Wash. Post debunks "euthanasia" fearmongering
August 01, 2009 10:12 am ET by Media Matters staff
From Ceci Connolly's August 1 Washington Post article, Talk Radio Campaign Frightening Seniors:
A campaign on conservative talk radio, fueled by President Obama's calls to control exorbitant medical bills, has sparked fear among senior citizens that the health-care bill moving through Congress will lead to end-of-life "rationing" and even "euthanasia."
The controversy stems from a proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical interventions they would prefer near the end of life and how to prepare instructions such as living wills. Under the plan, Medicare would reimburse doctors for one session every five years to confer with a patient about his or her wishes and how to ensure those preferences are followed. The counseling sessions would be voluntary.
But on right-leaning radio programs, religious e-mail lists and Internet blogs, the proposal has been described as "guiding you in how to die," "an ORDER from the Government to end your life," promoting "death care" and, in the words of antiabortion leader Randall Terry, an attempt to "kill Granny."
[…]
The attacks on talk radio began when Betsy McCaughey, who helped defeat President Bill Clinton's health-care overhaul 16 years ago, told former senator Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) that mandatory counseling sessions with Medicare beneficiaries would "tell them how to end their life sooner" and would teach the elderly how to "decline nutrition . . . and cut your life short."
Previously:
Wash. Post latest to promote end-of-life counseling myth
Media echo serial misinformer McCaughey's false end-of-life counseling claim
Caught with "pants on fire," McCaughey backtracks, hedges -- again
by incandenzah6467
(August 01, 2009 11:43 am ET)
