Administration Sensibly Tackles End-of-Life Care; Will "Death Panels" Lie Show Up?

It's good news that under Medicare, the Obama adminstration is once again proposing that doctors will get subsidies for having sensible, rational discussions with their patience in advance about end-of-life care, including "advance directives"--in which patients sign on to plans in the case of terminal illness or incapacitation.

But can this kind of planning, which everyone in the medical community agrees makes sense and gives patients control over their own lives, get done without the "death panels" scaremongering and lies taking over?

At the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen writes about how the new initiative is getting discussed "quietly" to avoid attention from the likes of Sarah "Death Panels" Palin.

This basic concept was inexplicably twisted into "death panels" -- one of the single most idiotic policy arguments ever presented -- and the reimbursement plans were scrapped from the health care reform proposal.

The problem, of course, is that the idea continues to have merit, and seniors and their families would still benefit. Americans shouldn't suffer because unhinged conservatives successfully smeared a modest, sensible proposal.

Meanwhile at Pandagon, Jesse Taylor agrees, citing Ann Althouse's alleged objections as an example that it's a meme that won't die. "The worry is that attacks like this will prevent people - oddly enough, people in Althouse’s age group - from getting advance directives because they believe that they’ll be signing their Kenyan Muslim death warrant," he writes.

Read more at Washington Monthly and Pandagon.