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This Just In: The nonexistent “Death Panel” provision has been dropped from the senate version of Obama’s health care bill, according to an article in Thursday’s The Hill:
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. "On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. "We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."
Remember the response Palin's comments received? In case you forgot or would like to sweep this under the rug now that it's been defeated, here's a reminder:
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
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Response from the DCCC:
"Don't let Republicans like Sarah Palin get away with making outrageous accusations about "death panels," the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee writes in an e-mail. "Please consider helping us with a financial contribution as well. If you contribute $5 or more, it could go a long way in helping us set the record straight with our ongoing ads!"
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An article in the Louisville City Hall Examiner:
But, wait. Filtering out the characterizations, personal attacks, and theories of motivation, one question remains: Is there any factual basis for Gov. Palin’s warning about “death panels?”
Prof. William A. Jacobson, of Cornell Law School, has penned an intriguing piece titled “An Inconvenient Truth About The ‘Death Panel,’” in which he calls the issue of allocating resources away from the elderly and infirm “the ethical elephant in the room.”
Prof. Jacobson reminds us, one interesting concept which is central to the proposals being discussed is the creation of a panel of "experts" to make the politically unpopular decisions on allocating health care resources. In a letter to the Senate, Barack Obama expressed support for such a commission:
“I am committed to working with the Congress to fully offset the cost of health care reform by reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending … To identify and achieve additional savings, I am also open to your ideas about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC)…. Under this approach, MedPAC's recommendations on cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a fiscally responsible way.”
Back in June, Obama told Diane Sawyer in an interview that government should “study and figure out what works and what doesn’t. And let’s encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let’s discourage what doesn’t.” Sawyer then asked him: “Will it just be encouragement? Or will there be a board making Solomonic decisions?” Obama replied, “What I’ve suggested is—is that we have a—a commission that helps—made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best—best practices.”
So, will MedPAC be the “death panel?” Will it have the power to curtail allocation of resources to those who are not deemed capable of "complete lives" based on prognosis and age, as proposed by Dr. Emanuel? Will it be the government agency that sends you the curt notice that your “chances have been attenuated?”
Obama, Pelosi, Kennedy, and the other Democrats pushing for national health insurance continue to deny that they want anything like the “socialized medicine” doled out in other countries. And they vigorously reject as “scare tactics” any suggestion that bureaucrats will ever be empowered to make “end of life” decisions for patients, simply on the basis of economics.
I guess they finally realized that it wasn't going to fly, so as a result of public pressure, they removed the provision that "didn't exist".
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. "On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. "We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."
Remember the response Palin's comments received? In case you forgot or would like to sweep this under the rug now that it's been defeated, here's a reminder:
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
************************************************** *******
Response from the DCCC:
"Don't let Republicans like Sarah Palin get away with making outrageous accusations about "death panels," the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee writes in an e-mail. "Please consider helping us with a financial contribution as well. If you contribute $5 or more, it could go a long way in helping us set the record straight with our ongoing ads!"
************************************************** *******
An article in the Louisville City Hall Examiner:
But, wait. Filtering out the characterizations, personal attacks, and theories of motivation, one question remains: Is there any factual basis for Gov. Palin’s warning about “death panels?”
Prof. William A. Jacobson, of Cornell Law School, has penned an intriguing piece titled “An Inconvenient Truth About The ‘Death Panel,’” in which he calls the issue of allocating resources away from the elderly and infirm “the ethical elephant in the room.”
Prof. Jacobson reminds us, one interesting concept which is central to the proposals being discussed is the creation of a panel of "experts" to make the politically unpopular decisions on allocating health care resources. In a letter to the Senate, Barack Obama expressed support for such a commission:
“I am committed to working with the Congress to fully offset the cost of health care reform by reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending … To identify and achieve additional savings, I am also open to your ideas about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC)…. Under this approach, MedPAC's recommendations on cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a fiscally responsible way.”
Back in June, Obama told Diane Sawyer in an interview that government should “study and figure out what works and what doesn’t. And let’s encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let’s discourage what doesn’t.” Sawyer then asked him: “Will it just be encouragement? Or will there be a board making Solomonic decisions?” Obama replied, “What I’ve suggested is—is that we have a—a commission that helps—made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best—best practices.”
So, will MedPAC be the “death panel?” Will it have the power to curtail allocation of resources to those who are not deemed capable of "complete lives" based on prognosis and age, as proposed by Dr. Emanuel? Will it be the government agency that sends you the curt notice that your “chances have been attenuated?”
Obama, Pelosi, Kennedy, and the other Democrats pushing for national health insurance continue to deny that they want anything like the “socialized medicine” doled out in other countries. And they vigorously reject as “scare tactics” any suggestion that bureaucrats will ever be empowered to make “end of life” decisions for patients, simply on the basis of economics.
I guess they finally realized that it wasn't going to fly, so as a result of public pressure, they removed the provision that "didn't exist".
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