge $7200/day for the room she stayed in…with another patient in the room, as well, which means the hospital was charging over $14,000 for a 12′ x 20′ room per day. This hospital charge did not include the cost of surgery or the doctor’s costs.
Even with the expenses of round the clock nurses and utilities, the profit for the hospital is shameful.

Additionally, where does it say that doctors should make 10 to 50 times what the medium average income for the worker in the country. Why do we continue to ignore their lack of sympathy and contribution to the people of this country. They seem no better than greedy plunderers taking advantage of a people and a situation for their own excessive gains.
Sincerely,
Rod

Just to be clear, when I stated, …” Why did the hospital my mother stayed in for 10 days(colon surgery and recovery) charge $7200/day for the room she stayed in…with another patient in the room, as well, which means the hospital was charging over $14,000 for a 12′ x 20′ room per day?”,…I wanted to be sure it’s noticed the figures are per day…my mother’s overall hospital bill for the bed and room was over $72,000 dollars for 10 days. I can only assume the same was true for the other patient that she shared the room with. Thus, for that small room with a single TV in it and an adjoining bathroom, the 10 day stay cost over $140,000. The majority of this cost, however, was covered by medicaid(or medicaire?).
Not even Donald Trump or Bill Gates or Warren Buffet has ever paid $14,000/day for a hotel…do you think?
Same as it ever was…but certainly think it will change once our voices are raised, not against government but against the sickening greed this health care situation exemplifies!
Rod

This program is so disingenuous. Canada rations health, Britian rations health care. Every system rations health care. Our system past current and future will ration health care. If we are honest we know we will have to ration health care. We spend over $2 TRILLION per year in the US. It is unsustainable. We must try to be humane about how it is rationed. The old will get less health care. It is inevitable. Dr. Donald Berwick, the Obama appointee who will run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

Once again I wasted another hour on NPR hoping to hear the obvious. I cheered when Tom pointed out that the first confirmed Death Panel is from a Republican state. Not in so many words of course. Then I waited for the guests or Tom to ask the guest from Arizona the obvious question.

The guest said that they had tried every cut they could find. Really? Did they cut all government employees off from tax payer funded health insurance? And make them pay for their own like the people who work for a living in this country.

The very next thing we should force, and I mean force, our government to do is end all tax payer funded free rides in health care for government employees.

…And I’ve just been reading about two state-of-the-art hospitals in India started by Sai Baba where all services are free to the poor. Even if you can afford to pay, they don’t accept. They also have a large number of doctors who volunteer their services, and a bus – a hospital on wheels – that goes to remote areas. Look what’s possible!

Canada rations health, Britian rations health care. Every system rations health care.

Yes, and our system has mastered the knack of paying more and getting less of it.

So if Canada wants to improve something for their healtcare, they have the option of spending a fraction of that difference, and that gets them better outcomes. We don’t have that luxury here.

On the rich getting to live much longer and healthier. I think that was the opposite of the truth at the point food was universally available in the USA but the medicines and treatments to clear the arteries and so on were NOT universally available. Throw in all the costly developments following on genetic engineering, and it seems that with enough money you can cheat death. I think it’s inevitable. Call it death panels, call it triage. Call it Unfair. But if someone with their million dollars lives twice as long as I do, I think that’s okay. They will be paying taxes twice as long as I do, and they will be paying estate taxes where I do not. And they will be paying for the medical care which will nudge research and development ahead in ways that will benefit the poor as well as the rich along the way. (Polio, hepatitis B, malaria, tuberculosis…)
Amazingly, there is an issue of getting the right to die nowadays. If you are plumping up the profits of the medical industry, you can be kept alive on a series of tubes literally until your insurance is exhausted, your savings are exhausted, and your relatives are exhausted.
After a certain suicide locally, someone found out from the local sources that plenty of people exercise the right to die (intervening, not letting death using its own sickle), and that it is reported as — well, there are a few expressions that are pretty good clues. From the point of view of economics as well as from the point of view of quality of life, both the issue of access to health care and the issue of forgoing health care are on the table. And both are terribly tough to address, both emotionally and politically — and economically.

My previous comment was made from my home in Lexington, MA

Top ten ideas (combined) to pay for a special AZ transplant fund:

10. Every AZ resident /tax filer donates $1 via tax return (pop. 6 million)
9. Cut salary of all AZ state government workers by 1% and designate this for transplant fund.
8. Add 1% tax to golf resorts.
7. Set up a website with transplant patients’ stories and people from all over will send $ to save a life.
6. Raise AZ income tax 1%
5. Ask the Udalls (aren;t there a lot of them?)to donate to transplant fund
4. Ask owners of Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Coyotes and Suns to donate $5 from every ticket sale.
3. Cindy & John McCain can sell one of their houses and donate $ to transplant fund.
2. John McCain donates his salary to transplant fund.
1. Ask Cindy McCain to fund an endowed transplant fund.

We need to be clear that this is rationing of life saving care exclusively for poor people– what is next –rationing of: cancer treatment? heart surgery? This is the thin edge of a very dangerous wedge that violates everything that Medicaid represents.

“”TAK INTERFACE”" We alloud this to happen and we can fix it. Remember this is our contry “STAND UP”Were the boss not them you say united we stand a true soldier will pick up there conrad and put them back in line or order or in heath. This ship is getting real sloppy and is loosing back bone I see it you see it dont just say or avertize united we stand regain back bone it’s there I have faith and will stand strong take a look at a ant pile thy know there job there direction there dutey’s “COME ON” We come along way and ben let down so it’s time to stand tuff and march hard and unite and not let that flag down it’s a very simple. JUST FORM THE C.C.E HUBE .Every one has a peace of the puzzel or the answer we can work it out all together are comon ground the same ship Im on your on were all on and there not enoff hummans to keep up for the job ahead so time is at the essant’s the longer we stall the farther behind. So here the answer .

Why doesnt the state of AZ increases the Traffic Tickets or increase the every single fine / penalty that it collects from its Law Enforcement to meet the gap.

Sure its a Tax Increase, but you dont have to pay unless you have violated the law, its that simple.

Did they even try?

Why can’t AZ cut welfare payments to the illegal immigrants to help that American citizen out with this heart transplant? Why do illegals immigrants get free medical care and this guy is tossed under the bus?