Prepare to become adequately informed.

"Patients are not adequately informed about the burdens. All they�re told is, �You have to go on dialysis or you�ll die,�... Nobody tells them, �You could have up to two years without the treatment, without the discomfort, with greater independence.��

Said Dr. Alvin H. Moss, chairman of the Coalition for Supportive Care of Kidney Patients, quoted in "Learning to Say No to Dialysis."

Do older people with advancing kidney disease really intend to sign up for all this? If they hope to reach a particular milestone � a great-grandchild�s birth, say � or value survival above all, perhaps so. But many express ambivalence....

[O]lder patients may not fully grasp what lies ahead. When they decide to discontinue dialysis, Dr. Moss said, �patients say to me, �Doc, it�s not that I want to die, but I don�t want to keep living like this.��

Oh, you "older people," you need to learn... and the death panel coalition is here to propagandize adequately inform you.