who needs a living will, now that we have Obamacare?

As Senator Tom Harkin says, the bill that got passed is just a "starter home". The progressives are not done yet. So although Obama's special healthcare advisor Ezekiel Emanuels (yes, Rahms brother) plan called "complete lives system" is not law of the land quite yet, it is clear that that is the destination. Then we will have our very own government boards to "help" you decide if the available healthcare resources should be wasted on you or be redirected to someone more valuable to society. Yes, please google him and his philosophy and read his "complete lives system" before you try to tell me I'm googoots. So while it may not be like a George Bernard Shaw plan with a direct extermination approach, if "the Board" does not deem you worthy you wouldn't get that feeding tube to begin with.

Really no way to make plans ....... if you ask your doctor about end of life issues, and believe Medicare should pay for the office call..... Instant Death Panels.... The Queen of the Teabaggers says so....

Hopefully people will remember the egregious actions of Congress in the Schiavo case - which unconstitutionally interfered in a specific ongoing court case - and never forget Bill Frist's ludicrous remote diagnose by videotape.

This is a distinction the teabagger wingnuts can't seem to grasp...government improving access to health care and regulating the abuses of the insurance industry is a good thing, but direct government interference in difficult decisions which properly belong within a family is a very very bad thing. That's why the wingnut claims of "death panels" was so misguided and moronic - what the health care bill provided was simply reimbursement for doctors to counsel their patients about end-of-life health care decisions...something which helps move the decision making into the hands of patients and out of the hands of government.

This is just another example of one of those huge distractions the American public just loves to lap up and the right just keeps on pumping..."America, home of the brave".

NOT HARDLY!

I'm not talking about the small percentage of Americans like doctors, police, firemen, soldiers, scientists and the like who bravely serve the public and it's welfare. I'm talking about the overwhelmingly large majority of Americans who cannot face the realities of life and death.

Discussing end of life issues and how one wants to plan for the inevitable scares the bejeezuz out of most people in this country. To paraphrase the quote by Jack Nicholson in Few Good Men..."They can't handle the truth!"

Instead, a majority in this country prefer to hide behind the skirts of religions false promises of "life after death" or "going to heaven" than to "man-up" to life's ultimate reality of mortality and what the unknown is thereafter.

So, until this country and the majority of it's people come to grips with what it really means to be human instead of running to the false comforts of the after life delusions being served up by organized religions of all stripes, actually being the "home of the brave" will just have to be a vote pandering mantra used by the right.

As for the rest of us who have already faced our obligations to our families by making out our living wills and/or codifying our end of life decisons I think I can speak for them when I say - It didn't hurt a bit, really...

Obamas Medicare takes care of the problem of end of life planning. His coveted European style for seniors is coverage, pills, and platitudes with no real health care. Seniors are expected to dope themselves up and just die quietly without wasting resources.

What the article fails to mention is that even if you have your end-of-life paperwork in order, a family member can still override it and choose to keep to you alive artificially. I’ve seen it many times that a patient who is awake and alert signs the paperwork with all family members present. When the time comes to let the patient go the medical staff speaks with family, and many family members will change their minds and instruct to the staff to put a patient on a vent, start a tube feed, or place an NG tube for medications etc. Having the paperwork essentially means nothing unless you establish a Power of Attorney (POA) and that person sticks with your plan when the difficult time comes to do so. I’ve seen both sides of this issue first as the person who had to make a decision to let my father go and second from the medical staff side of watching other family members make that decision. It’s never easy but it should be discussed and finalized before a patient becomes incapable of make decisions for themselves.

A few years before she died, my elderly aunt had her attorney draw up a living will. She lived alone but had a visiting nurse attendant part time every day. The visiting nurse elected to have my aunt rushed to the emergency room despite having been informed of my aunt's wishes. The end result was that my family and I had to repeatedly argue that my aunt's living will clearly indicated that she did not want to be on life support. She spent a week on a ventilator in the ICU before the hospital finally pulled it. For the hospital, my aunt's dying days amounted to easy Medicare buck$ and for my family, emotionally tough times, because we wanted to honor my 92 year old aunt's (clearly spelled out) last wishes.

Why should anyone make end-of-life plans when a redneck state like Florida or incompetent administrators can unilaterally void it? My mother had an end-of-life plan stipulating "no heroic measures" to save her life. She appointed my brother, a converted Catholic, with durable power of attorney for her care. She had a health crisis (congestive heart failure) and that idiot son disobeyed her wishes and had her put on life support rather than let her die a natural death. My sister and I were furious but helpless. She suffered permanent brain damage and suffered five more years in a living hell of Alzheimer's dementia.

