“Death Panels”: Here We Go Again…

Sarah Palin has given new life to her original claims of “death panels” being mandated in President Obama’s push for health care reform long after the claims were proven false and the white hot controversy that enveloped both sides in the debate after Palin’s Facebook tirade had seemingly abated.

Palin’s latest resurrection of the claim that “death panels” are somehow included in House health care legislation came in a new Facebook communique posted on Saturday, just after the House passed its version of reform.

In a post that sharply criticized several aspects of the legislation that she says will “put America on a path toward an unrecognizable country,” Palin also repeated her assertion that a provision in the reform bill would mandate “bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care.”

We had been told there were no “death panels” in the bill either. But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care.

Palin returns to her “death panel” accusations as health care reform appears to be on the cusp of becoming legislative reality and Republicans have lost significant ground after their summer surge on the issue of reform and the success with which Palin and other conservatives pushed the issue of “death panels” and other exaggerated claims about the president and reform. Will Palin’s last-ditch attempt to stir passions against reform have the same explosive effect it had earlier in the year?

What also remains identical to Palin’s earlier claims is that they are pure fiction, proven by FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and others to be a twisted take on decidedly innocuous language included in House reform legislation.

The fact remains that the bill wouldn’t require patients to receive counseling sessions, nor would it require a doctor to offer one. Rather, it modifies Section 1861(s)2 of the Social Security Act, defining what services Medicare will pay for. So if a patient receives a counseling session from a doctor or health care practitioner, he or she doesn’t have to pay for it – Medicare will. As we pointed out in our earlier story, Medicare will also pay for prosthetic limbs, but that doesn’t mean that every recipient gets those, too.

(Remember that PolitiFact gives Palin’s arguments a “pants on fire” designation; the worst level of political misrepresentation they dole out.)

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