The newest silly GOP talking point about healthcare reform is about the provision requiring hospitals to provide end-of-life counseling to people who wanted it. This proposal has turned into a strange and silly Republican talking point about encouraging euthenasia. Guess who first proposed this?
Even by conservative standards, the argument is insane. It’s extremely common, and has even “made its way into the standard conservative critique of the Democrats’ reforms,” but it’s not in any way grounded in reality.
Those on the right pushing this may not care about the facts, but maybe they care about partisanship?
[I]t turns out a GOP Senator, Susan Collins, sponsored a virtually identical initiative this spring, before this became an anti-reform GOP talking point — and praised it as necessary to improving our health care system’s “care for patients at the end of their lives.”
This sharply undercuts the GOP and conservative claim — unless, of course, you believe Collins backed an initiative she thinks could lead to mass government extermination of the elderly. Though this talking point has been debunked multiple times, conservatives and GOP leaders like John Boehner continue to employ it with abandon.
Yes, the not-so-radical idea Republicans hope to exploit was crafted, sponsored, and touted by a sitting Republican senator.
As health care reform comes closer and closer to becoming reality, Republicans are becoming more unhinged and dishonest. I’m not sure I can take a full month of this silly scare-mongering with serious stress relievers.