We already have "death panels" in this country.

We call them Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO)

You can't convince me of the Government Death Panel rhetoric after what I had to experience with my grandmother. We were all in the damn room saying our goodbyes to a woman who was in the middle of a practically day-long heart attack. She signed and we all witnessed her signing the DNR orders with the doctors.

To make a very long and painful story short so that I don't get too worked up over this...

They ignored the orders and forced more treatment on her, literally in the middle of the night when we were sleeping - defying the orders. They scheduled her for QUINTUPLE bypass surgery after they told us (myself, my adoptive mother along with several aunts, uncles and cousins) she was too weak to take the surgery (and the DNR orders would prevent it anyway).

They put her through that and then five years of debilitating "recovery" where she lost her mobility, had a series of strokes and made her life - if you can call it that - a LIVING HELL for FIVE YEARS. And DON'T get me STARTED on what this did to the family!

Who was at fault? The bloodsucking doctors and hospital who were looking to suck on the Medicare teat some more and needed more "DRG" days to bill for. My adoptive mother scorched their ceilings screaming at them that if they were only interested in MONEY that there were DOZENS of other diagnosed conditions she had that she could be billed for - and that was just off the top of her head! But, no, they picked the MOST intrusive, the MOST debilitating, the MOST expensive, the BIGGEST physical insult to the body - on a 75 year old woman who had already made her peace with the world.

And this was in Boston. The supposed center of medical care in this country.

I spent 7 years working at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital. The things I learned there gave me quite an education in how health care "works" in this country.