Obamacare facts: Death panels and rationing

Sarah Pain coined the term “death panel” in a 2009 tweet. (therealbs2002/Wikimedia)

The phrase “death panel” is a politically charged term that originated with Sarah Palin in 2009. Palin coined the term in reference to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that Medicare pay for end-of-life counseling sessions. Her original Facebook post on the subject read, “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.” Factcheck.org called “death panels” one of 2009’s “whopper[s] of the year.”

The ACA does not contain the phrase “death panel” and the end-of-life counseling cited by Palin was not mandatory. This does mean that Palin was totally off the mark however.

The ACA does establish an unelected board of bureaucrats who will be tasked with cutting Medicare spending.

 

Read the rest of this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/obamacare-facts-death-panels-and-rationing

Obama is right: Conservatives should be civil

Sarah Palin was accused of inciting the Tucson shooter. (Therealbs2002)

My friends and readers in Georgia and around the country will probably be shocked to hear me say, but I agree with President Obama. A phrase that many native Georgians heard while they were growing up was “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” This advice applies in politics as well.

Many Georgians have probably closely followed developments in the Tucson shooting, including the accusations that Jared Lee Loughner was inspired by conservative rhetoric. These accusations were quickly discredited, but the controversy over heated political talk remains.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Obama is right: Conservatives should be civil – Atlanta Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/obama-is-right-conservatives-should-be-civil#ixzz1BbvhBjU3

Part 2: Facts favor Republicans