Beware: 'Death panels' aren't dead

On July 23, 2009, I pointed out in WND that there were provisions in Obamacare for killing people the government felt like killing. On Aug. 7, 2009, Palin made her now-famous "death panels" remark. Liberals immediately began denouncing her as having "lied". I couldn't figure out at the time why her critics wouldn't answer the citations in the bill – taking someone's nutrition and hydration by physician committee is rather obviously death-panel-like.

In honor of the fact that the Heath and Human Services secretary will issue arbitrary guidelines that establish the future of the death panels by October 2010, we should revisit Mrs. Palin's public service. She deserves credit for making the ruckus that yanked the language from the bill. Liberals immediately claimed the language wasn't there – right after removing it – and then pretended that "Palin lied."

But as we might expect, they put similar language right back in the bill for final passage after it had become a media "fact" that there "were no death panels."

But we are sick of listening to smug leftists dismiss Palin as "wrong" or "falsely" asserting that there are death panels in Obamacare.

There were.

It was black and white. The press, over and over again, willfully ignored the real statements in the bill that required government appointees to counsel beneficiaries, or rule on beneficiaries, ending their lives.

But did I mention they slipped death panels back in?

Americans have good reason to thank Palin that government doctors can't declare you dead. But we should all be afraid of the secretary of Health and Human Services. Kathleen Sebelius can "counsel" you to death.

Page 719 of Obamacare reads:

BENEFITS. – An eligible beneficiary shall receive the following
benefits under the CLASS Independence Benefit Plan:

(2) ADVOCACY SERVICES. – Advocacy services in accordance
with subsection (d).

Advertisement - story continues below

(3) ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE COUNSELING. – Advice and
assistance counseling in accordance with subsection (e).

What is "CLASS Independence Benefit Plan"? It is the assisted-living government program for the weakest in society who need in-home care. These folks need help doing things like bathing, dressing, getting in and out of bed.

A CLASS person is required under Obamacare to have "advocacy" and "assistance" counseling. But what's that?

Advocacy counseling, according to the law includes, "such other assistance with obtaining services as the Secretary, by regulation, shall require."

So if Sebulius wanted you to be counseled about Dr. Kevorkian services, or counseled on Smurfs in Ancient Russia, she just tells your counselor to make you sit through that. But while giving arbitrary and mandatory "counseling" powers to the secretary of HHS is weird and sinister, it's a minor item compared to Page 723.

The government mandates an "advice and assistance counselor," who shall provide to CLASS recipients, among other things:

(5) available assistance with decision making concerning
medical care, including the right to accept or refuse medical
or surgical treatment and the right to formulate advance directives
or other written instructions recognized under state law,
such as a living will or durable power of attorney for health
care, in the case that an injury or illness causes the individual
to be unable to make health care decisions; and

(6) such other services as the Secretary, by regulation,
may require.

So, for the weakest in society, Obamacare pressurizes them to jump off a cliff.

Don't see that in the text?

Well then, what exactly do you call mandatory counseling from a government agent who has come to a chronically infirmed person to assist them with refusing treatment, with advanced directives and with end-of-life decision making?

Sounds to me like a pushy death panel.

Andrew Longman is a Christian and an applied scientist.