The Albuquerque Journal is lucky to have a writer of the calibre of Winthrop Quigley. Quigley has a knack for stepping through a logical process with dispassion. I’m thankful he takes on Calcified Cal Thomas’ resurrection of the death panels, a coldly calculated effort to frighten the townfolk into raising their pitchforks at the start of the new Congress.
ABQJOURNAL UPFRONT: Doctor Discussion Hardly a Death Panel
By Winthrop Quigley
Journal Staff WriterIt was probably too much to expect that we might enjoy at least a brief respite, now that the elections are over, from much of the nonsense that passes for public discourse. We managed to get only to the second day of the new year before Cal Thomas revived the death panel canard in his syndicated column, which the Journal publishes.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as required by the health care law passed last year, has started paying medical professionals about $111 to spend time discussing with their Medicare-eligible patients anything on their minds. CMS has issued a rule saying that these so-called wellness visits, available annually, can cover the care the patients would like to receive at the end of their lives, if that’s what they want to talk about. Patients have the discussion only if they ask for it. …
Self-described conservatives like Thomas argue in other contexts that given enough information individuals make the best choices for themselves. …
When patients’ desires aren’t known, the health care system has an incentive to provide excessive care and run up expense unnecessarily, if only to avoid a lawsuit. …
In the world of death panel fabulism, it’s better your doctor not know what your preferences are. It’s better that you not know your options. It is a world where personal freedom is threatened by information and achieved through ignorance.