"
Death panel" is a political term that originated during a 2009 debate about federal health care legislation to cover the
uninsured in the United States. The term was first used in August 2009 by
Sarah Palin, the former Republican
Governor of Alaska, when she charged that the proposed legislation would create a "death panel" of bureaucrats who would decide whether Americans—such as her elderly parents or child with
Down syndrome—were worthy of medical care. Palin's claim, however, was debunked, and it has been referred to as the "
death panel myth"[SUP]
[1][/SUP] as nothing in any proposed legislation would have led to individuals being judged to see if they were "worthy" of health care.[SUP]
[2][/SUP] Palin specified that she was referring to
Section 1233 of bill HR 3200 which would have paid physicians for providing voluntary counseling to
Medicare patients about
living wills,
advance directives, and
end-of-life care options.
Palin's claim was reported as false and criticized by mainstream
news media,
fact-checkers, academics, physicians, Democrats, and some Republicans. Other prominent Republicans such as
Newt Gingrich and
conservative talk radio hosts
Glenn Beck,
Rush Limbaugh and
Michelle Malkin backed Palin's statement. One poll showed that after it spread, about 85% of Americans were familiar with the charge and of those who were familiar with it, about 30% thought it was true.[SUP]
[1][/SUP] Due to public concern, the provision to pay physicians for providing voluntary counseling was removed from
the Senate bill and was not included in the law that was enacted, the 2010
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a 2011 statement, the
American Society of Clinical Oncology bemoaned the
politicization of the issue and said that the proposal should be revisited.
For 2009, "death panel" was named as PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year", one of FactCheck's "whoppers", and the most outrageous term by the American Dialect Society.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel
I can't really add much to that.
