David Saltonstall deserves major credit for this story, which directly identifies Betsy McCaughey as the primary source of the euthanasia myth and traces its spread through the health care reform debate:
Former Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey leads 'death panel' charge writing up talking points
Sarah Palin may have fanned the fire over President Obama's fictitious health care "death panels," but she didn't light the match.
That was New York's Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor most remembered here for oddly standing throughout Gov. George Pataki's 1996 State of the State speech - then running against him after he dumped her from his ticket.
McCaughey, 60, is back as a self-styled expert whose writings on Obama's health care plans are increasingly being cited by agitated conservatives at town hall meetings as proof - falsely, other experts and the President himself say - that he wants to "pull the plug on Grandma."
"I believe it's an important public service," McCaughey said yesterday of her commentaries, which spin snippets of legislative language and medical-journal essays by a few Obama advisers to paint a terrifying picture.
"Members of Congress haven't been reading this bill, and I think that's shameful," she added.
Others say what's shameful is McCaughey's distortions of the Democratic-backed House bill, specifically a section on "end-of-life" consultations that Palin - in a Facebook screed - dubbed "Obama's 'death panel.'"
"Betsy McCaughey's recent commentary on health care reform in various media outlets is rife with gross - and even cruel - distortions," AARP Executive Vice President John Rother said recently.
In reality, the bill section simply aims to provide Medicare coverage for once-every-five-year conversations with doctors over what life-prolonging measures, if any, a patient wants taken in the event of a terminal illness or injury. It's an idea first championed by a conservative Republican senator, Johnny Isakson of Georgia.
But McCaughey took that section and ran with it, providing backup for Palin and right-wing media pot-stirrers to sound the "death panel" alarm.
McCaughey got the ball rolling on ex-Sen. Fred Thompson's radio show on July 16, when she called the bill "a vicious assault on elderly people" that will "cut your life short."
She then wrote a column July 24 that claimed Obama advisers don't want to "give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy."
Days later, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) recited much of the article on the House floor.
Palin then unleashed her "death panel" comment, basing it on Bachmann's floor speech. And the firestorm raged...
As I've argued, naming and shaming proponents of misinformation is essential to changing the incentives facing elites.
What Brendan so tendentiously refers to as the "euthanasia myth" is a conflation of concerns over Medicare-paid end-life consultations (overblown in my estimation though not without some legitimacy) and understandable concerns about possible Emanuelian decisions about allocation of scarce medical resources.
Democrat Mickey Kaus understands and writes about it here and here. Perhaps it's too much to expect LAT reporters to cut through the conflation and recognize that President Obama is dodging the issue, but Brendan is smart and knowledgeable on the subject. We expect better of him.
Posted by: Rob | August 13, 2009 at 12:09 PM
For God's sake, per Kathleen Parker's column in my local paper this morning, let's just insist that the final bill say "This consultation is entirely voluntary and no benefits will be withheld if the patient declines the consultation" and be done with this ridiculous issue?
Posted by: Raleighite | August 13, 2009 at 01:33 PM