The Plug Pullers

The "death panels" are real and you or someone you love will be their victim. An article on the promotion of "end-of-life talks" appears in The New York Times written by Pam Belluck on August 30. A talk on how the chronically-ill and/or elderly people will be killed is in order. Make no mistake- these vulnerable people will be killed and it will seldom be by pulling the plug on a ventilator. It will be by the deliberate withholding of food and water as the world saw with Terri Schiavo and my mother and I witnessed with the brutal death Vanderbilt University Medical Center inflicted on my father. Death by dehydration is slow and agonizing and would be deemed cruel and unusual punishment if the state inflicted it on a convicted murderer, but will be just fine if that is how the hospital finishes off granny. A slow, agonizing death induced by dehydration is the ultimate outcome of many of the coming "end-of-life" discussions. I want a doctor fighting to save my life and return me to as robust a life as I am capable of living. I do not want my doctor conspiring with bean counting government bureaucrats to save future medical costs (and incidentally, Social Security payments) by truncating my life.