Health Care BS

The infamous end-of-life provision that the President and his congressional accomplices want included in their health care “reform” legislation appears to have (ahem) died in the Senate Finance Committee.

Interestingly,  much of the credit for its well-deserved demise can, as Hot Air points out, be attributed to that bête noire of cocktail-party progressives everywhere, Sarah Palin.

If it had not been for Palin and the right tossing rhetorical grenades, they might have gone to the mat to keep it in there.

And yet we are told that Palin’s influence is on the wane. Hmm … let’s see … the people who control the White House and Congress back down, and Sarah’s the loser?

This is, of course, why the Democrats and their media toad eaters spend so much time trashing Palin. They are justifiably terrified of Alaska’s former governor.

Meanwhile, Palin explains why we should be worried about a similar provision in HR 3200, the House version of what the Democrats hilariously call health care “reform”:

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual … or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility… or a hospice program.” During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice.”

If this doesn’t make you at least a little nervous, please do future generations a big favor and be very careful to use birth control when having sexual intercourse.

UPDATE:

It was inevitable, I suppose, that our friends on the Left would try to discredit Palin’s “death panel” position by claiming it  is somehow inconsistent with earlier statements.

This is a standard (not to say tired) ”progressive” tactic.  Professor Jacobson explains why this meme is no more coherent than any of the other anti-Palin talking points:

Nothing inconsistent about Palin’s position. It’s private versus public. It’s one thing for individuals to plan their own lives on their own, but quite different when government enforces mandates and gets involved in such decisions as part of an effort to cut health care costs.

Not that mere reason has any sway with these people. Now that Bush is gone, they need some designated evil-doer on whom to focus their daily two minutes of hate.