Entry in progress—B.P.
 
Wikipedia: Death panel
“Death panel” is a political term that originated during a 2009 debate about federal health care legislation to cover the uninsured in the United States. The term was first used in August 2009 by Sarah Palin, the former Republican Governor of Alaska, when she charged that the proposed legislation would create a “death panel” of bureaucrats who would decide whether Americans—such as her elderly parents or child with Down syndrome—were worthy of medical care. Palin’s claim, however, was debunked, and it has been referred to as the “death panel myth” as nothing in any proposed legislation would have led to individuals being judged to see if they were “worthy” of health care. Palin specified that she was referring to Section 1233 of bill HR 3200 which would have paid physicians for providing voluntary counseling to Medicare patients about living wills, advance directives, and end-of-life care options.
 
Palin’s claim was reported as false and criticized by mainstream news media, fact-checkers, academics, physicians, Democrats, and some Republicans. Other prominent Republicans such as Newt Gingrich and conservative talk radio hosts Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin backed Palin’s statement. One poll showed that after it spread, about 85% of Americans were familiar with the charge and of those who were familiar with it, about 30% thought it was true. Due to public concern, the provision to pay physicians for providing voluntary counseling was removed from the Senate bill and was not included in the law that was enacted, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a 2011 statement, the American Society of Clinical Oncology bemoaned the politicization of the issue and said that the proposal should be revisited.
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Palin’s initial statement
Sarah Palin, who had been keeping a low profile after her July 3, 2009, resignation announcement as Alaska’s Governor, was the first to use the “death panel” term on August 7, 2009. In her first Facebook note, she said:
 
[G]overnment health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
 
Though Palin’s post did not identify a portion of legislation she believed mandated “death panels”, a spokesperson pointed to HR 3200, Section 1233, and Palin herself followed up in an August 12 Facebook note clarifying her argument by discussing Section 1233. However, neither Section 1233 nor any other provision in any health care bill provided for a system to determine if individuals were worthy of health care.
 
Wiktionary: death panel
Etymology
First used in a 2009 Facebook note by U.S. politician Sarah Palin: “... my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
Noun
death panel (plural death panels)
1.(US, originally in right-wing discourse, otherwise humorous) A fictitious government committee which is responsible for choosing which of various patients will receive healthcare, and which withholds life-saving treatment from some in order to reduce costs.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
THERE WILL BE RATIONING - Sifting out what’s right in Sarah Palin’s ‘death panels’ hyperbole.
Author: John C Goodman
Publisher: [New York, etc., National Review, etc.]
Edition/Format: Article : English
Publication: National review. 61, no. 17, (2009): 20
Database: ArticleFirst
Other Databases: British Library Serials
 
OCLC WorldCat record
THE AWESOME COLUMN - Joel Stein on why he, Tyra Banks and Paula Abdul should be on a death panel
Publisher: [New York, etc., Time Inc.]
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Time. (August 31, 2009): 56
Database: ArticleFirst
 
OCLC WorldCat record
The Politics of Death From Karen Ann Quinlan to death panels
Author: J Lepore
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: NEW YORKER -NEW YORKER MAGAZINE INCORPORATED- (November 30, 2009): 60-67
Database: British Library Serials
Other Databases: MEDLINE
 
LewRockwell.com
Obama’s Death Panel
By Anthony Gregory on October 7, 2011
It’s official. The American dystopia is here. Obama administration officials admit that the CIA assassination program that snuffed out Anwar al-Awlaki last Friday is guided by a secret panel that decides who lives and dies.