End of life wishes should be respected. That being said, we, parents of a child left with severe brain damage after being given the drug propofol, same drug that killed Michael Jackson BTW, we, being Bernie Sanders followers (live in Draconian Texas), totally disagreed with the court ruling in re to Ms Schiavo.

If Ms Schiavo had put her wishes in writing or at least told someone other than her ex-husband, we would, even though it is not any of our business, have agreed with the court. Our bias is our child, who like Terri Schiavo responds to our voices, watches TV and appears to like going for wheelchair rides outside or in the car.

Don't put this decision in your families hands to perhaps live in grief and guilt over whatever choice is made. Put it in writing and get several copies to trusted members of family or friends.

As a grieving parent of a much loved child I cannot even imagine starving/dehydrating him to death. This is a horror that no parent should have to see....everything revolves around the day this all happened to him in 2001. Before the brain damage and after...I know that those who've lost a child knows exactly what I'm talking about.

This brings up tort reform and who foots the bills for his care? Medicaid and therefor taxpayers. GOP for tort reform and cutting taxes and saving Terri Schiavo and yet medicaid, medicare, social security going broke.....against abortion and against programs for women who have no means of support. Against sex ed and for cutting programs for pregnant teens, early intervention programs for kids in high risk areas, on and on...how best to bankrupt social programs but to pass unfunded programs like Medicare Advantage and wage 2 unfunded wars, take a budget surplus and make it the biggest deficit in history. Cut taxes for the rich and deregulate the banks (Reagan) and Wall Street.

There is no logic to the GOP. So as far as "death panels" and the rest of the outright lies go PLEASE make your end of life wishes clear. I cannot imagine living out my life in a GOP world of nursing homes that very likely would resemble ones worst nightmares.

Is called a Will, and people had done this always. well, rich people mostly.  why leave this hard decision to your love ones.  Stop spreading the fear.  Death pannels already exist.  And wills are part of finnancial planning.  Talk to any Life insurance agent.  Oh.... by the way youre quality of life is going to be much better now.

Get a DNR, a Will and mostly get a POA and do it now as you never know what will happen or when it will happen, this will save the family from having to do things for you. We have had these things in place for years and update them every couple of years as needed and have copies of them with our children, doctor, lawyer and the person we chose to have the POA and by the way is not a family member. In talking to the lawyer and doctor we found that a non family member would be better able to handle the choices that would have to be made. We even went as far as filing with the county we live in so even the county has a copy and there will be no question as to what we want. Do yourself and your family a huge favor and get this done now don't let it go it saves allot of quilt in the long run. As always just my opinion.

Washington State has a free Living Will registry. They even have the forms that you can download and fill out. If you become incapacitated, hospitals can access the registry and pull up the signed documents. I don't think they could have made it any easier. Maybe other states have registries too.

If you don't want Republican Christians to be trying to take over your life (or what's left of it), you would be wise to have a Living Will. The Schiavo fiasco showed that they have no shame in imposing their religion on you when you are weakest. They don't even care about your soul, it's about posturing to their political base. You are just a pawn. Just say no.

You better make your plans today. As soon as you reach 40+ the death squads are going to decide who should receive what prevention remedies. That you, Hussein Stalin Obama! We of the Gulag, formerly the USA, salute you.

DEATH PANELS already exist. They are called INSURANCE COMPANIES who may refuse to pay for a proceedure, a medication rehabilitation psych care etc. at any time.

The Schiavo controversy was so crazy because she had been dead for many years.

Before you people scream right to life I ask you when someone dies of breast or colon cancer brcause they could not afford either preventative screening or treatment where was their right to life???

Leave the poor vegetable alone!!!! She was doomed from the beginning and any "holy person" who disagrees is a @!$%#ing moron.

Michael Schiavo's real family consisted of his mistress and their two children. They gave him a tremendous conflict of interests and he should have recused himself. Instead, we found liberals and feminists upholding a husband's right to kill his wife, which he can't do in freaking Afghanistan. Rachel Maddow is still defending him today. In other words, all the wrong people were on all the wrong sides. THAT'S what made the case so crazy.

The court decided rightly in the Schiavo case. It was not about the right to die. It was about who, in the absence of a written directive, has the right to make decisions for a spouse. The court ruled rightly that it was the husband.

Any other ruling would have made it possible for ANY relative to override medical decisions, and invalidated the spousal relationship. It would have set a dangerous precedent.

I want my husband, not my right-to-life Republican drone relatives, to make decisions. Oh - we have written directives, though, anyway.