The White House on Monday hit back at critics of health care reform who have raised concerns about "euthanasia" provisions supposedly contained in bills being pushed by Democrats in the House.
"We've been really surprised by some of the wild rumors that we've heard flying around," said White House Domestic Policy Chief Melody Barnes, who was part of a series of web videos released by the White House on Monday, which tried to refute a series of assertions that Democrats say are dead wrong.
Among the other items addressed in the web videos, how health reform would affect seniors, how it would affect small business and more.
I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that everything is hunky-dory in their review, eh?
Meanwhile, my email inbox continues to be filled with missives from people who don't believe White House assurances on euthanasia and more.
"It talks about standardizing treatment in life sustaining situations," said James Foster.
"Now, standards are going to have to be set and monitored by someone," he added. "Could this be the "Death Panel?"" he wondered in an email.
As we detailed yesterday, there certainly is a lot of detail offered in Section 1233, entitled "Advance Care Planning Consultation," which makes one wonder why so much information is included, and yet people say it doesn't really mean anything.
The ten pages of mind-numbing legalese is too much for me to understand, but James' email does make some sense. If you have standards for end-of-life treatment orders, someone has to be in charge of setting those.
At first glance, it doesn't seem like it is only the federal government, but rather the States and the feds would share the responsibilities.
But nowhere is there anything set out for how those decisions would be made and who would be making them, and there is nothing at all in this section on end-of-life preparation that is mandatory.
About the only way to settle this controversy might be to simply take the language out of the bill. But I doubt that's going to happen.
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