Kidney Patients being told to accept death, forgo Dialysis

I don’t know what bothered me most in this story. What I do know, is there is an orchestrated effort to desensitize us to what the so-called “Death Panels” will bring us. What seems to appear in the story is an even-handed, rational approach to death. You see, it is much better to not to use medical resources. In this case Dialysis. Except they are talking about you and me, our parents, and possibly our children. As they calmly say:

“It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive”.

So of course if you are no longer productive, you are really of no use to the Progressive Society. So here tis a piece from the NY Times including the header.

Asking Kidney Patients to Forgo a Free Lifeline

Kidney specialists are pushing doctors to be more forthright with elderly people who have other serious medical conditions, to tell the patients that even though they are entitled to dialysis, they may want to decline such treatment and enter a hospice instead. In the end, it is always the patient’s choice. But for how much longer?

One idea, promoted by leading specialists, is to change the way doctors refer to the decision to forgo dialysis. Instead of saying that a patient is withdrawing from dialysis or agreeing not to start it, these specialists say the patient has chosen “medical management without dialysis.”“That is the preferred term,” said Nancy Armistead, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Renal Coalition, a Medicare contractor that collects data and patient grievances.

Of all the terrible chronic diseases, only one —end-stage kidney disease — gets special treatment by the federal government. A law passed by Congress 39 years ago provides nearly free care to almost all patients whose kidneys have failed, regardless of their age or ability to pay.

But the law has had unintended consequences, kidney experts say. It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive. Instead, many of the patients who take advantage of the law are old and have other medical problems, often suffering through dialysis as a replacement for their failed kidneys but not living long because the other chronic diseases kill them. Full story: New York Times

Here is Donald Berwick. The overlord of the quality and quantity of our lives under Obamacare.