Press coverage of the proposed reg has been minimal, perhaps owing to the media’s holiday slowdown, or perhaps the issue’s potential for political controversy has run its course. A few outlets picked up the Times’s piece, but there was nothing like the media frenzy that struck in the summer of 2009. The government may simply start paying docs for counseling, or there may be a new round of death panel hysteria. But one thing is clear: the administration intends to use more rule-making procedures. That’s part of American democracy. Campaign Desk will be watching in the new year for media reports on what it is up to.
Campaign Desk
11:51 AM - January 7, 2011
Death Panels Make a Comeback
And pose some larger questions for the press
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
Fearless British mother who talked down Woolwich terrorists
“It is only you versus many people, you are going to lose”
7 questions for President Obama
Stop with the Jew-ranking already!
“There are some lists that have helped Jews in the past, including, most notably, Schindler’s, but…”
Please continue pronouncing ‘gif’ any way you please
We are all correct
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
'Death panels' are still described as a 'myth' by cookie-cutter liberals, even though something like them has clearly been established under Obamacare. You don't have to be hysterical to comprehend that a greater governmental role will now be played in end-of-life issues, as with all other health-related decisions. Nor is it mythological to suppose that there will be polite pressure on family decision-makers to pull the plug on Grandpa. These issues are necessary and defensible as part of 'health care', but I'd appreciate it if the orthodox press - reflecting as they invariably do the framing and vocabulary of the urban middle class and that class's political arm, the Democratic Party - would have the fortitude to concede that there is an issue there, as is the case with a lot of issues raised by un-hip right-wing types, instead nervously dismissing the latter's concerns as extreme, and move on to a clear discussion of those issues.
I will give props to Lieberman for pointing out that the health bill will pay for 'death panels' or 'end-of-life' panels . . . semantics . . . and that the press, for reasons I can guess, has been quiet about the whole issue.
#1 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 7 Jan 2011 at 12:35 PM
I know someone who is going off chemotherapy because the cancer is well advanced. She's opting for hospice care.
This article http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gawande
and this democracy now interview
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/5/return_of_the_death_panel_myth
explain what is being discussed. It's shameful what the death panel espousing conservatives have turned the discussion into. Stupid, liars, or both.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 7 Jan 2011 at 01:19 PM
Mark:
Is it better to not have one's doctor talk to his/her patient about end-of-life issues? Or would you rather the doctor simply not get paid for it?
#3 Posted by garhighway, CJR on Fri 7 Jan 2011 at 02:54 PM
And years later the major themes remain the same---extreme coercive efforts to silence discussion about important health care issues relevant to every person. On one hand, the country is effectively not allowed to have meaningful public debate about our health care (non)system and, on the other hand, patients and doctors are virtually not allowed to have discussions about full aspects of treatment, which includes facts that treatments fail and life itself is a terminal illness. So among the distortions caused by our nation's health care problems, combined with our media problems, is a lingering perception that free speech between patients and doctors is regulated. But the reality is that doctors are not compensated for conversations with patients in general and for that reason, patients and their families often get the bum's rush when faced with moments of truth. So the central issue is compensation.
Can it be said that the death-panels movement to further scare America is essentially yet another magnified distortion caused by fee for service? If we solved the overall problems related to doctors' compensation, would we then solve the other problem of fees not being assigned to fully inform patients about their true health status and all options for effective treatments, including quality of life issues related to pain relief?
Robert Pear is among the journalists I trust for good information about health care. I noticed this a few years ago, before health care reform heated up. A lot of times I don't pay attention to bylines but for a while I've perceived that he understands the issues very well. Felt like I wanted to mention that.
#4 Posted by MB, CJR on Sat 8 Jan 2011 at 12:28 PM
To garhighway, did I suggest that? No, I don't think I did. What I do suggest is that 'end-of-life' issues are now a few degrees more 'political', and this was the original cause of the concern expressed by some people, who were immediately marginalized as crazy. The thrust of my comment was that this story falls into a certain category of framing often found in the MSM. It roughly runs: These arguments raised by right-wingers have absolutely no basis in fact . . . but even if they do, so what?
