December 21, 2003

DR. DEATH (via Mike Daley):

Lieberman Asks Santa's Aid in N.H. Primary (The Associated Press, December 21, 2003)

Dean staffers said Sunday he is going national with Doctors for Dean, which had previously been just a New Hampshire group. A new Web link will allow doctors across the country to sign up.

Dean told members of the group that studies indicate 50 to 60 percent of Medicare dollars are spent in the last six months of life, but some of that spending may not be in the patients' best interest. [...]

"I don't advocate assisted suicide," he said. "I think what we really need very badly in this country is to restore the doctor-patient relationship so private decisions can remain private and out of the political realm."


So, is he arguing that we reprivatize health care? or that we make it easier to kill expensive patients in order to save the government money?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2003 9:21 PM
Comments

Seems to me like Dr. Dean is trying to have it both ways. I think that, in general, people want doctors to go to extraordinary lengths to try to prolong lives. The only way to prevent that, and save the money he's talking about, is either to pass more of the costs onto the consumer (which Democrats usually call "Medicare cuts") or to have the government deny payment for spending it doesn't feel is justified (which the Democrats also usually call "Medicare cuts.")

Neither of those two things would ordinary people associate with private decisions remaining private. Most ordinary people would associate either of those two things with trying to influence their decision via the political process.

Posted by: John Thacker at December 22, 2003 1:03 AM

I didn't link to the article - hos is the title related to the excerpts (i.e. Lieberman vs Dean)

Posted by: AWW at December 22, 2003 7:16 AM

Richard Lamm, where are you?

Setting aside the merits of the Medicare spending patterns, Dean must be crazy to raise this issue. He must have forgotten that the purpose of senior scare ads is to drive them to vote Democratic, not to make them think that the Democrats are going to leave them in the wilderness.

Posted by: jim hamlen at December 22, 2003 11:47 AM
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