Death Panel

State Senator Jane Cunningham is bringing lies circa 2009 to the Missouri State Senate. In fact, she is worried by language that seeks to specifically prevent any kind of “death panels.”  

Still, when reading House Bill 609 that would set up a health insurance exchange in Missouri, she came across language that reminded her of the "death panels" critics of federal health care reform have warned people about since 2009.

"It's right in there in the legislation," says Cunningham, who specifically mentioned death panels when discussing HB 609 during a recent public health care forum she participated in in St. Louis. "The bill states that the exchange cannot exclude a health plan that would prevent a death by means deemed  'inappropriate' or 'too costly' by the exchange."

It's hard to believe, but Ed Martin is still pushing death panel nonsense. 

FactCheck.org evaluated this sad attempt to keep the death panel lie alive in December post titled, "Let the distortions begin."

The Independent Payments Advisory Board was created to slow the growth of Medicare spending; it has no power to ration care.  

The fact that “Death Panels” were named the Politifact Lie of the Year in 2009 isn’t stopping Ed Martin from continuing to push the lie in 2011. If nothing else he is consistent...about being wrong.

In accordance with professional journalism standards preventing reporters and columnists from naming actual names when they decry "reprehensible" behavior by politicians, the Tribune's Hank Waters has published a scathing critique of Republicans in general and no one in particular:

In my estimation, the most important political accomplishment of the past two years has been passage of the Affordable Health Care Act. Considering the irresponsible opposition of the Republican Party, it’s a miracle health care reform has gotten off the ground as well as it has.

Republicans accurately saw health care reform as one of the wedge issues they could use to defeat President Barack Obama and the Democrats, particularly among senior citizens already bludgeoned with health care delivery problems and easy to frighten with stories about losses of coverage and death panels. Right-wing conservatives made many people believe the president was bent on killing them, and the rest of the Republican Party has been complicit. It has been a reprehensible posture detrimental to the public welfare.

It's hard to argue with any of the following words from Tony Messenger's column in today's Post-Dispatch:

It's easy to see why Nixon wouldn't want to keep Kinder in the loop. The lieutenant governor's Twitter feed is filled with the most far-right Republican conspiracy theories of the day. Kinder has compared liberals to Hitler, politicized a hostage crisis and repeated false claims about "death panels" in the new federal health care law. He even speculated on the worst "tramp stamp" tattoos on women.

It's tough to take Kinder seriously when his daily communication with the public is either purely politically motivated or just plain unprofessional.

Editorial note: Peter Kinder hasn't actually tweeted his thoughts on whether or not the Post-Dispatch is a member of the "state-run media."  He has described the CNN and MSNBC cable networks with those words, along with Ed Martin. He's also publicly stated that "If the day ever did exist when the Post-Dispatch did honest, completely open, above the board, no-agenda reporting of the news, that day is behind us," so I just put two and two together.

Pretty funny -- and effective -- stuff from Health Care for America Now. 

More at www.StopSpewman.com/

ABC News reports that a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows favorable opinions of the new health care law are up in September...

...even though many people are still confused about the new provisions because (a) it's complicated and (b) Republicans have made it their mission to lie and misinform and scare people about the law as much as possible.  Tellingly, "three in ten seniors polled mistakenly believe that the new law will permit government panels to make decisions about their end-of-life care, dubbed 'death panels' by some."

The good news is that this number is actually down from July, when 36% of seniors believed the lie.  

How does this sort of misinformation make it into the public consciousness?  It's easy to blame more prominent serial misinformers like Sarah Palin, but the serial misinformers in the Missouri GOP have done their part too.  Lt. Governor Peter Kinder imagined new "death panels" on Twitter just last month (!), unable to let the lie die .  Ed Martin told people that the government was going to start euthanizing people last year, and stuck by the lie well into 2010.  House Budget Chair and soon-to-be Missouri Club for Growth chairman Allen Icet said Palin was right, "we will have what she referred to as death panels."  Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer told constituents that the government could start "encouraging assisted suicide or other forms of euthanasia."  Rep. Cynthia Davis said the new health care reform law will "encourage people to die prematurely."  The Missouri Family Policy Council's Joe Ortwerth wrote a column spreading false rumors about the "coercion elements of the end of life provisions."

And the allegedly reasonable Roy Blunt lied to KTRS listeners last August when he said "it's easy for that [death panel] debate to go either way." And for good measure, he added: "You know, when they start talking about doing this every five years, then you do begin to wonder, now, just how committed is the federal government to being sure that that decision's already been made by you well before you and your family face it."

Congratulations to everyone who participated.

Snapped at today's Americans for Prosperity-sponsored rally in Jefferson City.

I wonder why conservatives think that the new health care bill will kill people?  Could it be because Republican leaders are still talking about death panels?

It's April 2010.  The "death panel" lie has been discredited and debunked more times than any of us can county.  It was even named the 2009 "Lie of the Year" by PolitiFact.com.  But does that mean Ed Martin feels any obligation to stop trying to scare seniors with talk of death panels? Heck no!

Speaking Saturday to the Tea Party/Martin Campaign Rally in Jefferson County:

Life also means respecting our seniors. They're vulnerable.  And we need to protect them. Because 'death panels' are not just a term of art. They're not just a code. When you put bureaucrats in charge of health care, you put bureaucrats' values in charge of our lives. We must not allow health care to be taken over by government. We must allow the patients, especially our seniors, to be protected.

House Budget Chair and candidate for State Auditor Allen Icet apparently missed all those audits of the "death panel" falsehood -- Saturday, he said they're real.

Icet also attacked the federal health care bill working its way through Congress: "However you want to put lipstick on this pig, it will destroy our country," Icet said. And, he added, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was right: "We will have what she referred to as death panels."

Palin and Icet, of course, are wrong (very wrong).  But why would a man entrusted by the House GOP with the state budget and seeking a promotion to statewide office be expected to know what he's talking about?

PolitiFact's Lie of the Year:

Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.

"Death panels."

The "death panels" phrase was created by Sarah Palin, but has its roots in the coordinated campaign to scare voters with the idea that Democratic health care proposals would create mechanisms for euthanizing elderly or sickly persons. It was outrageous and obviously false – that's what it's the "Lie of the Year" – but that didn't stop leading Missouri Republicans from helping to spread the lies.

Notable Show-Me State propagators of the Lie of the Year include:

• Rep. Roy Blunt, who said it's "easy" for the death panel debate "to go either way." Blunt repugnantly refused to smack down the falsehood on KTRS in August. "I think it's easy for that debate to go either way," he said. "You know, when they start talking about doing this every five years, then you do begin to wonder, now, just how committed is the federal government to being sure that that decision's already been made by you well before you and your family face it." 

We are hearing a lot these days about "Death Panels."

We don't see a word about it in the comprehensive health care reform bill moving through Congress...

Maybe Missouri "End of Life" Czar Peter Kinder has the scoop?