Talk:Death panel

Possible sources

• End-of-life uncertainty; Americans need to be more assertive in detailing the medical treatment they want as they age LA Times editorial. 29 November 2010. quote: "Another challenge is finding the right advocate for this kind of planning. Health insurers don't have the requisite credibility, given their obvious interest in cutting costs. Doctors and hospitals, meanwhile, have little incentive to do so. Medicare pays more for aggressive treatment than for 'palliative' care that's aimed only at relieving pain and reducing symptoms. And physicians can't seek extra dollars from Medicare for the time they spend counseling patients about end-of-life options; when Democrats included such a provision in the healthcare reform bill, critics said they were trying to create 'death panels.'" Jesanj (talk) 13:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
• 'Obamacare' tackles health care costs. Will Congress? CSM Commentary/David R. Francis. "Those opposed to Obamacare, usually Republicans, have likened the Medicare diversion to "killing Granny." The conservative Liberty Counsel calls it a "euthanasia bill." The demagoguery "makes it almost impossible to do anything without having Hitler [and Nazi-style death panels] rubbed in your face," says Reinhardt".
• The Perennial Quest to Lower Health Care Spending Uwe Reinhardt. "The future trajectory of the volume variable, QG, might possibly be bent down ever so slightly through cost-effectiveness analysis of alternative therapeutic approaches, or by more widespread use of living wills – an idea once actively promoted by Newt Gingrich. But those ideas were met in the past year by dark allusions to rationing,' to Nazi-style death panels and to 'killing Granny.' Therefore, strike lowering QG, as well, from a strategy for bending the cost curve".
• 'Rationing' Health Care: What Does It Mean? July 2009. Uwe Reinhardt. "To suggest that the main goal of the health reform efforts is to cram rationing down the throat of hapless, nonelite Americans reflects either woeful ignorance or of utter cynicism. Take your pick."

Context/background

Contextual content was removed with this edit, which intended that some of the content be restored. The section was largely derived from Table 1 of the Nyhan publication (page #9). Nyhan writes about how the phrase emerged in the context of a circulating myth. I think restoring this material would strengthen the article by letting readers know about the extent of coverage that contributed to the spread of this concept. Talk radio, for example, is not currently mentioned in the article. Any comments/concerns? Jesanj (talk) 04:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

NPOV?

This whole article is such a crock of shit, and its existence is a almost a violation of NPOV.

If and when true universal health care is adopted in the US, it is simply a FACT that care will have to be rationed. It is rationed already--but by jerks in the insurance industry. If and when the federal government takes over health care, then they will have to be the ones doing the rationing. What do I mean by "rationing"?

Like it or not, there are just so many dollars to go around. Not everyone can have everything they want--that's the singular truth behind economics--both right and left wing versions. So sometimes, someone who has a terminal illness gets denied treatment because it's judged not to be a good use of money to spend $500,000 adding another month onto some old geezer's life. And there's nothign wrong with that! Palin condemned it, others condemned her for naming it, but the FACT is that it happens now, and it'll happen later, no matter who runs health care.

An objective media would have recognized the truth behind this and condemned Palin for her economic ignorance. But instead, because she accidentally revealed a nasty truth that the pols (especially on the left) want to keep hidden, they condemned her for "lying". But she only showed her stupidity--she did not "lie". 98.82.190.226 (talk) 06:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Yawn. Derekbd (talk) 22:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

98.82.190.226, "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject". For what it is worth Uwe Reinhardt in his July 2009 blog posting "'Rationing' Health Care: What Does It Mean?" said "As I read it, the main thrust of the health care reforms espoused by President Obama and his allies in Congress is first of all to reduce rationing on the basis of price and ability to pay in our health system". Perhaps this perspective should be included in the rationing and defense of claim section. Also, we reflect what media says in order to remain neutral. If you have an axe to grind with the media then take that up with them. =) Thanks. Jesanj (talk) 23:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Move to "Death Panel"?

