On Aug 19, 2009, at 5:46 AM, Charles Bennett wrote: > What is the motivation of the doctor? He argues that he is required > to take all preventive and rehabilitate measures unless ordered not to > by the patient or person with responsibility.
He could be right. My sister trained in California but now runs a hospital in Washington. I think she told me there is a lot of variation from state to state in the amount of discretion that medical personnel can exercise in deciding that any given treatment is inappropriate. I have heard way to many horror stories to doubt that there are cases where physicians perform needless procedures to get paid. On the other hand, my wife had an experience where an emergency room physician tracked her down in the middle of the night to say I hope you have medical power of attorney and can order me not to do this elaborate procedure which might prolong your mothers life but won't prolong her active and conscious life. > I don't know that I want the government making those decisions either You've been duped by the right wing again. None of the proposals that they are fighting incorporated 'government' making end of life decisions in any form. On the other hand, Sarah and her allies have no problem at all with government making end off life decisions so long as they always decide to mandate the most expensive and invasive course of treatment. See Terri Schiavo. They do not believe for a minute[1] that individuals and families should be making their own end of life decisions and the effect of their intervention was to make it harder and more expensive for them to do so. [1] I know that as governor Palin signed a proclamation supporting end of life planning but I don't consider that dispositive of her actual beliefs. --- Just because they're good at propaganda doesn't mean we have to be good at stupid. -Marty Kaplan _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
