The Death Panel Lie
Is it honorable to be a liberal? Yes. Is it honorable to be a conservative? Yes, of course.
However, there’s nothing honorable in preaching and shouting what one must know is a lie.
One such lie is that the Democrats in Congress have included a provision in the health care reform legislation proposed in the House of Representatives and Senate to establish "death panels" to remove from us those who are desperately sick, elderly, or impaired, such as those with Down Syndrome.
One of the most noted proponents of this lie is the former Governor of Alaska, Ms. Sarah Palin., who posted this on her Facebook blog:
“The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.
“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.
“Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.”
Hmmm. Well, this isn’t the first time the former Governor has misinterpreted facts and history, is it? Title II, Subtitle C, Section 1233 of HR 3200 (“America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009”) does not set up any panel or panels of doctors or bureaucrats whose responsibility is to coerce patients to decide upon an end-of-life plan or strategy, and is not designed to reduce the cost of health care by eliminating the sick, impaired, or elderly. Instead, it authorizes payment for medical visits where doctors discuss with a patient the ins and outs of advance care planning and a living will or durable power of attorney. In short, it’s about advising a patient on how best, within state law, to ensure that her or his intentions regarding the end of his or her life can be carried out if the patient is unable to give voice to her or his desires at that time.
Personal Note
In 1996, my father was in a grocery store near his home in Smyrna, Georgia when he suffered a devastating stroke. My Dad, who was always strong and robust, became a husk of his former self literally overnight. He didn’t recognize the time in which he lived, and he, initially, recognized people close to him by their faces but not by name.
At the time, he had neither a will nor a durable power of attorney.
That did not stop people—both medical practitioners and bureaucrats—from demanding that either I or my brother make decisions on the spot regarding his care and affairs. This ranged from being asked “How aggressively do you want him treated?” (for instance, did I want doctors and nurses to use CPR on him?) to the demand of a nursing home administrator that I sign my father over to Medicaid on the spot, when I didn’t want him in that facility at all. (I got him moved to the VA hospital, instead, for treatment and therapy.) In time—12 months of time, Dad improved to the point that his lawyer was convinced that his answers concerning a durable power of attorney and his end-of-life decisions were consistent and legally supportable, and I followed these in all cases and circumstances.
My mother, on the other hand, has had her will prepared and recorded and provided me her power of attorney so that I can speak for her, knowing her wishes and intentions.
Back to the Political Circus
Congressman Johnny Isakson of Georgia, a known, self-avowed conservative and a Republican (gasp!), said this about Ms. Palin’s argument in an interview published in the Washington Post:
“In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that’s because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia “durable power of attorney,” you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you’re unable to make those decisions.”
When asked how this debate had become one involving the specter of euthanasia, Congressman Isakson replied:
I have no idea. I understand—and you have to check this out—I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up.”
Congressman Isakson has issued to the public his opposition to HR 3200, stating in the Congressional Blog that:
“…I could not support the flawed health care reform plan that passed the HELP Committee…” (July 16, 2009)
Further, on August 11th, Isakson distanced himself from the administration and his purported role in drafting the language in Section 1322.