BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White
This weekend Sarah Palin joined the "deather movement" via a statement on her Facebook page:
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.
Deathers propose the wacky idea that the healthcare plan making its way through Congress contains a provision providing for bureaucratic death squads to kill off the less productive members of society. The term, apparently coined by Christopher Beam at Slate, provides a helpful comparison with which to judge who is crazier: someone who believes President Obama was born in Kenya or someone who believes President Obama is out to kill their grandmother.
Palin threw her hat in with the deathers not because she really fears for the safety of her son, but because she's running for president, and it's clear to everyone on the right that the future of the GOP lies in fear. And lies, come to think of it.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's defense of Palin on ABC's This Week was just as problematic as Lou Dobbs' defense of the birthers. Both these stories have already been debunked. It's just easier to laugh at forged birth certificates than euthanasia.
Incidentally, radio talk show host Ron Reagan suggested we laugh Palin off in an appearance on CNN this morning, saying, "Sarah Palin only needs a red rubber nose and some exploding shoes and she could go work for Barnum and Bailey. The fact that we give this clown any time at all is shocking and silly and a little bit stupid."
Reagan has a point, but in defense of this piece I say Palin deserves to be called out for lying as much as truths need to be told about the healthcare bill. After all the saddest part about this false argument is that it is insurance companies, not Medicare or Medicaid, that ration care and drop patients who are deemed too expensive to insure.
Sure, it seems silly to give these fringe theories any airtime, but it's important to recognize the similarities at work here. Both birthers and deathers come out of the larger Republican strategy of fear mongering. As birthers play on the fear of xenophobia, deathers play on our greatest fear, and I'm not talking about public speaking.
Here's a neat compilation of deather claims from Think Progress:
VIDEO HERE TO WATCH
First, let me just lay this one out there with a quick refutation guide for those who are beset by the deathers.
The measure in question is in the congressional record as HR 1898, which functions to "extend Medicare coverage to consultations regarding an order for life sustaining treatment for qualified individuals." The suspicion is that such legislation will be included in the final healthcare reform bill.
It is not mandatory that those with "public" coverage such as Medicare use this service. It is merely available to cover as a medical service conversations doctors have with their patients about their end-of-life options.
There is no "panel" designed to make such decisions, other than one's team of end-of-life caregivers and family, groups already having such discussions with those who are terminally ill.
As much as "advanced directives" (as end-of-life plans are often known) are used by patients who don't want to be kept alive when they are brain-dead, patients can also use such mechanisms to ensure that every possible attempt is made to keep them alive.
One could make the argument that the conversation Palin talks about having with her husband and doctor when she found out Trig was going to be born with Down Syndrome is a conversation along the same lines as the one addressed in HR 1898.
As Obama himself explained at a recent town hall meeting, "The intent here is to simply make sure that you've got more information, and that Medicare will pay for it," a statement independently verified by FactCheck.org.
As validation of her comparison of the Obama Administration to Nazi Germany, Palin cited a floor speech from our crazy pal Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) where she worried about what would have happened to the last precious months of the life of her father-in-law, who recently passed away due to dementia, in the hands of the coming Obamacare death squads.
But Bachmann's father-in-law may not have been as comfortable as she insists, if his experience was similar to others with terminal dementia, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found a problem with "the administration of pain medication to dementia patients":
The study found that less pain relief is often prescribed for dementia patients than may be needed because the patient is unable to communicate the presence of pain. Treatment models developed for dementia patients suggest hospice and comfort care, rather than life-prolonging treatments, might be more appropriate in the end-stages of the disease. This would mean that in the event of a hip fracture, pneumonia, localized infection or other treatable condition, treatments might be withheld in favor of medications and methods that bring comfort and ease.
In fact, study after study confirms that access to end-of-life care is crucial for patients. A study published late last year examines the problems that arise out of the fact that around 65 percent of dialysis patients do not have advance care plans in place and the stress that it puts on hospice nurses. The study recommended a team approach with doctors and relatives helping patients make such difficult decisions.
"Nurses cannot initiate advance care planning with patients in a vacuum," the study's authors wrote. "Support for these discussions requires commitment, planning, and leadership by all caregivers."
Another study published in 2008 concludes that "as physicians and policy makers, we need to do everything we can to facilitate discussions about end-of-life care between patients, family and friends, and physicians." Heck, even the Catholic Church supports end-of-life planning.
Much like those who tacitly approve of the crazy things birthers are saying -- not because they believe them but because they're good for business -- Palin did a little two-step around the deather issue this morning. She warned against town hall tactics that "diminish our nation's civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters' passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying." No word on whether the "tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment" she spoke of include lying about the contents of the bill.
But really, birthers, deathers and angry mobs are all part of the same strategy of the Republican Party: Scare the living daylights out of America. Make no mistake; the top two GOP candidates in 2012 will be "lies" and "fear."
BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/878
