The now infamous warning that a government health care system would be "downright evil" largely because of its "death panel", was given to us by Sarah Palin, the former Governor and current dear God, would you please just go away already! of Alaska. This should take its rightful place in the Fear-Mongering Hall of Shame beside the image Joe McCarthy holding a piece of paper he claimed to be a list of 205 known communists working in the State Department. Unfortunately, in times such as these, when anxiety is running rampant, ridiculous claims gain traction. Forget the people who are born gullible and will die gullible, when there is widespread insecurity, even more discerning people are susceptible to being terrified of whatever bogeyman du jour is being injected into the conversation. There will always be a lunatic fringe making wild accusations, but in better times, we laugh them off and broadly agree that when we need serious thinkers to weigh in on complicated issues, such people are up way past their bedtime and should be sent upstairs while the grownups figure things out.
There is nothing wrong with honest disagreement, in fact, while discord may feel uncomfortable at times, we are much better off because we have people vehemently pushing conflicting ideas, allowing society to ultimately sort out their respective merits. Demagoguery, however, is another matter altogether. We should give no quarter to people who know the truth but feign ignorance in order to exploit the feeble-minded and people whose ability to think clearly has been hampered by fear. The demagogues have come out in force concerning a provision that allows health insurance to pay for physician counseling regarding end of life decisions. Politicians who look people in the eye and suggest this is designed for the wholesale slaughter of the elderly and sick are stupid if they don't know better, dishonest if they do. So, which is it?
In 2003 the Senate passed legislation that, among other things, provides for paying physicians for counseling with respect to end of life decisions. The bill received 54 votes, 42 of them Republican. Among those voting Yea was Senator Grassley of Iowa, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, who recently made headlines for more or less fueling the public's wholly unfounded fear of a provision that's roughly the same as the one he voted for a few years ago. He's not stupid; he's just counting on you to be stupid.
Now let's look at Sarah Palin's 2008 proclamation of Healthcare Decisions Day, designed to encourage doctors and others to inform people and increase the number of citizens with advance directives regarding end of life decisions. Of course, to be fair, I have read Palin's infamous Facebook rant, and the basis for her accusation may not be the controversial end of life counseling provision. She may very well have just made the whole thing up in her head. She simply declared that the government would refuse to pay for care, and that less productive people would be dragged before the death panel for a thumbs up or thumbs down. It may be unfair to accuse her of deliberately misleading people. She may simply lack the intellect required for meaningful understanding of a complicated issue. There is certainly more than ample evidence that she is entitled to the benefit of the doubt on that score.
