Missouri Family Policy Council

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." 

To be fair, standing up for truth could have caused a real conundrum for Republicans. Some have been actively propagating the lie, and others just chose to let it slide. 

Congratulations, conservative leaders: most Republicans believe your lies.  

The poll [by the Indiana University Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research] finds that 53% of Republicans believe that “the government will require the elderly to make decisions about how and when they will die.” By contrast, only 31% of independents and 14% of Democrats believe this, according to this poll of 600 adults nationwide.

Note the word “require.” A majority of Republicans believes that the health care reform will force old people to decide in advance “how and when they will die.” This is far more out there than anything we’ve seen polled before.

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Horrifying poll data, actually: Nearly half of Americans believe the "death panel" craziness.

As The Star's David Goldstein writes today, this comes from "a campaign of misinformation and distortion against health care reform."

Here in Missouri:

• Rep. Roy Blunt said it's "easy" for the death panel debate "to go either way" (even though it's not) 
• Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer has written about how the government could start "encouraging assisted suicide or other forms of euthanasia"
• House Children & Families Committee Chair Cynthia Davis is telling her constituents the reform bills will "encourage people to die prematurely"
• The Missouri Family Policy Council's Joe Ortwerth wrote a long column Monday spreading false rumors about the "coercion elements of the end of life provisions," calling proposed legislation "the gravest threat posed to the pro-life values of the American people since the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade."