Oregon’s Right to Die Law

Obama says this new plan won’t have a “death panel.” We have nothing to fear. If it can happen in Oregon, it can happen in Ohio or Illinois. The Chilling Truth

"One of the great concerns about Oregon is the suggestion that the very existence of the right-to-die law means the state's health system now has less of an incentive to provide terminally-ill people with proper care.

It is something that came to blight 64-year-old Barbara Wagner's last days.

Diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005, the former bus driver vowed to fight the disease so she could spend as long as possible with her family.

Even after her doctor warned last year that she had less than six months left, she refused to give up, pinning all her hopes on a new life-prolonging treatment.

But her request, at the beginning of last year, for the £2,500-a-month drug was refused by Oregon's state-run health plan as being too expensive. Instead, she was offered lethal medication to end her life.

'It was horrible,' Barbara told reporters. 'I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills we will help you get them from a doctor and we will stand there and watch you die - but we won't give you the medicine to live.

'I told them: "Who do you think you are to say that you will pay for my dying, but you won't pay for me to possibly live longer?"

'I am opposed to the assisted suicide law. I haven't considered it, even at my lowest ebb.'

Hearing of her plight, pharmaceutical company Genentech decided to give her the drug, Tarceva, free for one year. Barbara died in October last year and her family believes the added stress of her brush with the state hastened her end.

'She felt totally betrayed,' her ex-husband Dennis, 65, said this week. 'It comes down to the buck. It's not about compassion and understanding. The bottom line is that it is all about money and Barbara fell into the middle of it.'"