Monday, August 17, 2009
Congress / Crazy Crap / Kotz / Law and Order / Politics / The Economy New York Times Gets to the Bottom of the Death Panel Fantasy
Posted by Pete Kotz on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 5:17 AM
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It seemed a rather smart and worthy service to provide seniors. Under new health reform rules, the government would pay for the elderly to have a session with their doctors. They could ask questions and decide what medical treatment they wanted should they become too incapacitated to make those calls down the road. 
It's called a living will, and it's designed to prevent things like the Terri Shiavo case. Instead of forcing relatives to guess or sue each other over whether a loved one should, say, remain on life support, it would allow people to provide instructions beforehand, so everyone is sure of their wishes.
But in these days of Our First Negro President, when the conservative fringe is prepared to believe anything sinister involving the government, it somehow became a plot to kill old people. Sarah Palin warned of death panels. Senators like Tennessee's Bob Corker refused to tell the wingnuts they were wrong, believing their misguided heat would help Republicans. And Goobers swarmed town hall meetings, denouncing socialized medicine though many of them receive Medicare.
Yet these rumors weren't started by some guy with a bomb shelter in hill country. As the New York Times discovered, they were started by the same people who sabotaged the last round of reform -- entities like the Moonie-owned Washington Times and American Spectator magazine. In other words, those buying into the propaganda are getting it from the traditional shills of the health care industry.
We thought you'd want to know.
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