Pulling food and water from aged patients just to get them dead faster is euthanasia, and someone has to decide when that time will come for each of us. Whether this results from a set of bureaucratic rules or from the consensus of a committee (whether or not doctors or accountants make up that committee), the governing instrument is a “death panel.” Democrats say, “Oh, no, it’s not a ‘death panel,’ silly, it’s an end of life panel,” and we’re supposed to say, “Oh, okay then, as long as it’s not a ‘death panel.’”

By forcing Christian healthcare providers to perform abortions, Obama is doing nothing more than purging the healthcare community of persons of conscience. If these doctors and nurses will not take the lives of innocents in the womb, they will likely also not go along with euthanasia for the aged. It will be easier to implement “end of life” protocols with people who have no conscience.

My sister-in-law, a registered nurse, was asked by an attending physician, “Are you okay with morphine?” Thinking he meant, “Do you know how to administer morphine?” she said, “Yes.” The doctor then ordered a megadose of morphine for his patient, and she said, “This is too much. It will stop his respiration.” The doctor said, “That’s the idea. I thought you said you were ‘okay with morphine.’” Handing the doctor the bottle of morphine, she said, “If you want to kill your patient, doctor, you’ll have to do it yourself.” My sister-in-law is the sort that Obamacare will not long tolerate. Eventually, she will be told, “Do it, or you’re fired.”

When all those who revere life are purged from the medical community, what sort of compassion will remain? We too often hear of abuse of seniors in elder-care units at the hands of cruel, incompassionate attendants. Growing old was never for the feint-hearted, but now it gets worse.

Case in point: For ~$100 I could have a set of ultrasound tests to assess the health of some key arteries. For example, how this was the plaque in my carotid? I was happy to pay the money to find out that mine was totally clear. It was kind of a reverse lottery that I was glad to lose.

I mentioned this to a friend who happened to be an expert on evidence-based medicine. He told me that it was less expensive to treat the few people who survive an occluded carotid than to give the test to every older patient.

This is the difference between when people can buy the health care services they want to with their own money and when they allow themselves to become dependent upon government to provide health care for them.