Healthcare

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) praised a Senate committee's decision to drop an end-of-life provision from its healthcare reform bill, but continued to pound away at the overall bill -- especially a proposal by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel.

"It's gratifying that the voice of the people is getting through to Congress," Palin said in a new note on her Facebook page posted early Friday morning of the Senate Finance Committee's decision to drop end-of-life consultations from its health bill. (The Alaska politician had derided those consultations as "death panels" seeking to aid the euthanasia of the elderly.)

"However, that provision was not the only disturbing detail in this legislation; it was just one of the more obvious ones," Palin added.

Palin alleged that Emanuel, a White House healthcare adviser and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, would advocate a "Complete Lives System," which "if enacted, would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential."

President Obama's silence on the Complete Lives System is troubling, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate asserted, and called on the president to answer questions about the theory.

"Why the silence from the president on this aspect of his nationalization of health care? Does he agree with the 'Complete Lives System'?" Palin asked. "If not, then why is Dr. Emanuel his policy advisor? What is he advising the president on?"

The note marks the latest in a series of attacks Palin has launched on the president's heatlhcare reform proposals, and signals that while the conservative Republican had managed a small political victory over end-of-life care, she would continue to hammer away against Obama.

"We must stop and think or we may find ourselves losing even more of our freedoms," she wrote.

The boisterous town hall meetings taking place across the country could possibly result in lawmakers starting over from scratch on healthcare reform, one key Senate Republican said Thursday.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee who has been locked in negotiations to craft a bipartisan health bill, suggested that, as the August recess plays out, the current reform legislation before Congress may have to be delayed or ditched entirely.

"We won't really know until we get back there the full impact," Grassley said in a news conference with Iowa reporters. "But it could have the impact of stalling it. It could have the impact of starting all over again."

"Or, who knows -- it could have the impact that nothing's changed and you just move ahead," he added.

The August recess has seen the usual district meetings turn raucous over healthcare proposals before the House and Senate, all that amid polls that show public opinion souring modestly about the overhauls.

Grassley said that if the Senate continues work on the current bill, it will still be a while before the Senate sends the president a bill.

"If we start over again, you know, it'll probably be more incremental, probably less controversial and maybe get done, but it still will take time to do that," he said.

And if negotiations do continue, Grassley was less than confident about his ability to assemble bipartisan legislation before the September 15th deadline put in place by the committee's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

"And who knows, maybe I won't be able to work a bipartisan compromise in our committee," Grassley said. "But if I can't, then maybe it'll be just a Democrat bill."

The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.

The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after being derided as "death panels" to encourage euthanasia by conservatives.

"On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. "We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

The Finance Committee is the only congressional committee to not report out a preliminary healthcare bill before the August congressional recess, but is expected to unveil its proposal shortly after Labor Day.

Grassley said that bill would hold up better compared to proposals crafted in the House, which he asserted were "poorly cobbled together."

"The bill passed by the House committees is so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences, including making taxpayers fund health care subsidies for illegal immigrants," Grassley said. The veteran Iowa lawmaker said the end-of-life provision in those bills would pay physicians to "advise patients about end of life care and rate physician quality of care based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care."

"Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can't," Grassley added.

The Obama administration may be willing to sacrifice some of its allies in Congress in order to force through healthcare reform, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele suggested Thursday.

"There may be a sense of sacrificing some seats in Congress...to push through the nuclear option," Steele said during an interview on Fox News Radio this afternoon.

Steele was speaking about the possibility of using budget reconciliation to force through healthcare reform on a more strictly party lines vote, especially in the Senate, where only a simple majority would be required to pass the bill.

The RNC chairman suggested that President Obama, knowing how unpopular forcing through healthcare could be, would be willing to endure Democratic losses in Congress.

"They operate at that arrogant level, where they really believe we need to put in a system that will upend 1/6th of the economy," Steele said.

Town hall protesters are "evil-mongers," says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

Reid coined the term in a speech to an energy conference in Las Vegas this week and repeated it in an interview with Politics Daily.

Such "evil-mongers" are using "lies, innuendo and rumor," to drown out rational debate, Reid said.

"It was an original with me," Reid said of the term. "I maybe could have been less descriptive," he said, adding that "I doubt you'll hear it from me again."

Nevertheless, Reid worked in the word one more time during the interview.

