I guess now that the birther movement is running out of steam (except for people like Lou Dobbs, Andrew McCarthy, and Larry Johnson), the people who simply can’t accept that Obama is president (for better or worse) will apparently now latch on to the latest scaremongering crusade.

Do you have a living will? Have you assigned durable power of attorney to someone who understands your beliefs and preferences for care in the event you are rendered comatose or severely brain damaged? Have you discussed with family members your wishes for care in the event that a catastrophic illness, accident, or other event renders you unable to express your wishes?

If the answer to any of those is no, you’re being irresponsible and foolish. The alternative is the Terry Schiavo nightmare in which people fight over what each says the patient would have wanted. Had Terry Schiavo made out a living will and assigned durable power of attorney, which would almost certainly have gone to her husband, there would have been no controversy at all over what Terry would have wanted. Everything would have been expressed in black and white for all to see.

It also seems wise to revisit these documents frequently to ensure that no one can claim that they are out of date at the time of your disability.

This isn’t about dwelling on death, nor encouraging anyone to die. In truth, it is silly to limit these actions to the elderly. Everyone who is legally an adult owes it to themselves and their loved ones to take these steps now, so no one ever faces the kind of fiasco we witnessed in the Schiavo case.

No one even has to see an attorney. Relatively inexpensive computer applications can take care of these simple tasks quite nicely. Perhaps someone could produce an open source program to make it available free to those who can’t afford the price of commercial software.

If you’re 25 and think you’ll live forever, think again (and stop texting in the car, dammit!). Most people live to be elderly, but that doesn’t mean everyone does. If an eighty-five year old suffers a stroke and is on life support, even with the most aggressive life support care, there is likely to be a fairly limited time before death. However, if a 25-year-old has a brain aneurysm, he or she could be on life support for decades. If that is what the victim and his family wants, they are free to follow their own path and the living will will make that clear.

But if, like me, you deplore the idea of lying in a hospital bed unresponsive while time and money are wasted for no reason, then living wills and durable powers of attorney are clearly called for. If your own personal beliefs lead you to believe that you should be given all the care your family can afford, perhaps in the hope that you will miraculously regain consciousness, then you definitely should have a living will to ensure that wishes are carried out.

I support writing all legislation in the clearest, simplest terms possible (and I doubt if any is), but this is just another scaremongering diversion by the Obamalarmists. Call for more clearly written legislation and quit pretending anyone wants to off Grannie.

Note: in case anyone is tempted to pull the usual “oh, you worship Obama and he can’t do anything wrong” routine that is so common, don’t waste your time. At this moment, I favor impeaching Obama and removing him from office for his policies in the areas of state secrets and related human rights cases. (I know that impeachment will never happen because of these policies, and I’d rather he changed the policies than face impeachment.) There is much about the bailouts I don’t support, I think he was a fool for commenting on the Gates case, and I don’t support what he has done so far on health care. Right now it’s almost impossible for me to imagine voting for him in 2012.

I deeply appreciate you putting this together for us Pat. We all ought to read these things for ourselves and try to make an informed judgment. I know that I would not be in favor of a mandatory consultation. I do think it would be appropriate for everyone to receive age appropriate information about health care choices as they age. Information written in plain English would be a good place to start and to receive resources they can go to for more information if they like. I think it is also good that if one wants to have a counseling session about such matters that one can access it at no cost. Personal choice seems to be very important on this issue—even if that is a Republican meme.

My husband and I have gone through all of this at our choice and at our cost. I think we paid something like $1200 to have all the appropriate documents drawn up. I am sure that many people can not afford this or do not know all the issues that are there. So providing access is important. I think most people when they get to the nitty gritty of things do not want uber heroic life-sustaining measures—they want peace and dignity, pain management etc—and know that spelling out their wishes gives both direction and comfort to those they are leaving behind.

I would say that (1) such consultation should never be mandatory; (2) in making such access available to all seniors, care should be taken to make sure that the process honors in every way the individual.