Should this page be moved to Death panel? Currently that title is just a redirect to here. WP:TITLE says that names should be kept concise...I could see the parenthetical "political term" being used for disambiguation if necessary, but currently there is nothing to disambiguate from. WP:PRECISION seems to indicate the parenthetical isn't needed. Kelly ^hi! 21:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

Death panels (political term) → Death panel — As stated above, to be concise per WP:TITLE, parenthetical not needed per WP:PRECISION. Kelly ^hi! 02:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose this is not the only use of "death panel" Instead it should be Death panel (hyperbole about Obamacare). Death panel should be a disambiguation page to various sections of articles and other articles about death panels. Jan Brewer has her own death panels so the term is not restricted to Obamacare criticism. Arizona's Brewercare death panels are highly prominent at the moment. The term has been used before the 21st century as well [1][2] -- such as use for those empanelled for death penalty sentencing / appeal 65.93.13.227 (talk) 06:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

  I'm not sure why we would need a disambiguation page at this point, since no articles exist on the topics you've cited. (Though I could see including examples in this article, if they were notable.) Kelly ^hi! 19:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Removing the parenthetical gives the term more legitimacy and reality than it deserves. The current title Death panels (political term), imparts the correct impression at the outset -that there is some hyperbole, controversy or partisanship involved because the term originates from the political arena. - KeptSouth (talk) 21:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Addendum - I also strongly believe that if the article must be renamed it should be to Death panels in the plural because for one thing, that is the way the term was first rolled out to the American public, and that is the way it is most commonly used. In addition, the singular form has a slightly different and scarier feel because it brings the concept down to the level of an individual hospital or clinic. I might not worry or believe that death panels are part of "Obamacare", but I would surely worry if there were a death panel at my local hospital. I could see the WP article title Death panel on a Google search and think OMG, this is happening! It's hard to explain, but the term Death panel just seems more immediate and real than Death panels. Therefore, it seems like a type of POV pushing to drop the s. To summarize: because the term is most commonly used in the plural, and because Wikipedia not a place to alter terms or spelling (WP:NOT), I would vote for an article title of Death panels if push came to shove. But my first choice would be to keep the article title exactly as it is. - KeptSouth (talk) 22:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

These types of political terms are not normally given a parenthetical to label them as such. As a matter of fact, I couldn't find a single other example...see, for instance, Evil empire, Two Americas, or any of the other similar polemical terms in Category:American political slogans.

I'm not sure how removing the parenthetical violates WP:POVTITLE, given that the first line says "Death panel is a political term...". "Death panel" is just more concise, I honestly don't understand the controversy. I'm not hung up on whether we title it "Death panel" or "Death panels", but I would note that when Palin coined the term in her original Facebook post, she used the singular form.[3] Kelly ^hi! 23:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Kelly, What the article says in the first line is subject to multiple edits at any time, so I am not sure how that shows that parenthetical in the title should be removed. I am also a bit confused on your singular/plural argument. Here you say it doesn't matter, though you proposed the change, but in the next post you argue for a change to the singular form. -Regards- KeptSouth (talk) 10:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I just ran across WP:SINGULAR - article titles should be singular, not plural. Kelly ^hi! 03:34, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:SINGULAR says "Article titles are generally singular, then it lists examples of when they are not. This term, death panels is generally in the plural. Per WP:POVTITLE titles should reflect the sources -When a subject or topic has a common name "as evidenced through usage in a significant proportion of English-language reliable sources), Wikipedia should follow the sources and use that name as our article title".KeptSouth (talk) 10:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

<-[Redent] Comment: I noticed that Kelly, who proposed the page move, seems to have done some further reading of WP Policies, Guidelines, etc., so I took this as a good cue to do a little more reading of these myself. [WP:Moving a page]] says "Pages may be moved to a new title if the previous name is inaccurate, incomplete, misleading or for a host of different housekeeping reasons such as that it is not the common name of the topic." Basically, this rule is about 75% against the page move, and it certainly supports keeping the plural form Death panels as that is the common name of the topic. KeptSouth (talk) 10:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

• Support: No other articles named Death panels exist. All arguments that advocate the abuse of the disambiguation feature for political purposes should be rejected for obvious reasons. Quigley (talk) 00:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no disambiguation being done or being advocated here, so there simply can be no "abuse of the disambiguation feature". However, moving the page, something you support, will create another re-direct. That could be considered abuse, but I believe in following the AGF rule -- perhaps you do not? KeptSouth (talk) 10:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of Isakson quotation

In two places in the article (the lede and further down), I'm removing a one-word quotation from Johnny Isakson which states that he "called Palin's interpretation 'nuts'". The presentation is problematic and definitely needs to be reworked if it's to be re-included, because he never said that. From the Ezra Klein interview:

I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts.

The problem here is that Palin never said anything about people being euthanized. From her original FB post:

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.

