Death Panels Alive And Well In Canada And Coming Here Via ObamaCare
Canada's Supreme Court has ruled that under the "law of the land" in Ontario, a government board, not the family or doctors, has the ultimate power to pull the plug on a patient.
Lost in the discussion of defunding ObamaCare and the failed effort in Congress is the fact that failure means the government's ability to defund your life through the ObamaCare's Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) remains. IPAB is regarded by many, starting with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as a death panel whose decisions based on cost effectiveness would result in health care rationing.
A glimpse of this brave new world can be had by casting a glance at our neighbor to the north. There, Canada's Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that under Ontario's Health Care Consent Act, which has been on the books for nearly two decades, doctors cannot overrule a family's wishes for an incapacitated patient regarding life or death decisions, but an administrative tribunal can.
In 1996, Ontario's provincial legislature created the Consent and Capacity Board, a body with the power to make the final decision when doctors and families disagree on keeping a patient alive with continued treatment or pulling the plug, a conflict that can result in endless legal battles.
At issue in the Ontario case was the fate of Hassan Rasouli, a retired engineer who suffered complications following brain surgery three years ago and has been in a vegetative state in a Toronto hospital ever since. Doctors say there is no hope of recovery but the family doesn't want to turn off life support.
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