The Power of Ignorant Masses

The Associated Press is reporting that the Senate Finance Committee is dropping end of life care counseling from their proposed health reform.  Apparently cries of “death panels,” not matter how inaccurate, scared some senators from ensuring that Medicare would pay for consultations on end-of-life decisions.

Doesn’t this just ensure that people who can’t pay for this on their own won’t have full access to knowledge or advice on the decisions they need to make at end of life (i.e. living wills)?  It scares me beyond words that ignorant screaming masses can misrepresent something as simple as this and change public policy.  Health reform isn’t about taking away insured people’s access to care, it’s about giving more options and ensuring that everyone has the same access to a certain level of care.  No one is going to say you can’t seek additional treatments on your own (or what is covered by your private insurance that YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO KEEP), they’re just saying we all deserve an certain amount of quality care.  Why is this not made clearer?

An example of one of these protesters:

Lawrence O’Donnell completely nails her, though does so with more respect than most could have summoned.