I’ve been writing a lot about the health care debate these last few weeks, both because I think it’s terribly important that we catch up with the rest of the post-industrial world in the way we take care of our citizens, and because I think it’s terribly important that occasional bits of information make it out into the ether past the wall of shouting, misspelled ranting, and increased incidence of gun brandishing, and the White House isn’t necessarily doing the job (it’s tough to get the media’s attention when there are all these colorful characters ranting everywhere waving things). If I can get a couple of google hits, I feel I’ve contributed.

Today’s topic: Death Panels.

Now, certain ex-Governers of Alaska would have people believe that the proposed health care legislation would sit the elderly, infirm, and disabled in front of government committees who would mandate euthanasia for those they don’t deem worth the cost of publically funded medical procedures.

Clearly, this is pure bullshit, but some people are genuinely scared by this, and others, seeing this fear in people, propogate the myth to gain support for their side.

I was, however, curious as to where this came from, since the most effective myths usually have some tangential relationship to a given piece of truth, not in the least because if someone dares call the bullshitter on it down the road, they can point to a given statement somewhere and claim they were “misunderstood”.

The provision in the House health care bill from which this piece of flim-flam was drawn was written by Rep. Blumenaur (D-OR), a bit of language which would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions with patients regarding end-of-life issues (stuff like living wills, health care proxy, and hospice care). Exactly the kinds of things that everybody ought to have information on, but many don’t get, because Medicare wouldn’t pay for it, and doctors, who have limited time, like to get paid for their work (you know, like all of us want to get paid to do our jobs), and many people people didn’t have access to other counselling services or didn’t trust a non-doctor source for this kind of thing.

People getting important information from doctors, and doctors getting paid to provide said advice; most would agree this is a good thing, for values of “most” that include the American Medical Association and AARP. It’s a shame this sort of thing is getting muddled.

Besides, we already have free market “death panels”; they’re just filled by private-industry insurance bureaucrats who decide deny care to paying customers if their medical needs affect the company’s bottom line in any meaningful way, rather than government bureaucrats deciding whether someone has anything further to contribute to society.

If the health care reform people were truly against this kind of health care decisions made by outside committees*, rather than by doctors, patients, and their next-of-kin, we’d all be on the same side, and the US would have single-payer (or at least some kind of regional/state system of co-ops based on minimum federal standards) by now.

Given the way things are, I’m left to conclude that people are just afraid that they might have to share the same kind of care with those people, and then will have one less thing to feel superior about.

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*-the last time the government did get involved in somebody’s end-of-life situation, many of the people opposing government involvement now were all for it then, which further confuses the issue.