From the Los Angeles Times:

The decision was an apparent acknowledgement by Democrats that the proposal had become a lightning rod for critics of the proposed overhaul of the health care system.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had charged that the President wanted to set up “death panels” that would deny health care services to people like her parents and her son with Down syndrome.

Supporters of the plan said the provision was intended to pay doctors who counsel patients about end-of-life care.

The Palin claim about “death panels” was so widely discredited that the White House has begun openly quoting it in an effort to show that opponents of the healthcare overhaul are misinformed.

Palin has defended her claim with a new posting.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Lennard Davis says Republican concerns about “death panels” amount to “misinformation and downright lies” that use people with disabilities as “poster children” in an attempt to sink the administration’s health care proposal. An excerpt:

This rhetorical concern for the disabled is fascinating coming from the right, which has routinely worked against extending accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying that it would cost businesses too much to retrofit their environments.

… It is important that people with disabilities speak out against being used as the negative poster children of the Republican’s smear campaign. The reforms advocated in the health care bill would specifically benefit people with disabilities by stopping the current practice in which insurance companies can terminate people for their health status.

Davis is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Laura Hershey, writing in U.S. News & World Report, says the current debate over “end-of-life care” neglects to acknowledge the rich, vibrant lives lived by people with disabilities. She worries that health care rationing plans rely on discriminatory and erroneous views that ignore the experiences and value of people with disabilities.

An excerpt:

Tactless acquaintances have told me they would kill themselves if they became as disabled as me. More chillingly, the last time I was hospitalized for pneumonia, I had two different nurses ask if I had a DNR—a “do not resuscitate” order. I replied that I had come to the hospital to get better, not to die.

Unfortunately, that expectation of medical treatment can run up against physicians’ opposing views and hospitals’ rules.

… In this economic and social climate, we fear that medical practitioners will stop short of saving our lives. More and more, despite rhetoric about “patient autonomy,” the decision to withhold treatment is imposed upon patients. Especially vulnerable are those unable to communicate their wishes.

Health care conversation stalls on dispute over euthanasia

Timothy Egan writes in the New York Times Outposts Blog that Sarah Palin’s criticism of the health plan proposal is “poison” that feeds a “lunatic fringe who channel in the flotsam of delusion, half-facts and conspiracy theories.”

An excerpt:

For a democracy, which depends on an informed citizenry to balance a permanent lobbying class, this is poison. And it’s one reason why town hall forums on health care, which should be sharp debates about something that affects all of us, have turned into town mauls.

… As for Palin, she should follow her own advice to the media of a few weeks ago — lay off the kids and “quit makin’ things up.”

See also:

• Gingrich warns of euthanasia—UPI
• The Simplest Explanation for Why Palin and Gingrich Are Wrong—Huffington Post by John R. Bohrer
• Health care debate steers into abortion, euthanasia—USA Today

Other posts start here.

From the Washington Post:

A campaign on conservative talk radio, fueled by President Obama’s calls to control exorbitant medical bills, has sparked fear among senior citizens that the health-care bill moving through Congress will lead to end-of-life “rationing” and even “euthanasia.”

The controversy stems from a proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical interventions they would prefer near the end of life and how to prepare instructions such as living wills.

… on right-leaning radio programs, religious e-mail lists and Internet blogs, the proposal has been described as “guiding you in how to die,” “an ORDER from the Government to end your life,” promoting “death care” and, in the words of antiabortion leader Randall Terry, an attempt to “kill Granny.”

Defenders of the legislation, including lawmakers, the American Medical Association and the AARP respond that the accusations are untrue, offensive, and even cruel.

Earlier posts start here.

Rebecca Reisner, writing in Business Week, says an obscure end-of-life provision in the administration’s health care proposal is stoking passions in the “conservative blogosphere,” with claims that it is a step toward government-mandated euthanasia.

During an AARP-sponsored town hall meeting earlier this week, a woman told the President: “I have been told there is a clause in there that everyone that’s Medicare age will be visited and told to decide how they wish to die. This bothers me greatly, and I’d like for you to promise me that this is not in this bill.” Obama replied that the intent of the provision was to promote advance planning and living wills.

Advocates of the measure say critics have misinterpreted the provision, while opponents are contending that their criticism of it has been misunderstood. An AARP spokesman criticized “baseless scare tactics put out by those who seek to derail health-care reform.”

See also:

False euthanasia claims: The claim that the House health bill pushes suicide is nonsense — Factcheck.org

Earlier posts here, here and here.

By Carrie Budoff Brown in Politico:

Legislators and political commentators are sparring over a provision tucked deep inside the House health care reform bill that would provide Medicare coverage for an end-of-life consultation once every five years, and more frequently for a life-threatening illness.

House Minority Leader John Boehner and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) have issued a statement saying the measure “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.”

Betsy McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor and conservative health expert, said the measure amounts to pressure on vulnerable elderly and chronically ill people. “… it is not offering a service. It is pressuring them,” McCaughey said. “I would not want that to occur when I am not at my parents’ bedside.”

Proponents of the measure say it would not make the consultation mandatory. They say critics are using irresponsible rhetoric to drive a wedge between senior citizens and Democrats.

Earlier post here.