Hillary: Pull Plug On Patients Like Terri
Newsmax  | 3-28-2005 | Carl Limbacher & Newsmax Staff
 

Since the Terri Schiavo case began to dominate the headlines ten days ago, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has gone into virtual hiding - refusing to show up for last Sunday's vote on congressional intervention and offering no public comment on the case in the intervening eight days.

But in Sept. 1993, while appearing before Congress to sell her ill-fated health care reform plan, Mrs. Clinton suggested that she wanted to make it easier to deny long term care to patients like Schiavo who have little chance of recovery.

"I think there should be a discussion in this country about what is appropriate care . . . with more thought and more concern about both the human and the economic cost," she told the Senate Finance Committee. Referring to her own health care plan, Hillary explained:

"If we do this health care reform right [we can] create the kind of security we're talking about so that people will know that they're not being denied treatment for any reason other than it is not appropriate, it will not enhance or save the quality of life."

Mrs. Clinton hinted that she thought that even patients who were not necessarily terminally ill should be denied life-saving treatment

Continued