Post-Script to "Life Panels" Special Comment

After taking a few days off because his father took a dramatic turn for the worse, Keith Olbermann was sort of back last night as he introduced his show and then gave a post-script Special Comment at the end following up on his "Life Panels" comment last week.

Some have criticized Keith as capitalizing and over-dramatizing his father's illness. That's simply not fair and unnecessary. Stories move people. We use them to teach lessons in all areas of life. Simply giving facts never sells a position like facts followed by examples (aka stories). I only wish we'd had such wonderful cooperation between doctors, nurses, and other caregivers when we were making decisions about Nana's end of life care. Unfortunately, all we had was our own gut and the her advance directives, which didn't cover everything.

Keith accurately reminds us that those "death panels" Sarah Palin and others love to frighten us with are really just meetings between patients (if they're able), their medical professionals and their families (or health care powers of attorney) to discuss options, make the most educated guesses, and develop a plan of action. Oh, and let the medical professionals bill insurance companies for those meetings. That's the key component: letting medical professionals bill insurance companies to help patients and their families make a plan to give the patient the best in restorative or palliative care. As it stands now, they can't get paid for that conversation.

Have I mentioned just how much I love Keith Olbermann?

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