Meet Dr. Byock: Obama's Angel of Death
Matt Rooney | November 23, 2009
CBS News
"Open to Hope" TV
Please keep Dr. Ira Byock far, far away from me if I'm ever hospitalized, Save Jerseyans.
Sarah Palin's "death panel" fears are fully realized in this guy's sick imagination. Take a moment to digest just one segment from Sunday night's CBS News special entitled "The Cost of Dying" starring Dr. Byock. Throughout the interview, he openly shares his disturbing belief that GOVERNMENT, not individuals and their families, should decide when it's time to pull the plug on a human life in distress.
I'm not exaggerating -- Byock's views on life and death are directly out of a fascist-era German medical textbook! It's incredible to me that a doctor would disregard his Hippocratic oath and act like an accountant charged with saving money instead of a medical professional entrusted with human lives. But I'm glad this CBS interview happened, so that Americans inclined to support ObamaCare can finally see the error of their ways before it's too late for grandma and grandpa:
"Charlie Haggart is 68 years old and suffering from liver and kidney failure. He wants a double transplant, which would cost about $450,000. But doctors have told him he's currently too weak to be a candidate for the procedure.
At a meeting with Haggart's family and his doctors, Dr. Byock raised the awkward question of what should be done if he got worse and his heart or lungs were to give out.
He said that all of the available data showed that CPR very rarely works on someone in Haggart's condition, and that it could lead to a drawn out death in the ICU.
"Either way you decide, we will honor your choice, and that's the truth," Byock reassured Haggart. "Should we do CPR if your heart were to suddenly stop?"
"Yes," he replied.
"You'd be okay with being in the ICU again?" Byock asked.
"Yes," Haggart said.
"I know it's an awkward conversation," Byock said.
"It beats second place," Haggart joked, laughing.
"You don't think it makes any sense?" Kroft asked the doctor.
"It wouldn't be my choice. It's not what I advise people. At the present time, it's their right to request it. And Medicare pays for it," Byock said.
When it comes to expensive, hi-tech treatments with some potential to extend life, there are few limitations.
By law, Medicare cannot reject any treatment based upon cost. It will pay $55,000 for patients with advanced breast cancer to receive the chemotherapy drug Avastin, even though it extends life only an average of a month and a half; it will pay $40,000 for a 93-year-old man with terminal cancer to get a surgically implanted defibrillator if he happens to have heart problems too.
"I think you cannot make these decisions on a case-by-case basis," Byock said. "It would be much easier for us to say 'We simply do not put defibrillators into people in this condition.' Meaning your age, your functional status, the ability to make full benefit of the defibrillator. Now that's going to outrage a lot of people."
"But you think that should happen?" Kroft asked.
"I think at some point it has to happen," Byock said.
"Well, this is a version then of pulling Grandma off the machine?" Kroft asked.
"You know, I have to say, I think that's offensive. I spend my life in the service of affirming life. I really do. To say we're gonna pull Grandma off the machine by not offering her liver transplant or her fourth cardiac bypass surgery or something is really just scurrilous. And it's certainly scurrilous when we have 46 million Americans who are uninsured," Byock said."
CBS News
"Open to Hope" TV
please do not write articles you clearly do not understand fully.
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I'm sorry Matt...I didn't see where he was connected in any way with President Obama, or the government in some capacity. Please point out to me what role he is playing in this debate? Or if you don't have that information, then you should apologize for even inkling that he is in some way connected to the President.
Not that you will ever apologize for anything...but it would be nice for you to admit that you're a lying weasel and that he has NO connection whatsoever.
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Connection:
The Pelosi-designed, Obama supported healthcare bill moving through Congress is an exact reflection of this genocidal maniac's views. Dr. Byock is the kind of doctor your president wants staffing hospitals. It's sick.
Obama's bill WILL kill Americans. I pray every day that enough Congressmen and women recognize their error before it's too late.
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So, then basically, you ARE a lying weasel and he has nothing to do with the debate, or the bill. Thank you for confirming.
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I don't know why I try to impart logic to the illogical. Maybe it's my Christian sensibilities.
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Must be. I'm a Christian and I see the same thing. Difference between us is you're Republican and I'm Independent. See it goes to show that two parties can actually see eye-to-eye when they allow for possibilities.
Hang in there Matt.
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I'm just trying to keep you honest...something you have a hard time with. You charecterize this Dr. as "Obama's Angel of Death", yet has absolutely NOTHING to do with President Obama. You also state that the idiot "Palin's death panel fears are realized", when in reality, this Dr. has nothing to do with the bill, whats in the bill, nor is he on any type of advisory committee to this bill. You are lying, once again, and you fail to admit that. Maybe you should re-check your Christian principles as it applies to lying. I seem to remember something about lying being a sin...
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My God... my grandmother survived the Holocaust, and this is the same rhetoric her oppressors used.
This President is a bad man. He must be impeached before he kills Americans with this terrible program.
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The Independent Voice here. My husband and I saw this last night and were stunned at what this man said.
This is typical far-left CBS stuff!! Anyone questioning the relationship between this Death Doctor and what's going on today with the healthcare debate merely needs to look at the relationship between CBS and Obama.
COME ON! What nobody is getting is all the people backing this stuff are totally rich and will buy their own health care, government and union workers that have no care insurance plans or the total poor that this Doctor Death will pull the plug on.
Middle America has a major problem!!!
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