Not "Death Panels" but "Overhauling End-of-Life Care"...

Oh, but that idiot Sarah Palin is an idiot for saying "death panels"...

See if you can spot all the euphemisms for "letting old people die and not using up our healthcare dollars" in this gibberish...

The country’s system for handling end-of-life care is largely broken and should be overhauled at almost every level, a national panel concluded in a report released on Wednesday.

“The bottom line is the health care system is poorly designed to meet the needs of patients near the end of life,” said David M. Walker, a Republican and a former United States comptroller general, who was a co-chairman of the panel. “The current system is geared towards doing more, more, more, and that system by definition is not necessarily consistent with what patients want and is also more costly.”

But some recommendations, like changing the reimbursement structure so that Medicare would pay for home health services instead of emphasizing hospital care, and so Medicaid would have better coverage of long-term care for the frail elderly, would require congressional action. 

It calls for a “major reorientation and restructuring of Medicare, Medicaid and other health care delivery programs” and the elimination of “perverse financial incentives” that encourage expensive hospital procedures while growing numbers of very sick and very old patients want low-tech services like home health care and pain management. 

You see, those damn old and sick people take up hospital beds and doctors' time when they could be at home, drugged-up, with one of those useless home healthcare professionals (ever talked to your average home healthcare professional?).

Hey, here is a radical idea, why not let patients decide what they want...expensive hospital-based healthcare or home healthcare and "pain management" (perhaps my favorite healthcare euphemism!). 

And why does healthcare have to be a "system", why is it not a marketplace, a series of capabilities and options available to people based on their preferences and choices???