Follow the money

Headline:

Hospitals can end life support

Decision hinges on patient's ability to pay, prognosis

Yup...which is why there is a groundswell by everyone except the NYTimes to keep Terry Schiavo alive...you see, her loving husband didn't remember that she didn't want to treated if brain damaged until after he settled a large malpractice suit that gave a huge amount of money for her rehabilitation...once the suit was settled, he stopped rehabilitation treatment to stop, stuck her in a hospice, sued to stop her tube feeding, and moved in with his girlfriend and had several kids by her...

My clinical take is that if she really was in "persistant vegetative state", she would have died of aspiration pneumonia...an old study in the NEJM showed the average life span on a feeding tube for dysphagia is six months...you die from aspirating saliva...if you can swallow saliva, you probably could eat...however, the prodeath people have a neurologist who claims even spoon feeding such a person is "medical treatment"...

Most people in Florida, with it's huge elderly population, have no problem with stopping unwanted treatment---And feeding tubes in terminal Alzheimer's disease or after a severe stroke doesn't really prolong life ...but this case has such a smell of evil that even the local Florida Democrats voted with Jeb to stop this travesty....and the fact that the courts overturned the legislature and that these same local courts will not allow another judge to rule on the evidence--well, you figure something is very very wrong with the decision...and the local Democrats figure that "judicial lawmaking" will end up being a big election issue if they don't put a stop to it...

Peggy's Noonan's says it best: Her essay is here...