When you step back from this though and reflect upon it, the essence of it is not good—the language is intricately specific. Why? When you look at it you realize that the language itself says that health care professionals and their patients can not decide what is appropriate and needed—some congressman in DC who can’t read and understand what is written by some nameless staffer is the one who gets to vote and decide that the conversation will take place, what will be discussed and how often.

I am not a Republican and I get tired of their endlessly repeated rants on government intervention is bad but yeah, government making decisions about our personal health and quality of life and death is unsettling at the very least.

As a 65 year old grandparent, I cast one vote to ration at the upper end and expend the resources on the younger generation.

Well you just go ahead and check out. This 68 year old grannie is not about to give you, Obama, or anyone else the authority to tell me that I have to “go gently into that sweet night.” I’m just getting started with living!

My husband is a professor at medical school and is employed by the government. He also works at several hospitals and is training and educating American future doctors. He has over 100 publications. He has been teaching at medical schools and hospitals all over the world, including Germany, Canada and New Zealand. Believe it or not.

I work in health care and I can tell you that we see patients from Canada on a weekly basis. That’s the fact.

Super rich people from all over the world do not only travel to our country for health care, they travel to other Western countries for health care AS WELL. My husband is a top doctor who has worked on 4 continents.

And for every one super rich foreigner who travel to our country for health care, there are hundreds of ordinary Americans who travel abroad for medical treatments.

And while no health care system is perfect,
I would pick any other health care over ours anytime. Among others we have lived in Germany for a dozen of years and in Canada for several. So am speaking from personal experience. Btw we are not exactly low income people neither.

YOU ARE WRONG. Go back and read what I wrote carefully. I did NOT say government employees (my husband is a government employee himself), I said members of Congress.

It is not wise to slander me prematurely without taking a close look at what I actually wrote first.

Am familiar with all the stuff you chose to enlighten me with, as I said my husband is a governmnent employee himself.

I’ll say up front that my husband and I have our living wills and advanced health care directives in place. And I helped my parents –in their late 80s do the same. I don’t want to end up in bed with tubes.

HOWEVER, as WMCB said–it’s not the government’s business.

Two salient articles in Salon and the NYT Magazine–this week and week before last. This week is about a woman who had extreme preemie twins at 23 wks old and didn’t want to intervene to save them but was forced to by the docs at her hospital (because California law is unclear and this practice varies by doctor and by hospital) –one baby died within 4 days and one lived a painful, disabled life until he was 8. Besides all the other questions I can’t even imagine the expense.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/07/25/lovely_life/index.html?source=newsletter

The second article was about the questions the British ethics board faces whether to spend $48,000/yr on an old patient who only has one year to live vs how many teenagers that’s worth given their life potential. Who makes that decision? What if the granny is caring for her grandkids? or if she is adding comfort to her own husband or her children? Maybe she volunteers at the local school. What if the so-called “valuable” teens her life is measured against are gangbangers selling dope to screw up more kids’ lives? Who makes these judgments?

Take Oakland, CA–murder capital of our state. How much do we pay to patch up gangbangers every week from gun shot wounds, traffic accidents and fights? The govt is paying for their care now and helping bankrupt the system.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/the_high_cost_of_gun_violence/Content?oid=742997&page=1

Why can’t we figure out a way that the $48,000 drug costs less? We subsidized tobacco farmers for decades; oil companies; corporations all the time– how much do we pay every week for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I am totally for health care reform but I just don’t trust these people. And I think everyone should pay for it like social security–employees and employers pay into the system. You can’t fund this on the backs of the rich!

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t care–she has plenty of money to keep the gold standard in health care for her family and herself.

Remember, One BIG difference between Canada and the US is 270 MILLION PEOPLE!

Canadians like their system for the most part, and no one goes bankrupt, but it is underfunded and only needs to treat 33,000,000! They do not cover drugs or dental care and coverage varies a lot by province.

I’m starting to like the hybrid systems in Germany and Sweden where insurance is subsidized and mandated and insurance companies must take everyone. I need to study them more.