Pro-Life Republican Behind So-Called "Death Panels"

Facing South:

[T]here is nothing resembling the alleged "death panel" in the health care reform plan. A spokesperson for Palin told ABC News that the former governor was referring to a section promoting advance care planning that appears on page 425 of the House Democrats' bill [pdf]. Advance care planning includes living wills and durable powers of attorney that allow individuals to make clear their wishes for end-of-life care, whatever they may be.

And as it turns out, the cause of advance planning has been championed especially strongly by a pro-life Republican -- U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia.

Read the whole story: Facing South

Comments

[Observer963]

04:00 PM on 08/12/2009

... their number even!!!

[Observer963]

04:01 PM on 08/12/2009

never mind ... this was supposed to be reply but ended up here ...

[Observer963]

03:56 PM on 08/12/2009

Well, all these "death panel", "town hall meeting protests (featuring guns)", ".. if you are licensed to carry, then carry" ... have obviously nothing to do with Health Care reform (that I would think any sane person in this country would want) but it's GOP trying to make this Obama's Waterloo as they suggested. They just want to prevent this reform from happening at any cost (I repeat at any cost). First step is to of course block any sort of reasonable debate about it by telling lies, disrupting meetings and so on ... the threats of the next step have been obvious as well.

[DestinationsUnknown]

10:33 AM on 08/12/2009

DUMB IT DOWN

WSJ- FOX COUSIN

BE PROUD!

Justice O'Connor state; Americans need many more civics lessons-K-12!

16-18% OF our economy - yet we hear people shout take care of the Economy first !

18% of Economy- ???

OMG- ARE WE IN TROUBLE!

USA not even in top 25 for world ranking in education-

KISS rule- Bush Styyle-

Town Hall Protesters- " I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK"

Sure you do !

[bernervans]

03:44 PM on 08/13/2009

Are you on acid?

[DestinationsUnknown]

04:32 PM on 08/13/2009

DUMB IT DOWN

WSJ- FOX COUSIN

BE PROUD!

[JohnPone]

04:59 PM on 08/11/2009

I'd be for death panels if u could start with birthers and tea partiers and Glenn Beck.

[bitteroldman]

02:14 PM on 08/11/2009

Since we can't trust government, the Death Panels should be privatized. Oh wait, they already are.

[Jerry Rubin]

12:32 PM on 08/11/2009

Tell me one GOP who can define "life starts at conception"

[AKWrongWinger]

11:41 AM on 08/11/2009

Southern RET@RDATION, it is in the genes not the water!

[QOTW]

10:58 AM on 08/11/2009

Palin's fictional "death panel" and it's rhetorical origin. I don't want to credit her with too much intellect with regard to this issue but my feeling is it may have something do with with her far right anti -conservation efforts in Alaska and her aggressive war with The Endangered Species Act.
Under the Bush administration the Act proferred threatened status to the Polar Bear, Palin's reply was a lawsuit to overturn this decision. As a proponent of 'shoot, shovel & shut up', she lied and supressed global warming research which clearly indicated the polar bear's habitat was dangerously diminished , her purpose was to artificially inflate the numbers of moose and caribou available for hunting. Whilst in office she did everything she could to interfere with the natural order to suit her own political agenda, including palling around with the NRA and the Safari Club International whilst yelling 'drill baby drill'. 'Death Panelling' is something she is very familiar with in this sense, she got to decide which species were worthy of life and which were not. Thankfully she absolved her right to any meaningful debate when she quit.

[Observer963]

03:44 PM on 08/12/2009

Good post .. also don't forget her allowing hunters shooting their pray from helicopters ... she is an outrageous person.

[Annieke]

09:46 AM on 08/11/2009

Wonder when Isakson will cross-over. He seems to be one of the more sane members of the GOP: a very rare specy on the brink of extinction.

[mafina]

09:22 AM on 08/11/2009

Isakson has been promoting advance care planning for years. In 2007, for example, he co-sponsored two bills to encourage such planning -- the Medicare End-of-Life Care Planning Act and the Advance Planning and Compassionate Care Act.

What a friggin hypocrit.

[breakingnews3]

09:15 AM on 08/11/2009

The GOP voted to fund Universal Healthcare in Iraq to the tune of $950 million US taxpayer dollars in 2005.

But somehow it is ev.il to give the same coverage to the very people who funded it for Iraqi citizens.

Amazing.

[PWM]

09:28 AM on 08/11/2009

The neocons just don't want Americans to have anything, yet expect them to die for Halliburton.

[PWM]

09:36 AM on 08/11/2009

Iraq has 1/10 the population of the US. To give the same coverage to Americans would cose $950 billion - which is what Obama is planning to spend over a decade.

Neocons: good for Iraq, bad for America.

Thanks for the information.

[breakingnews3]

10:08 AM on 08/11/2009

No Neocon can defend that. Talk about generational theft......

[AnotherAndy]

10:40 AM on 08/11/2009

Fuzzy math! $950 million times 10 is $9.5 Billion, not $950 Billion.

[reno1190]

09:14 AM on 08/11/2009

oh come on now ,we know rethugs are going to live forever,with all those veins popping and all that screaming & hollering obama is going to kill us, then they will be on life support kept alive by artificial means and mounting medical bills and then die anyway and there loving families will have no problems paying that bill and then billybob will wake up and say well where is all that money they promised mom for protesting against her own interest ,and the insurance will say now billybob that one mom took to the grave with her to be with the lord you know that is socialism or more like welfare if mom accepted anything in the form of money now a little pat on the head and job well done son.

[Pegi]

09:00 AM on 08/11/2009

why are "pro-lifers" so obsessed with death? why do you believe in right to life but have no problem having thousands of American soldiers killed in an unjustified war? why are you such hypocrites?

[zendem1]

08:55 AM on 08/11/2009

A Republican orchestrating li'es in order to distort the facts and scare the public in order to protect the folks who write him nice big campaign checks? Ok, now i'm surprised.

[justobserve]

08:25 AM on 08/11/2009

Pro-Life? They support the current health care system where the private insurers can say who is to be treated who is not. The private insurers are the "death panel" now. Where is Palin to the rescue? Just don't mention anything of Palin and she will go away. She is a provocator to have herself on the news.

[SKonnery]

08:39 AM on 08/11/2009

My family had a 49 year old female friend with children have a stroke and die over the weekend waiting for authorization for surgery from an insurance company. That sounds like a death panel to me.

[PWM]

09:29 AM on 08/11/2009

Well said. A friend of mine died recently because of cancer. The insurance company declined treatment using their preexisting clause.