In 2010 after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, there were talk of death panels deciding which patients live and which ones die. The fear of these death panels so enraged the elderly and the Tea Party that the Republican Party was able to regain control of the House. I always wondered how such falsehood was able to gain traction besides the propaganda of Fox News and how no matter what the media said, some people believed the falsehood. This morning I found out first hand that the people the elderly trust the most are spreading these lies: the physicians.
I work in a hospital and this morning I attended a medical staff meeting. This is a meeting to review medications we want to carry in the hospital and other medications related protocols. We were discussing the drug shortages that we are experiencing and their causes (subject for another diary) when suddenly one of the physicians told us of his outrage and proceeded to mention that the Affordable Care Act will deny advanced neurosurgery to patients over 70 years old.
Immediately, I got defensive because it sounded like the death panels claims of the last 2 years. I asked him where I could find this information and to send me the proceedings or minutes of the meeting where this was decided. The physician then proceeded to play for the committee a Mark Levin's show. Apparently, this has been going around the internet as diaried previously by MillieNeon here
It seems that a caller into a Mark Levin's show stating that he was a "brain surgeon" and that the Affordable Care Act was denying coverage of advanced neurological surgery for patients over 70 years old. He made the mistake of asking me if I heard of this news. My answer was that anybody can call into a radio show and claim to be something other than what they were. I also told him that this sounded like another death panel claim.
After the meeting, I did some research and as you probaly guessed it, the caller was a liar and his claims were also lies. There were never any meetings where the guidelines to deny care were decided. So, I decided to email the physician as well as all the members of the committee debunking the lies that were spread. Here is the email I sent
During the meeting this morning we had an off the record discussion on the Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacares denying neurosurgery care to patients over 70. This was brought up by a caller from Mark Levin's show. I researched the matter because I was troubled by the government's intrusion into telling physicians who to treat and not to treat and I found out that the caller was wrong. During the show, the caller identified himself as a "brain surgeon"; this also could not be verified by AANS. The American Association of Neurological Surgeons put out a statement denouncing as lies the "facts" stated by the caller. They have a press release on their website. Here is the link: http://www.aans.org/...
I felt a lot better about this not being true and I thought you should know that these are outright lies and not true at all. I guess this was another way of saying Death Panels! (which by the way is also not true).
I may be reprimanded for this, but I don't care. When lies are being spread we should call them what they are, lies and bullshits no matter who is spreading them. The elderly trust their healthcare professionals and if the very same people are spreading these lies we should call them out as liars.