Palin never mentions euthanasia - to my knowledge, she never has throughout the healthcare debate, consistently stating that her concern has been health care rationing. It's apparent that Isakson is reacting to inaccurate information he received second- or third-hand, not to anything Palin actually said. Kelly ^hi! 02:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

On the same day that Palin made her Facebook statement, 8/7/09, the prolife publication, Life News posted this story: "Sarah Palin Opposes Health Care Bill Over Abortion, Euthanasia Components" [4]. (emphasis added) So whether she actually said this in an interview with the prolife publication or whether they read it into her words, it certainly looks like both sides of the debate thought she said this from day one. It is certainly a very reasonable interpretation of the term death panels=euthanasia panels. (I don't, however, have a problem with your removing of the particular quote) KeptSouth (talk) 11:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Unbalanced article

I've added the {{Unbalanced}} template to the page for now - the POV presented from the given sources is almost entirely from proponents of the health care reform legislation, with little space given to statements made by Palin herself and other opponents of the initiative. Right now the article (and especially the lede) reads like an attempt to discredit Palin's position rather than a neutral presentation of the origins and use of the term, as well as reactions to it from notable sources of various ideological persuasions.

In the process of gathering sources now, but one issue I can open with is that the article and criticism focuses almost entirely on the end-of-life counseling provisions that were removed from the legislation following this controversy, rather than the health care rationing concerns that Palin consistently has said were her motivation for coining the metaphor. Examples:

Palin's original FB note, 7 Aug 2009:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government 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.

Clarification to her original post, 14 Aug 2009.

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.

Written Testimony Submitted to the New York State Senate Aging Committee - 8 Sep 2009

It is unclear whether section 1233 or a provision like it will remain part of any final health care bill. Regardless of its fate, the larger issue of rationed health care remains.

Hong Kong speech - 23 Sep 2009

I seem to have acquired notoriety in national debate. And all because of two words: death panels. And it is a serious term. It was intended to sound a warning about the rationing that is sure to follow if big government tries to simultaneously increase health care coverage while also claiming to decrease costs.

Comments on passage of the bill - 22 Dec 2009

Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call “death panels” the “lie of the year,” this type of rationing – what the CBO calls “reduc[ed] access to care” and “diminish[ed] quality of care” – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor.

Take back the 20 - 24 Sep 2010

And remember when the Obama administration said they would not be “rationing care” in the future? That ol’ “death panels” thing I wrote about last year? That was before Obamacare was passed. Once it passed, they admitted there was going to be rationing after all.

Election Day post - 1 Nov 2010

Every day we hear about doctors leaving the Medicare system; increased premiums with talk of price controls; rationing becoming standard practice; and panels of faceless bureaucrats deciding which categories of treatment are worthy of funding based on efficiency calculations (which I called a “death panel”).

That's probably enough of a wall of text regarding this point. :) Kelly ^hi! 03:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between trying to get people to believe that the bill includes death panels (the lie that Palin originally vended) and arguing that sometime in the future there's going to be rationing. There's also the point that rationing goes on NOW, at the decision of the big for-profit insurance companies rather than with any public accountability.

Coming down to specifics, it's extremely dubious under Wikipedia practice for you to put such a tag on when you've proposed no specific change in the article. I'll leave it up temporarily so as not to get in a silly edit war about that, but this can't go on very long.

As to the edits you've already made, they display a clear POV. For example, you want us to assert in the introductory section that "death panels" was a metaphor. It wasn't presented that way originally. Palin may now be trying to spin it that way to cover up her blatant disregard of the facts, and we can quote any post hoc explanation by her to that effect, but that's because we report facts about opinions. We do not state such opinions as facts.

I don't have time now to examine the rest, such as the point you make above about the Isakson quotation, so I'll have to return to this later.

In general, there's no reason not to add opinions from opponents of the health care legislation, provided that they're about the specific subject of the supposed "death panels" (not about the evils of the bill in general) and provided that opinions are reported and attributed, not adopted. JamesMLane t c 01:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Addressing the point of the term being a metaphor for rationing, since the term is attributed to Palin in the lead sentence, then presumably the definition is what she claims it to be and belongs there as well. If others have assigned a different definition to the term, then those other definition(s) should be attributed and cited. To my knowledge, Palin has used the term strictly in the context of government-dictated rationing - if others have used it in the term in the context of private-sector rationing, I certainly don't have any objection to examples being included so long as they meet Wikipedia guidelines. Kelly ^hi! 01:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

That Palin uses a term doesn't mean that she gets to decide what it means. Example: I call Palin a "pension pickpocket", a term I invented. When I'm queried about it, my authorized spokesperson explains that it refers to Palin's theft of public employee pensions while she was Governor. Palin sues me for defamation. I then claim that it was merely a metaphor for the way her short-sighted policies were robbing Alaskans of their future. What result? Palin wins. The statement was defamatory regardless of how I later try to spin it.