"I feel I haven't done anything to embarrass [my children]," Reid joked. "Except maybe call somebody an evil-monger."

RELATED TOWN HALL NEWS:

• Grassley: Town halls could force senators to start over on healthcare


• Two ejected from House Dem's town hall


• Rep. Baird apologizes for 'brown shirts' comment


• Sestak: Most town hall protesters have legitimate concerns

It's far from outrageous to suggest that the elderly would face end-of-life decisions mandated by the government, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Thursday.

In an interview with an Oklahoma television affiliate said that he disagreed that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) claims about a so-called "death panel" in healthcare reform legislation were ridiculous.

Coburn said that he'd offered three amendments seeking an "absolute prohibition" on rationing based on comparative effectiveness research into treatments.

"Why would you not want an absolute prohibition? Because you ultimately plan to ration care," Coburn said. "Their plan is to control costs by limiting options."

The conservative Oklahoman also slammed Obama, a friend of Coburn's, for having a poor understanding of the healthcare system, and letting the Congress drive the legislation forward as a result.

"He doesn't have a plan," Coburn asserted. "His plan is what has been written in the House, and that's the reason why he's in trouble on healthcare -- because he doesn't know the issue well enough to put out his plan."

Watch the interview below:

Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) apologized yesterday for accusing town hall protesters of "brown shirt tactics" and comparing them to a "lynch mob."

Baird, who originally decided against holding town hall meetings because of expected protests, now says he'll schedule some forums during the August recess.

"Frankly, I have had concerns about how we can have constructive dialogue and, unfortunately, in response to some of the things we've been seeing across the nation I have said some things myself that I regret," Baird said, according to the Tacoma News Tribune.

"I want to express that regret directly and announce that we will be holding a series of five town halls so people can express their opinions and ask questions."

Baird made headlines last week by comparing town hall protesters to Nazi guards.

"What we're seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics," Baird told the Columbian. "I mean that very seriously."

Participants in town hall meetings across the country are largely stocked with constituents with legitimate concerns, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) insisted Thursday.

Sestak said that while some protesters who've loudly interrupted lawmakers' district meetings may be organized by outside groups -- "astroturf" protesters -- many have rightful queries about the healthcare bill before Congress.

"There are some, obviously, that might be organized. But that's politics," Sestak said during an appearance on Fox News. "The vast, vast majority are people who have legitimate concerns."

Sestak's 2010 Democratic senatorial primary opponent, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), was embarrassed on national television by particularly vociferous constituents at a town hall meeting on Tuesday. Sestak seemed to lend credence to those confrontations.

The Democratic lawmaker also broke with some of his party's leaders, who have insinuated that the protests are being largely organized and funded by corporate interests opposed to healthcare reform.

"Sometimes in Washington, D.C., we representatives are in an echo chamber, and not out in the hustings enough, explaining and listening," Sestak said.

Watch the video of the interview below:

Enacting climate change and healthcare legislation could threaten America's status as the predominant military leader in the world, one Republican congressman asserted Wednesday.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told a conservative news radio show that the debate over healthcare and cap-and-trade bills would implicate the national security of the U.S.

"The thing that scares me is, the way the world operates, the economic leader is the military leader," Jordan said. "Right now, that's one country: The United States. And the world is a safer and better place because of that fact."

Jordan explained that he fears those two pieces of legislation, signature issues for President Obama and congressional Democrats, would harm the economy to an extent that it would take the nation's military standing down a notch.

"If in the future, some other country steps and assumes that role because we've enacted policies that make it tough for us to compete, make it tough for us to remain the top economy -- that's a dangerous concept out there," he said. "And that's why this is so important. It has bigger implications than just our pocketbook and our economy; it has national security implications."

If the bills pass, Jordan said he feared they would "diminish the potential for America to continue to be the greatest country in the world."

Listen to the entire interview here.

Americans marginally disapprove of President Obama's handling of healthcare, but the numbers have held steady over the last few weeks, a new Gallup poll finds.

49% of Americans disapprove of Obama's work on healthcare, while 43% approve. Three weeks ago, the margin was 50%-44%.

Obama has always been more popular than the healthcare reform he advocates. Putting the President front and center has been one of Democrats key strategies for advancing a healthcare bill, so any hit to the President's popularity is bad news for reform. These numbers indicate that after a few bad weeks, things at least aren't getting any WORSE for healthcare's prospects.