Posted by
Patrick S. Adams on Friday, August 14, 2009 12:48:41 AM
"I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills," Obama
said (at a townhall meeting 08/11/04). "Somehow it's gotten spun into this idea of death panels. Um, I am not in favor of that. I want to clear the air."
“It does us no good to incite fear in people by saying that there’s these end-of-life provisions, these death panels,” (Alaska Senator) Murkowski, a Republican, said. “Quite honestly, I’m so offended at that terminology because it absolutely isn’t (in the bill). There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill.“
Others have criticized the discussion of mandatory end of life counseling as distorting the facts. But for most who haven't actually read the bill, it's easy to shuffle off the rhetoric as just another shot from the right to discredit it. For those who have not only read the bill, but written extensive research pieces on it, there seems to be a different view.
Conservatives have agreed with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin that she is right to be concerned about "pulling the plug on grandma," as the President calls it. Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, all "right wing extemists," have agreed that bureaucrats making final decisions and the rationing of health care which would result from the cuts in Medicare would not be good for grandma. Add 52% of the American people, prominent doctors, lawyers and writers to this group and throw in a former Speaker of the House for good measure and that's a lot of right wing extremists, if you go by the rhetoric coming out of Nancy Pelosi's and Harry Reid's offices.
The U.S. Senate also thinks Palin is right, too. A day after Senators, Congresspeople and political pundits essentially called Sarah Palin "nuts" and dismissed the idea of death panels, the Senate removed all the provisions from the bill cited by Palin on her Facebook page in a follow up to her original statement.
"You Know Those 'Death Panel' Provisions Palin Was Ridiculed For Writing About? The Senate Finance Committee Just Dropped Them.." read the headline on a
blog.
The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.
The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after it was derided by conservatives as "death panels" to encourage euthanasia.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was criticized by the usual suspects,
The Daily Kos and
The Huffington Post, for his involvement in getting the provisions removed. These are the same publications who initially denied the existence of such provisions.
Sarah Palin wrote a detailed follow up on her
Facebook page in which she clarified:
These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is "to reduce the growth in health care spending." [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care?
Apparently, the facts got in the way of those who were trying to stop opponents of the measure from spreading "misinformation."
The American people will be thankful that at least someone read the bill and pointed out a very very serious problem with it. "Death Panels!" Sometimes you have to yell fire in a crowded movie theater, especially when it's really on fire.