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The House health care provision that Sarah Palin warned would lead to "death panels" never made it into the final bill, but its backers plan to resuscitate it.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who shepherded the amendment through the Ways and Means Committee, is building House support for stand-alone passage of the legislation that would allow Medicare to reimburse health care providers for consulting with patients about end-of-life decisions.
Palin's charge that the effort amounted to a "death panel" was either a lie, willfully ignorant fear mongering, or genuine confusion. Regardless, it was false. Palin herself signed a proclamation celebrating Healthcare Decisions Day during her stint as Alaska's governor. The purpose was to "raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for health care decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important health care decisions."
Blumenauer hopes a common-sense, civil dialogue will meet his proposal -- which passed the House last year -- this time around.
"Before this got hijacked by Sarah Palin and others' talking points, it was actually bipartisan in nature," Blumenauer said. (His comments were first reported Wednesday evening in the newsletter HuffPost Hill).
for rest of story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/death-panels-debate-retur_n_556997.html
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