1.  Doctors do not have the right to withhold necessary treatment from a patient.

2.  Therefore, we must withhold further treatments.

3.  They can not withhold treatment as punishment for any reason.

4.  Old age should not be a sole criterion for withholding aggressive treatment of community-acquired pneumonia.

5.  Thus age should not be the sole criterion for withholding aggressive treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in older patients.

6.  But experts disagree on the ethics of withholding effective treatment from children when studying nonfatal conditions such as allergies or skin rashes.

7.  But Jamie Court, director of Los Angeles-based Consumers for Quality Care, said that the incentives in HMOs are grotesquely skewed in favor of withholding treatment.

8.  Doctors can withhold treatments that they know may prolong a life that is no longer worth living.

9.  Democrats also want to allow patients to sue HMOs and collect damages when HMOs withhold treatment.