You are typical of the culture that thinks life should be prolonged in every case, in any case, no matter what the quality or horrendous cost to the rest of us or the discomfort to the patient.

That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in.

If you want to live forever, do it on your own dime, not the taxpayer’s.

This is idiocy and all too typical of what happens when govt gets involved–simplistic measures, misapplied.

who are the uninsured? how many people die from not getting medical treatment because of being turned away from hospitals? if this were such a problem it would be headlines everyday. i worked in a non profit hospital and we never turned anyone away. you want a quick solution to our medical care problem, end welfare as we know it and reform immigration. a lot of the doctors, nurses and medical people i worked with volunterred at clinics for free and worked into late hours at night. obamba’s plan will kill this kind of american kindness.

also, it is up to our GOD to decide when our time is up on this earth, not obamba and his ilk.

Yes, but you don’t know it was the last 6 mo. until AFTER they’re dead. Some things (advanced pancreatic cancer) are pretty obvious, or severe trauma where the extent of damage is well known and a clear decision can be made, but in a lot of cases the attempts at care are not unreasonable, and many such may work for every one that doesn’t.

I agree that the age of the person should be taken into consideration. It is not reasonable to resuscitate a very elderly person from a heart attack. Spending huge amounts of money to keep an 85 year old alive for a few more months just isn’t possible anymore. We need to focus more on palliative care for the elderly.

One of the disadvantages of advanced medical technology is that you can be kept alive longer than you want to. That’s why people get DNRs.

In fact, those pushing socialized medicine knew — and generally admitted — that doctors were very generously, and quite voluntarily, treating indigent patients free of charge — and were happy to do so. For instance, the Prime Minister of the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan, Woodrow Lloyd, who instituted full-scale socialized medicine throughout his province in 1962, said at the time, “Doctors have a fine tradition of providing services without charge to those who are unable to pay….”

What, then, was the argument for creating these programs? What problem were they attempting to solve? The problem, according to Lloyd, was this: “Many people are uncomfortable in asking for and obtaining something for which they cannot pay”.

As former president Harry Truman said at signing ceremony where Medicare and Medicaid became law:

“These people (the indigent and the elderly) are our prideful responsibility… (Oh, really, Mr. Truman? And just why is your grandmother my responsibility?) …and they are entitled, among other benefits, to the best medical protection available. Not one of these, our citizens, should ever be abandoned to the indignity of charity. Charity is indignity when you have to have it. But we don’t want these people to have anything to do with charity…

So the purpose of these programs was not to help the “needy” — such help was already being provided — the purpose was to help the dishonest “needy”, i.e. to help those who wished to evade the fact that they are charity cases.

Now comes looter-in-chief Obama who proposes to practice vastly more such “forced charity” with an enormous additional looting of the American taxpayer, all to bribe the American people into acquiescing in the government takeover of some 16% of the economy.

No, medicare does not pay for open ended care in a nursing home.