Ezekiel Emanuel, the oncologist and bio-ethicist is the Death Panels Czar according to the crazies. According to medical professionals he is a good doctor and a leading bio ethicist:

“The aim of health care is curing disease, relieving pain and suffering, promoting public health, pursuing research to improve health, and so on,” he wrote. He then laid out principles for achieving these goals, ones that strongly support transparency and autonomy for patients, justified by “the necessity of respecting individuals as rational and autonomous moral agents.” Contrary to the absurd charge that he (and Obama) would limit care to certain patients to save money, Emanuel argued in the article, “While efficiency is a legitimate and important goal in the provision of health care, it is not the only goal. We also demand that the health care system be just.”

For those who would take that last quote to suggest that Emanuel is a socialist who wants to tear down everything we have and adopt single-payer healthcare, wrong again. In a 2008 Hastings article, Emanuel deftly pointed out that it would do little more than maintain the “fragmented, fee-for-service delivery system that provides profligate and bad quality care.” Then he showed how single-payer care would hinder integration of care between different doctors and hospitals, how low administrative costs would perpetuate fraud and how cost control would breed public resentment. He even asked how we would feel if Dick Cheney, and not Ted Kennedy, was the one putting political pressure on any government health service. That kind of thinking shows Emanuel’s ability to think beyond the politics of health reform and focus on finding workable solutions.

via “Death panel doc” is all about life | Salon .

What does Dr. Emanuel think about a Euthanasia and/or Physician Assisted Suicide as a legal medical practice? Suprise, Surprise…the opposite of what folks on the right says he does:

For the vast majority of dying patients, Emanuel wrote, “legalizing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide would be of no benefit. To the contrary, it would be a way of avoiding the complex and arduous efforts required of doctors and other health-care providers to ensure that dying patients receive humane, dignified care.”

via What Ezekiel Emanuel Wrote on the WSJ Op-Ed Page | WSJ.Com