My comments are usually about coverage of the issue, not the pros and cons of the issue itself, but I'm always being asked in response to get into policy opinions. CJR is supposed to be a journalism review, although it does get into advocacy a lot, so I suppose this is inevitable.
#5 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 10 Jan 2011 at 12:49 PM
Jesus Mark.
These issues weren't political until someone coined the term "Death Panels" and someone else started smearing it all over her facebook page.
They were issues of research, data, and how to enable consumers to make informed choices.
Any coverage of the issue has to be a discussion of the policy, because it will otherwise be a bunch of "he said, she said on her facebook status" know nothing garbage with no basis in fact.
You're criticizing the media for being too truth telling and for not giving a fair shake to the lies of the right wing, and then when you're called out on the truth of the issues you claim "Hey, I'm just saying it's political and that cjr shouldn't advocate for a side, even if that side may be correct. And that's not something I'll say for sure because I don't discuss policy, I discuss politics."
If you're against patients (or their families in cases where the patient is incapacitated) making informed decisions on likely fatal conditions and their quality of life during death, then you are against "Death Panels". By using the term death panels you prevent citizens from knowing what the policy really is.
It's shameful.
#6 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 10 Jan 2011 at 07:31 PM
Mark: When you say "'Death panels' are still described as a 'myth' by cookie-cutter liberals, even though something like them has clearly been established under Obamacare." it doesn't sound to me like you are talking media criticism. That sounds like you have taken a side in the underlying policy debate which makes follow-up questions on that point reasonable.
Leaving aside that the opening sentence of your post is just wrong (making end-of-life counseling reimbursable does not equal or even approximate "death panels" in the reality-based universe) I am still interested to hear your answer to my original question.
#7 Posted by garhighway, CJR on Mon 10 Jan 2011 at 07:36 PM
Whatever hospice's duration, so many people die in the last few days of the money flow that it seems impossible for that to be accidental.
People are far better off living elsewhere - in other countries, until we stop wasting half of our health care dollars on the insurance and drug company monkeys on our backs. Elsewhere, people come first, here in paradise, people come last.
The party incumbencies do not get it. They hide their game well but they blew it by selling us all out to big pharma and big insurance.
#8 Posted by Carol, CJR on Tue 11 Jan 2011 at 05:12 PM
When did this debate get so screwed up? The original "death panel" argument was a caution against health care rationing based on one's productivity and value(+or-) to society as proposed by Ezekiel Emanuel, a high level presidential advisor for health care. It had nothing to do with Powers of Attorney, Advanced Directives etc that your Doctor will discuss with you.
#9 Posted by Cenz, CJR on Wed 12 Jan 2011 at 02:01 PM
Thimbles, the media 'matched' Palin's hyperbolic response to the element of end-of-life issues in the Obama bill. If Palin had used the term 'end-of-life' panels instead of the term 'death panels', I doubt if journalists would have been so dismissive of a legitimate issue. Now they are having to explain that there was sorta, kinda, in a way, a grain of truth to the issue underlying Palin's direction of her followers to this element. That's the problem with the Left, so often echoed by the MSM - they can't just disagree with you, but have to insist that there is no, nada, nil issue or reason for disagreeing with them.
#10 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 12 Jan 2011 at 04:59 PM
Reporters would not have been dismissive of a legitimate issue if there was one, but there wasn't. Go on. Give us one legitimate issue.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/palin-vs-obama-death-panels/
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-20-2009/betsy-mccaughey-pt--1
The Wasilla Facebook Pundit took the idea of the woman above, put it into Luntzian language, and injected it into discussion.
"Death Panels? That's like Death Taxes! We don't know what they are, but we don't like them!"
You can't use loaded terms like death panels and then pretend you're interested in a legitimate debate, so why are you pretending?
#11 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 12 Jan 2011 at 05:56 PM