Funds for end-of-life care stir concern

Starting this year, Medicare will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment ["Don't believe new 'death panel' talk," Opinion, Jan. 2].

I realize as a retiree I no longer add value to our country, and should I not wake up tomorrow, my demise would be no loss to society. But isn't the elimination of the unproductive among us akin to Nazism, a movement we defeated 65 years ago?

Chet Gerstenbluth, Plainview

After reading Mary Sanchez's cogent explanation of the Obama administration's authorization of new funding for end-of-life care discussions - discussions that have been misrepresented as "death panels'' by Sarah Palin - one has to wonder: Is Palin just misinformed, or is she being deliberately malicious in stirring up opposition to them? In either case, it is the type of "leadership" we do not need in this country.

Bill Ciesla, Northport

So now the twisted logic of Sarah Palin tries to convince people that the important cautions against obesity counseled by first lady Michelle Obama are a rant against the fat-and-sugar snacks Palin wants to stuff her family with.

Just like the phony "death squads for grandma" she imagined, this is yet another dish of lunacy served up by this mad tea party hostess.

Craig T. Robertson, Huntington Station