the kicker

Death Panel, DNR

September 9, 2009

She’s at it again. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has revived the specter of the death panel, this time in an op-ed in the pages of today’s Wall Street Journal.

Politico’s Glenn Thrush gets right to Palin’s fuzzy definition of the truth. She refuses to drop the subject despite the fact that the death panel has been widely debunked here and here.

These are merely “establishment” facts, according to Palin, verities that are irrelevant because the death panel falsehood “rang true” for many Americans. Ergo, “rang true” is morally equivalent to “true.”

Quoting Palin:

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”

[I]s it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats’ proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels?

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Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans.

We need to slap a Do Not Resuscitate order on this death panel business, already.

Alexandra Fenwick is an assistant editor at CJR.