The "death panels"

The "Advance Care Planning Consultation," the section that right-wingers are claiming is a surreptitious plan for "death panels" that a senior will have to submit to every five years, is, in fact, a new provision to have Medicare cover (pay for) such a consultation if a Medicare beneficiary wishes to have one, but no more frequently for Medicare coverage than once every 5 years unless a life-threating condition has come to light.

I heard someone on the Ed Schultz Show call in and ominously point us to pages 425-30 of the Energy and Commerce bill. That's what's actually in those pages. It's amending Medicare to pay the doctor for consulting with you on a friggin' living will.

Now you know when you hear the friend you once thought to be a sensate human being utter this beyond-the-pale absurdity. How far can distortion be pushed? This is truly way, way outside any envelope of a minimum standard of rationality. That is what Republicanism has been reduced to. It's frightening.