About those “Death Panels”

The excitement over the feeling of having caught Sarah Palin” in error about the so-called “Death Panels” is amazing to behold.

It is true that there are no “death panels’ in the health care bill. The elderly and the handicapped will not have to appear before a panel which will decide whether the person appearing before them should live or die. That would be too cruel … for the people on the panel.

Instead, the panel members will be able to decide who lives and dies in an abstract manner. A given group of people with certain medical conditions and the given cost of a procedure will, or won’t be given that care. How clean, for the panelists. That people will die is secondary. The government’s budget is what matters.

It is also safer for the panelists and, they think, for Congress. Who could possibly blame them for someone’s death when it is all done so analytically and calmly. There is nothing personal about it. And, we all know, the members of the panel, or Congress, will never accept or receive an exemption from the policy for themselves and their family members.