I guess that's one way to fix social security

Let the old people just die instead of treating them, because if the senate stimulus package passes? Beware that if your grandmother or mother or aunt or uncle comes down with something that the GOVERNMENT decides is not cost effective to treat? They're going to order your doctor to let them just DIE. And if they don't? If they instead stick to their hippocratic oath about, oh, I don't know, helping people? They're going to face penalties. And as they do it more and more often? They will face more and more penalties.

What you and your doctor decide to do about any given health problem? Will now also include an equation dictated by the GOVERNMENT about whether you are worth the cost or not. Good-bye experimental treatments. Good-bye advances in medical technology. Hello rising mortality rate.

Daschle actually has this to say about health-care reform: “[it] will not be pain free.” He also says that seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. WHAAAAAT? So my friend's Dad who just had a relapse of cancer, because he's older, maybe he should just accept it and die? NO. NO. NO. So, next time my grandmother, who's 92, is admitted to the hospital, instead of having a few months of re-hab, should just? Die? Because, she might not have that long to live anyway? It's not "cost-effective"? NO. NO. NO.

If the solution is more painful than the problem? It's not a problem. Or at the very least, this CLEARLY isn't the solution. I have some ideas regarding health care reform that are far less invasive of patient rights. Here's one off the top of my head. How about having one price for one service? If you accept $20 from the insurance company for XYZ, then you should charge a non-insured person the same $20, not $40. How easy is that? I'm not saying that the government should set the prices either, I'm just saying that within any given practice, the prices should be constant.

I hope the older people in your life are healthy enough to survive this. I don't know about you, but I think it's worth an email to your congressman to tell them that you actually love the older people in your life and would prefer that your parents' doctors be allowed to treat your parents as they see fit, without government interference.

It's a slippery slope. Next they'll be telling you that you can have 1 boy or 2 children.