"Death Panels"

So, you may have heard the one that says "Obama's health care plan will create 'death panels' that will decide if people should be given health care." Avoiding the 'death panel' is given as a reason to not support health care reform.

Well, news flash - we already have 'death panels.' They are ran by private insurance companies. This article, based on "an hour's research in Google," found five well-documented cases of people either dying from being denied care or getting care because their cases were suddenly publicized in the news. If that's not enough for you, here's another, less well publicized, case, that didn't turn out so well.

For people arguing against health care reform, the facts are not your friends.

ETA By the way, the provision in the bill that the 'death panel' people are upset about is a provision that extends Medicare coverage to 'end-of-life' planning. It's not mandatory to make an end-of-life plan, and the provision was added by a conservative Republican senator from Georgia, Johnny Isakson. He explains the provision here.

I say again, for people arguing against health care reform, the facts are not your friends.