Did 'Palin Power' Force Senate To Drop ‘End of Life’ Provisions?

The Senate Finance Committee, which is trying to craft a bipartisan health care reform bill, will drop a provision which mandates consultations for end-of-life care from the measure, according to the ranking Republican member. Author and talk show host Tammy Bruce says the committee's decision is the result of Palin Power.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) issued a statement Thursday announcing that the committee will drop the controversial provision after former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in a series of statements on her Facebook page, criticized "death panels" that conservatives say would encourage the practice of euthanasia:

"On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options. We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

Bruce says Palin "forced the Senate to do the right thing with two Facebook posts":

"This is called leadership and... speaks to the impact and import of Palin’s positions despite the establishments, both political and media, insistence... that she’s irrelevant."

Palin responded directly to President Obama and others who attacked her exposure of the Death Panels as part of what Bruce called Obama’s "DeathCare" agenda:

"This time she did it with a hard slap at the Obama admin and viola (sic), after being derided as 'nuts" and out-of-touch, Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee made this statement today."

The talk show host added that Grassley's announcement demonstrates that both Democrat and Republican lawmakers "would have codified the idea that seniors should die as soon as possible" had Palin not weighed in on the issue and caused such a stir.

Also crediting the former Alaska governor, U.S. News Jefferson Street blogger Peter Roff says "Score one for Palin":

In what can fairly be described as an admission that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin knew what she was talking about, the Senate Finance Committee Thursday dropped language from its bipartisan health care reform package that Palin and others had suggested would eventually lead to mandated end-of-life counseling sessions for seniors.

Supporters of Obamacare, including President Barack Obama, had accused Palin and others of being dishonest in suggesting the counseling sessions would somehow lead to the government encouraging euthanasia as a cost-cutting measure as part of rationed care.

Agreeing with Bruce, Roff says the decision to remove the end-of-life counseling provisions from the bill "suggests otherwise."

In a posting on her Pajamas Media blog Wednesday, Dr. Melissa Crouthier wrote that Sarah Palin had defined the health care debate, bringing "the essence of a disputed policy into sharp focus." The concerns expressed in the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate's Facebook postings aligned with those of average Americans, according to Clouthier:

"With the debt, the deficit, and the unrestrained spending, Americans are quite sensibly rejecting a vast new entitlement program. Sarah Palin clearly reflects this sentiment. In fact, she is one of the few voices brave enough to stand with the will of the majority. Too many other Republicans are afraid to be viewed as obstructionist to recognize that they sound out of touch with their own grassroots constituents on the right."

By the way, we believe Grassley's announcement will come as a shock to ABC's Jake Tapper, who had characterized Palin's claim as "thoroughly discredited" in a post on his Political Punch blog. Jake used his post to give Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of the end of life provision, a megaphone through which to shout his "outrage" over the way Palin and other conservatives and libertarians have criticized the supposedly non-existent provision which Grassley's committee is dropping. We are confident that Tapper also furnished Dr. Emanuel with a crying towel. Likewise, the AP -- which reported that "Many news organizations — including The Associated Press — debunked Palin's claim" -- has what Desi Arnaz was famous for calling "a lot of 'splaining to do."

We won't engage in any breath-holding waiting for the political establishment to give Sarah Palin the kind of credit that Bruce, Clouthier and the Palinistas are convinced that she deserves. To do so would run counter to the campaign of marginalization that has been waged on Palin for the better part of the past year. But while we agree that Sarah Palin deserves much credit for shining a light on the bill's end of life provision, one which the legislation's backers had insisted did not exist, we're sure that she would be the first one to share that credit with  the thousands of  members of what the state-controlled media characterized as "angry mobs" that turned out at town halls across the land to protest ObamaCare. After all, Sarah knows what it is like to be demonized also.

h/t: FRee Republic

Related: Conservative Brother asks the same question we did. Great minds...

- JP