Report: 'Death panel' claim tone familiar

NEW YORK, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- Claims that U.S. healthcare reform means having "death panels" were begun by a coterie that helped kill healthcare reform years ago, The New York Times said.

Claims President Obama's healthcare proposal authorizes a government panel to determine whether a person worth keeping alive was traced to some of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were key in scuttling President Bill Clinton's healthcare proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and conservative New York politician Betsy McCaughey, the Times said.

Nothing in the proposals promoted by President Barack Obama or floating in Congress calls for the creation of any governmental panel that would end care for the critically ill as a cost-cutting measure, supporters of healthcare reform said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement Thursday he and several other senators were trying to negotiate a healthcare plan dropped "end of life" proposals from consideration.

A pending House bill has language that would authorize Medicare to pay for beneficiaries' consultations with professionals on end-of life care -- consultations that would be voluntary and advisory in nature. Grassley said he was pushing for the language to be deleted in the Senate "because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

The intensity of the criticism of the proposals has surprised some long-time advocates of healthcare reform, the Times said.

"I guess what surprised me is the ferocity. It's much stronger than I expected," said John Rother, executive vice president of AARP, which supports the healthcare proposals and has repeatedly declared the "death panel" rumors are false. "It's people who are ideologically opposed to Mr. Obama, and this is the opportunity to weaken the president."