I don't object to including Palin's subsequent spin, properly attributed. It's included in my edit. You reshuffled the material to put it out of chronological order, giving high prominence to Palin's spin and conveying the impression that her use of the term "metaphor" was contemporaneous with her use of the term "death panel" rather than coming some months later. I've reverted to my version, which reports the criticism (attributed) and then Palin's response.

I put the word "metaphor" in quotation marks to indicate that it's a direct quotation from Palin. I didn't intend it as an instance of scare quotes. My guess is that the average reader wouldn't read it that way -- especially given that, contrary to the most common Wikipedia practice, you've given the full Palin quotation in the footnote, instead of merely linking -- but if this explanation doesn't satisfy you, go ahead and remove the quotation marks. JamesMLane t c 14:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Palin did make an extensive contemporaneous explanation explaining that her concern in making the original statement was health care rationing, making extensive citations to her sources (though granted, she didn't use the word "metaphor"). To my knowledge, she's never given the definition that appears to be attributed to her in the lead sentence. If someone has given that definition, it needs to be attributed and cited. With respect - Kelly ^hi! 14:50, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

<--Redent. Wow, this discussion is already 1,400 words long. I didn't see any huge issues with balance when I read the article, and I haven't had time to read the discussion above thoroughly yet. But I tend to think some of the issues can be resolved by a simple clean up and then by reference to WP policies on balance, NPOV, undue weight, etc. But in the meantime, I would like to ask Kelly if she could summarize the main issues she is raising, just for the sake of conciseness, please. Thank you.- KeptSouth (talk) 12:32, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I took a couple[5][6] suggestions of yours Kelly. I'm hesitant to quote much from Facebook though, as it is self-published. Here is something Palin said on FB titled "Obama Is Being Misleading About 'Death Panels'" that was published on an NPR blog:

“ 'With all due respect,' the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee writes, 'it's misleading' for President Barack Obama to say that provisions in one of the health care overhaul bills simply increase the information offered to Medicare recipients about end-of-life issues. 'The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context. ... Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care?'[7] ”

It appears clear to me that Palin blends rationing with end of life consultations in this quote. So, perhaps Palin has consistently focused on rationing, but not because she has never addressed the end of life consultations. Are there any remaining concerns about balance? Perhaps it would be OK to take down the tag. Jesanj (talk) 13:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Pre-Palin usage, opening sentence

It appears that the term "death panel" has been used in the past, though not in a widespread fashion, to refer to a panel of judges authorized specifically to issue or review a judicial death sentence. Example. In light of this, I'm wondering if the opening sentence should changed from "Death panel is a phrase coined by...Sarah Palin" to "Death panel is a phrase popularized by...Sarah Palin". Kelly ^hi! 00:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It is a phrase co-opted by Palin, since she didn't popularize the existing usage. 184.144.165.37 (talk) 04:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The other uses of the phrase are, as far as I can tell, nonnotable. They wouldn't merit the prominence of being included in the introductory section (maybe a passing mention somewhere in the body). You can read about some other non-Palin "death panels" at this old version of the article; the consensus was that all that stuff wasn't relevant to this article. JamesMLane t c 04:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! Yeah, I agree on notability. I need to to look at the sources currently being used for this article to see if any of them say Palin "coined" the term. Kelly ^hi! 05:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Under the section Coining the first sentence is "On August 7, Palin coined the term on her Facebook page..." and there are NYT and NEJM sources for the word. Jesanj (talk) 12:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Clean up

Kelly and others have raised some interesting questions about balance in this article, but I find that it's sometimes best to clean up the article first, before getting into the heavier and most disputable issues of POV, balance, etc. Some issues that can later turn into disputes can be taken care peremptorily by, for example, simple fact checking and verifying the existing references, removing or summarizing repetitious material. So, I am going to do some housekeeping, (boldly), but note it all here. I have placed the clean up tag on the article, while clean up is in progress, to alert readers and editors that clean up issues exist and to the discussion on this page.-KeptSouth (talk) 12:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Date formatting

Why is the international format, day before month being used? This is a US subject. Although normally the consistent format shouldn't be changed, this is the exceeption to the rule. Per MOS, WP:STRONGNAT, so I have changed the dating. KeptSouth (talk) 12:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I used it because I didn't know any better. Thanks for changing it. Jesanj (talk) 12:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Archiving

It is beginning to seem that this talk page will be getting lengthy. So I will be setting up an auto-archive for old posts every 30 days. Of course, it can always be adjusted it to a longer time frame if necessary. KeptSouth (talk) 12:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)