Someone high-five Sarah Palin for me--Obama administration admits "mix-up", will remove death panels from new Medicare regulatio

About those death panels
I was reading an article at Conservatives4Palin that points out (correctly) that when the former Alaskan Governor made her infamous “Death Panels” post on Facebook she wasn’t referring to end of life counseling. This is what Sarah Palin said: The Democrats promise that a government Health Care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as The Economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government Health Care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. A...

Obama's stealth movereviving 'death panels'
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last year created a nationwide furor when she predicted that ObamaCare would lead to the creation of "Death Panels" that would decide who would receive life-saving treatments – or be allowed to die. Now Obama's health policy team stealthily is moving forward with that idea, WND has learned. And this development has nothing to do with proposed rules that would have called for doctors to have "end of life" discussions annually with Senior Citizens. Those plan...

The power of propaganda
THE POWER OF Propaganda.... The idea was once so obvious and uncontroversial that it was one of those rare Health Care policies that enjoyed broad Bipartisan support. As the proposal goes, doctors would be reimbursed for speaking to Medicare patients who choose to consider end-of-life care options. The whole point of the idea was to ensure that these decisions are made by individuals in consultation with their doctors. As Sen. Johnny Isakson, a conservative Republican from Georgia, explained l...

The Obama administration gets cold feet on death panels.
"The Obama Administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare Regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new Health Care law...." Is it wrong to use the inflammatory rhetorical term "Death Panels"? It sure gets results! ...

"Death Panels" Killed Again
The Obama Administration has decided to remove a provision in new Medicare regulations that would provide for advance care planning, referred to as "Death Panels" by its opponents, reports the New York Times. "While administration officials cited procedural reasons for changing the rule, it was clear that political concerns were also a factor. The renewed debate over advance care planning threatened to become a distraction to administration officials who were gearing up to defend the health law...

Obama Gets Caught Adding Death Panels Then Changes His Mind And Maybe Won't Use Them
U.S. Alters Rule on Paying for End-of-Life Planning New York Times The Obama Administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare Regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday. The move is an abrupt shift, coming just days after the new policy took effect on Jan. 1. Many doctors and providers of hospice care had praised the regulation, which listed “advance...

Obama administration: *Please* dont repeal Obamacare.
(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) Let us review the Democratic response to the Republican response to ObamaCare. They tried steamrollering us.  Didn’t work. They tried taunting us.  Didn’t work. They tried ignoring us.  Didn’t work. They tried threatening us.  Didn’t work. They tried lecturing us.  Didn’t work. They tried demonizing us. Didn’t work. They tried threatening us.  Didn’t work. They tried distracting us. Didn’t work. They tri

CBO estimates HCR repeal will add $230B to deficit: Are they right?
American Spectator’s Phil Klein, with a little help from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, clarifies a report issued today from the CBO - cheered by Democrats - that a Repeal of ObamaCare will add $230 billion to the Deficit: Liberals are touting a new report by the Congressional Budget Office estimating that repealing the national Health Care law would add $145 billion to the deficit from 2012 to 2019, and $230 billion through 2021. These estimates should come as no s...

Palin effective again: Death panels removed from medicare regulation
- Jennifer of Cubachi I seem to recall some Conservatives and all liberals lambaste and ridicule Sarah Palin for the use of the words "Death Panels." Yet the provision was eliminated from ObamaCare. When Obama Administration revealed it was going back into the bill, the words "death panel" was revived and the administration killed the provision again. And how is Palin not effective in messaging? ...

A White House Week One Cave-In
Political pressure and a seemingly paralyzing fear of bad headlines, however, appears to be guiding Administration policy this close to Election Day. As if to prove the point, within an hour of publishing this line, I got a call from a White House press person vigorously complaining about my wording. Ridiculous, he said, the Administration would never let politics get in the way of good policy. “Paralyzing fear”? Come on! Well, this week, it looks like the Administration let politics...

White House Spits on GOP's HCR Scorched-Earth Policy
Anyone who can count beyond their fingers and toes knows the Tea Party-led GOP effort to Repeal the still freshly-minted Health Care law won't make it through the Democrat-controlled Senate, but the Obama Administration isn't taking any chances: Should the Republican bill repealing Health Care reform make it to President Obama's desk, "He would Veto it," the White House said this evening. "The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 2 (the Repeal bill ) b...

Joanne Doroshow: It's Time To Call Their Bluff: "Defensive Medicine" Is A Fraud
This week, our brand new U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced that he'll be convening hearings soon "to examine the constitutional concerns surrounding ObamaCare and the role Medical Malpractice reform can play in reducing Health Care costs." In other words, we once again have to hear about the Republicans' one big Health Care idea - taking away injured patients' legal rights. As usual, Chairman Smith grumbled about what he called the "widespread practice of...

