www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/oregons_suicidal_approach_to_h.html
September 14, 2008, Oregon’s Suicidal Approach to Health Care by Rita L. Marker

“Oregon seems to have found a surefire way to lower health care costs: Tell the patient you’ll pay for drugs that will end her life, but not those that would extend her life. Here’s how it works: In May 2008, 64-year-old retired school bus driver Barbara Wagner received bad news from her doctor. She found out that her cancer, which had been in remission for two years, had returned. Then, she got some good news. Her doctor gave her a prescription that would likely slow the cancer’s growth and extend her life. She was relieved by the news and also by the fact that she had health care coverage through the Oregon Health Plan.

“It didn’t take long for her hopes to be dashed. Barbara Wagner was notified by letter that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover her prescription. But the letter didn’t leave it at that. It also notified her that, although it wouldn’t cover her prescription, it would cover assisted suicide. After Wagner’s story appeared in the Eugene Register-Guard, the Oregon Health Plan acknowledged that it routinely sends similar letters to patients who have little chance of surviving more than five years, informing them that the health plan will pay for assisted suicide (euphemistically categorized as ‘comfort care’), but not for treatment that could help them live for months or years. Certainly, spending $100 for deadly drugs is cost effective. And, ever since the Oregon Death with Dignity Act transformed the crime of assisted suicide into a ‘medical treatment’ more than ten years ago, it has been perfectly legal. Oregon doctors prescribe lethal overdoses of drugs. Pharmacists dispense them, sometimes with instructions to ‘take all of this with a light snack and alcohol to cause death.’ Patients die after taking them.”

Jennifer Parfenovics

www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/the_loneliness_of_the_bluestat.html

“I was stunned not only by the number of anti-Palin posts, but also the vehemence. ‘The more I get to know her, the more I loathe her,’ posted one graduate of the Daily Kos Academy. ‘The more I get to know her, the more I like her,’ I shot back, with my invisible flak jacket and helmet. It would have been impossible and futile to try to fight the gossip gallery, but I couldn’t resist posting my own fascination with the group’s Palin-bashing: ‘What is this frenzy about?’ I asked. ‘If you loathe her politics, fine and fair, but these smears, so many of which are quickly being proven untrue, is nearly unprecedented in my memory, and I’ve been watching politics for a long time. I am particularly struck by this in a group of writers, who understand the need to get facts right before ‘reporting’ them. Unfortunately for those on the left, the more bias and dirt that’s thrown her way, the more money and support the Republican ticket gets’.”

Jennifer Parfenovics

Yes the left and their buddies in the MSM have much to answer for here. I like what the Christian Defense Coalition said about the media attacks on Palin’s pregnant daughter:

We want “to remind the press that there was not this kind of hysteria when:
-Senator John Edwards had an affair while his wife was dying with cancer.
-President Bill Clinton sexually manipulated a 19 year old intern while she performed sex acts with him in the Oval Office during official state business.
-Senator Obama admitted to using cocaine and other drugs.
-Senator Biden plagiarized speeches and exaggerated his college career and had to withdraw from the 1988 Presidential race in disgrace.
In light of these episodes, it is stunning and pathetic to see the media go after a 17 year old girl who has absolutely nothing to do with the Presidential campaign and whose situation is a private family matter.”

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch