Read the Bill: Complete Text of Section of House Bill with Purported ‘Death Panel’ Provision
It’s a dead cinch that none of the folks screaming “Read the bill!” at members of Congress at health-care reform town hall meetings this month have actually read the bills themselves.
By not reading the House bills — in particular, the one called “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” — town hall disrupters who have also been railing about a purported provision in the bill that establishes “death panels” have revealed themselves to be hypocrites as well as willing dupes in a campaign by the medical lobbies and Republican leaders to kill reform in order to protect health-care profits.
Top Republicans, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, House Minority Leader John Boehner, former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey and others — and just today Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa — are lying about the contents of Section 1233, “Advance Care Planning Consultation,” which they say requires elderly and infirm people to be evaluated by “death panels” every five years.
What the bill actually does is extend payments to Medicare recipients who seek professional counseling on end-of-life issues like setting up a living will and issuing “do not resuscitate” instructions to their families.
Facts do not matter to right-wingers, of course, but normal Americans who might take the Tea-baggers’ and Birthers’ venting about euthanasia at face value instead of seeing it for what it really is — rage over having a black president — need to know the truth.
The full text of Section 1233 follows:
