Steele Hearts Death Panel Talking Points

RNC Chairman Michael Steele
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RNC Chairman Michael Steel now seems to be fully embracing the death panel talk, with a new column in the Washington Post promoting a Republican proposal called a “Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights,” which will prevent the government from killing grandma:

Third, we need to outlaw any effort to ration health care based on age. Obama has promoted a program of “comparative effectiveness research” that he claims will be used only to study competing medical treatments. But this program could actually lead to government boards rationing treatments based on age. For example, if there are going to be only so many heart surgeries in a given year, the Democrats figure government will get more bang for its buck if more young and middle-aged people get them.

Fourth, we need to prevent government from dictating the terms of end-of-life care. Many of the most significant costs of care come in the last six months of a patient’s life, and every American household must consider how to treat their loved ones. Obama’s government-run health “reform” would pay for seniors’ meetings with a doctor to discuss end-of-life care. While nonthreatening at first, something that is quite normal for a family to do becomes troublesome when the government gets involved. Seniors know that government programs that seem benign at first can become anything but. The government should simply butt out of conversations about end-of-life care and leave them to seniors, their families and their doctors.

Late Update: For more on the GOP’s Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights, click here for the RNC’s official release.

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