Democrats Plan Attack on Republican Repeal Effort
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR NYT Democratic leaders in Washington plan to spend the next week doing what they all but refused to do in the 2010 Midterm Elections: mount a vigorous defense of President Obama’s Health Care Legislation. The “all fronts” plan is a response to the decision by the new House speaker, John A. Boehner, to schedule a vote next Wednesday on a complete Repeal of the Health Care law that Mr. Obama signed last March. Senior Democratic officials said their effort would be manag

Reid: Obamacare 'Is Not Going to Be Repealed;" GOP 'Should Get a New Lease on Life and Talk About Something Else'
Thursday, January 06, 2011 By Nicholas Ballasy (CNSNews.com) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that the “misguided" House Republicans “have to understand that the Health Care bill is not going to be repealed” and that they “should get a new lease on life and talk about something else.” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has suggested that every appropriations bill the Republican-majority House passes this year should include language that

President Obama Threatens Veto Of GOP Health Care Repeal
President Obama at Oval Office desk, May 20, 2009. The White House made official Thursday what was already common knowledge: If House Republicans manage to get their bill repealing the Health Care law out of Congress and to his desk, he will Veto it. The Veto threat came as the House Rules Committee met, with lawmakers from both parties defending amendments they hoped the committee would allow to be considered with the Legislation. House Republicans intend to hold a vote on their Repeal legislat...

President Obama gives in to Sarah Palin's dishonesty
Is Darrell Issa the new Joe McCarthy? Michele Bachmann for president. Seriously?! All over Washington this week were the thrilling sounds of Democracy at work -- the speeches of incoming and outgoing officials, the emotional swearing in ceremonies, the weeping of Boehner the Damp, the solid crack of the gavel being brought down and, less thrillingly, the peep-peep of a chicken as the Obama White House reversed itself on end-of-life counseling. The Big Lie won once again. The lie is that these se...

Death panels no more: HHS drops Medicare reg on end-of-life planning
Actually, there’s no panel involved. What we’re talking about here is paying doctors to remind elderly patients during the annual check-up that they might want to leave some written instructions in case they’re incapacitated and eager to avoid a Schiavo-esque family tug of war. You don’t need a doctor for that, in fact; you can print out your state’s standardized living will form here, fill in the appropriate boxes, and then take it to a local notary for signature...

New GOP Rep. Diane Black: Sick kids shouldn't get health insurance
New GOP Rep. Diane Black: Sick kids shouldn't get Health Insurance Meet Diane Black, the new GOP congresswoman from Tennessee’s sixth Congressional District. Like most all of her GOP colleagues, she's eager to Repeal Health Care reform. Why? Because she thinks it's a really bad idea to require Insurance Companies to provide coverage for sick Children: There is a mandate there that Insurance Companies must insure children up to the age of 24, and what we have found is that there are a ...

Lightning Round: Civics Lessons Unlearned.
That Conservatives, and the conservative Republicans they helped elect, would read aloud a sanitized Constitution that Huck Finns or edits out the embarrassing stuff about human beings owning other human beings speaks volumes about the cowardice at the heart of "American Greatness/Exceptionalism" that animates American Conservatism. How fragile do you have to be to be unable to countenance the idea that the country you live in is not, was not, perfect? I'm skeptical of the efficacy of the "mess...

Sarah Palin proves lying can be very effective
Some folks on the right are excited about an article in The New York Times today reporting that the Obama Administration, in a sudden shift, has decided to nix those fabled "Death Panels": The Obama Administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare Regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new Health Care law, administration officials said Tuesday. The Times bluntly notes that politics helped drive the Obama ad...

Arizona Death Panels Rack Up Their Second Victim. Gov. Brewer Says Feds Need To Send More Money!
So Arizona Gov. Jan "Death Panels" Brewer and her death panels are saving money by denying needed care. The Wingnut irony deficiency is, as usual, in full flower: Brewer is saying the feds need to send her more money: Phoenix -- A second person denied transplant coverage by Arizona under a state Budget Cut has died, with this death "most likely" resulting from the coverage reduction, a Hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday. University Medical Center spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman said the patient ...

Forget Death Panels: Pro-Life Group Says Repeal ObamaCare Over Rationing
Never mind the controversy over the so-called death panels in the controversial ObamaCare health care law. One pro-life group says the measure should be repealed because it contains rationing elsewhere. Although the death panels — the voluntary advanced care planning that pro-life advocates have been concerned about because it could have doctors financially motivated to promote less medical care and lifesaving treatment — have occupied most of the debate, the National Right to Life C...

Breaking News: Death Panels Really Work!
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's cuts to state-funded medical services last October created a really-for-true Death Panel -- one that FOXNews doesn't report on because, of course, the Governor is one of FOX' Republican Idols. How did Arizona's Budget cutting become a Death Panel? Specifically: the state removed funding for organ transplants. Thus, desperately ill people on the transplant Donor Waiting Lists were informed -- some of them, just as appropriate donors had ...

The FDAs Death Panels
Gene Koropowski, WorldNetDaily Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last year created a nationwide furor when she predicted that ObamaCare would lead to the creation of “Death Panels” that would decide who would receive life-saving treatments - or be allowed to die. Now Obama’s health policy team stealthily is moving forward with that idea, WND has learned. And this development has nothing to do with proposed rules that would have called for doctors to have “end of lifeR...

Study: Blacks less likely to have living wills, medical directives
Nearly two-thirds of nursing home patients have advance directives, documents allowing people to make end of life decisions when they might not be able to speak for themselves, a government study shows. But the study, out today, reveals a significant gap between black and white patients with the documents. The National Center for Health Statistics looked at three groups of long-term care patients and found that 65% of those in nursing homes had advance directives such as living wills and do-not-...