Health Care Guide for Complete Dummies

Frankly it really pisses me off that I even have to waste our time discussing these non-issues. But, if you have one of these right wingnuts in your family or on your email list, send them this cheat sheet.

The Advanced medical directive euthanasia trap "" "Sign here and Die"

Of course. Who could possibly doubt it? Killing bothersome and expensive oldsters is just a really, really, really, really late-term abortion, if you stop to think about it.

Which is exactly what people who believe this nonsense are not doing... thinking.

In fact the Advanced Medical Directive (AMD) is just the opposite of what these airheads are claiming. AMDs are not post-dated suicide notes. No one is taking your choice to live or die away, but rather memorializing that choice.

Say you want doctors to do all they can to keep you alive if you code out. Fine. Say so in your AMD and that's what you'll get. If you want them to pound on your chest until you're so tender the mortician stamps, "USDA Top Choice" on your forehead, the docs will do just that. They'll even bring in "the machine that goes 'BIGN.' If you want them to defibrillate you so many times with the zappers that you start picking up high-def TV channels in your head, they'll do that for you as well. But only if it's in your AMD.

But, if you're one of us who simply want the hospital let us pass away quietly, unzapped, un-tenderized, un-intubated, no one dragging you back from "the light" just to run up more billable procedures, and you have those wishes all signed and notarized in your AMD, then you'll get to slip away unmolested.

That's it. There's no "death panel," there's no government plot to euthanize anyone, of any age, for any reason, including Sarah Palin's baby.

In fact, the only places where medical people can legally use medical procedures to kill people is in our prisons. And conservatives think that's just as it should be.

We Don't Want Bureaucrats Getting Between Us and Our Doctors

Well, bureaucrats come in many flavors. There's your basic government bureaucrat, who follows federal, state and local laws, rules and ordinances. They're inflexible, myopic, often not terribly bright and almost always annoying.

Then there's your corporate bureaucrat. You know, the bean counters, the guys and gals who spend their work days combing spreadsheets for... hell, who knows what. Corporate bureaucrats have ice-water in the viens. And they too have their marching orders, orders they enforce with even greater tenacity since, unlike federal bureaucrats, corporate bureaucrats can be easily and quickly fired.

Now, which bureaucrat do you prefer involved in your health care?

Neither, you say. Oh, sorry. "None of the above," was not one of your choices. You get one, or you get the other, or you get a combination of the two. Right now most of you have the insurance company's corporate bureaucrat between you and your doctor. You will never see them, or for that matter probably ever have any form of direct contact with them. The only evidence they exist comes when your doctor returns to the exam room shaking his or her head and announces, "Sorry, Burt, but your insurance doesn't cover that... (. fill in the blank "" medication, procedure, hospital stay, treatment. )

That decision was made by an insurance company bureaucrat while you where sitting in that cold exam room doing your damnedest to keep the back of you exam robe closed. The denial of service was made either over the phone or computer with your very own insurance bureaucrat. It's sort of like the old movie Harvey... you have your own invisible insurance company bureaucrat who follows you where ever you go... if you go anywhere near the health care system.

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