Health care debate scares seniors to death

Is the White House losing the message war on health care?

Like other presidents, Barack Obama is pestered by myths and conspiracy theorists.

He can easily ignore the "birthers," who refuse to let facts get in the way of their misguided belief that Obama's birth certificate is a fake.

But if there is any rumor that he needs to squelch as soon as possible, it is the truly dangerous myth that he wants to kill seniors.

He faced that question head-on during a televised town hall at AARP headquarters in Washington last week.

"I have been told that there is a clause in there that everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told to decide how they wish to die," a woman named Mary asked the president.

Mary did not say where she was told this, but it is not hard to guess. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts and House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, among other critics of Obama's health care plans, have been spreading the idea that the House health care bill promotes euthanasia.

They take this notion from a provision in the bill that would provide Medicare coverage for an end-of-life consultation once every five years, if the patient wants it.

If a person falls ill with a life-threatening disease, more frequent sessions would be allowed.

Ironically, similar end-of-life concepts have been a part of federal health care law since 1990 - with bipartisan support.

But now that Republicans can use the language as a wedge between seniors and Democrats, lo and behold, it has become an alleged invitation to legal suicide.

They have been aided in this mission by a key figure in the killing of Bill and Hillary Clinton's proposed health care reforms in the early 1990s. Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, a conservative health care specialist, lit the spark on various op-ed pages and talk shows, including former Sen. Fred Thompson's radio talk show.

There she told Thompson that "Congress would make it mandatory, absolutely require, that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner."

"The bill expressly says if you get sick somewhere in that five-year period, you have to go through that session again," McCaughey continued, "all to do what is in society's best interest or your family's best interest and cut your life short."

Nonsense. The provision would require Medicare to pay for advanced-care consultations, but it does not require individuals to take ad