Two unlikely supporters of death panels: Palin and Gingrich

Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich love death panels. Not only did both endorse advance care planning before decrying the concept as a method for the government to euthanize citizens, but both gain major political points for using “death panels” to scare Americans away from making smart decisions about health care reform.
Sarah’s now-famous claim about the “death panels” originated on Facebook, her new favorite method for making outrageous statements. She claimed that if health care reform passed, her baby and her parents would not receive care because neither were “productive” in society. Of course, this claim had no root in fact, but that didn’t stop her from saying it and defending it in later Facebook posts.
A little digging revealed an interesting fact about Palin and the death panels, though: on April 16, 2008, the then-governor proclaimed the day as Healthcare Decisions Day. (The page has since vanished from the official government site, but Google Cache caught it.) What does she mean by “healthcare decisions”?
“Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions… one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.”
The language Palin used to promote Healthcare Decisions Day is nearly identical to the language used in HR 3200, language that she now decries as promoting “death panels” that will murder her family. I think the term we’re looking for is “cognitive dissonance.”
Newt Gingrich was one of the first to leap to Sarah’s aid when news networks began picking up on her outrageous “death panel” claim. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Gingrich said, “You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.” He contested the fact that the bill contained no language pointing to euthanasia and stubbornly insisted that the government could not be trusted not to kill its citizens.
On July 2 of this year, however, Gingrich was singing a different tune. In a remarkably moderate op-ed, the former Speaker of the House extolled the money-saving virtues of a Wisconsin health center that actively promoted advance care planning:
“Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin has developed a successful end-of-life, best practice that combines: 1) community-wide advance care planning, where 90 percent of patients have advance directives; 2) hospice and palliative care; and 3) coordination of services through an electronic medical record. The Gundersen approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care. The Dartmouth Health Atlas has documented that Gundersen delivers care at a 30 percent lower rate than the national average ($18,359 versus $25,860). If Gundersen's approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.”
No fearful mention of euthanasia, despite the fact that yet again, this language closely resembles the “end-of-life planning” language in the health care reform bill. In fact, Gingrich’s column makes a great argument for keeping that language in the bill, because he demonstrates that advance directives protect families and save a great deal of money.
Memory loss must be a common Republican trait, because neither Palin nor Gingrich seem to remember the praise they used to heap upon advance directives. They busily invent lies about the health care reform bill in an attempt to scare Americans away from the idea. If they can convince enough citizens that reform really will kill their families, then the bill will die – as will many uninsured Americans who need this reform.