Daddy Faces the Death Panel

            America is now embroiled in a fierce national debate over health care.  Well, it’s a “debate” if you call town hall meetings in which people scream at each other at the top of their lungs a “debate.”  It reminds me of the “debates” that take place between wrestlers before a big WWF bout.

            So far the “debaters” can’t even agree on the topic.  President Obama and the Democrats claim the debate is over “health care insurance reform.”  Republicans claim the debate is over whether federal bureaucrats, who can hardly deliver the mail, should now deliver health care.

            But while we are not sure what the topic is, there is no doubt in my mind who the winner is at this point in the debate.  Sarah Palin.  Hands down.

            Last month when Ms. Palin stepped down as lame-duck Governor of Alaska, she promised that she was going to enter a new era of public service in which she would have an even greater impact.  Boy, was she right.

            President Obama is one of the most articulate speakers of this generation, a kind of combination of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Billy Graham, but he has definitely been off his game in the health care debate.  At a recent press conference, President Obama rambled on (he really does need teleprompters) and could not quite seem to explain exactly what it is he is proposing for health care reform.  He then ended the press conference by saying that a Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer acted “stupidly” in the recent arrest of a Harvard professor.

The President recovered from that last comment by having a beer party in the Rose Garden for the police officer and the professor.  But let’s face it, folks.  The President is not going to get health care reform passed by inviting Nancy Pelosi and Rush Limbaugh to join him at the White House for a cold one.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has been on top of her game since leaving the Alaska Governor’s igloo.  Saracuda, as she was called when she was a fierce point guard on her high school basketball team, has made speeches and sent out tweets and text messages warning that national health care will result in “death panels” that decide whether to “pull the plug on grandma.”  It is an understatement to say that these have been very effective.  For obvious reasons, they have hit a particularly responsive cord with senior citizens, who are the one group of Americans that always vote, and therefore they are, to say the least, very powerful.

            Democrats have dismissed ex-Governor Palin’s comments as “fear mongering.”  However, if she chose to do so, the definitely-not-lame-ex-Governor could call me as a witness because a couple of years ago, I saw a federal government death panel in action.

            Mark Twain was once asked if he believed in infant baptism.  He responded, “Do I believe in it?  Hell, I’ve seen it!”

            Similarly, if you ask me if I believe in federal government death panels, I will tell you that not only do I believe it, I’ve seen it!

            My father is 85 years old.  He gets all of his health care from a single-payer federal government source, the Veterans Administration.  Believe me, this is not an entitlement program.  Dad served in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1945, and almost single-handedly won World War II.  Therefore, his health care at the VA Hospital in Memphis is not free.  Dad paid for it nearly 70 years ago.

            One night a couple of years ago, Dad collapsed right in front of me.  He was taken by ambulance to the VA Hospital, and I was convinced that the Lord was calling him home.  But thanks to God and the VA doctors, Dad was revived at the VA.  Dad is ready to go to heaven any time, but like the old joke goes, he is not ready to get on board the bus tonight!

            After Dad was revived at the VA Hospital, he was resting comfortably in the hospital emergency room.  I was sitting alongside him.  And it was at this moment that the death panel arrived.  The panel consisted of two nurses, one of whom was carrying a clipboard.

            They then proceeded to ask Dad some very personal questions.  The nurses pretended to be nice, but I could tell what they were up to.  They first asked Dad whether he had a “Living Will.”  He said he did, and then pointed to me and told the nurses, “This young feller here can get you a copy.”

            The nurses then asked Dad a series of questions about what sort of care he wanted (and more accurately did not want), in the event the Lord was about to call him home.  These questions upset me, but they didn’t upset Dad at all.

            Dad told them that if he went into a coma, he absolutely did not want anything done to bring him back.  He said very kindly that if this happened, “Everyone should just let me go.”

            Dad was not asked whether we should pull the plug on him, but he made his intentions very clear.

            I confess I have not read a single page of the federal health care reform legislation.  That’s something I have in common with members of Congress.  They apparently don’t read the legislation either.  But if there is a provision in the legislation calling for the creation of “death panels,” I hope they are as nice as the one that visited my father a couple of years ago at the VA Hospital.

            Dad wasn’t offended.  In fact, he thought the death panel nurses were cute.

            Maybe I should take my father to one of those town hall meetings.  But he really wouldn’t fit in.  He is not the sort of guy who screams at people.