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NEW YORK, NY / The New York Times / Health / August 14, 2009
By Kate Phillips
PITTSBURGH – Former President Bill Clinton on Thursday night waded into the so-called “death panel” debate raging in noisy town hall meetings, saying there was “nothing anti-life or anti-American” about helping people draw up guidelines like living wills.
Conservative opponents of Democratic proposals on overhauling health care have rallied against a provision in House versions of the bills that would reimburse doctors who counsel Medicare beneficiaries on “end-of-life’’ issues.
Photo: John Heller/Associated Press
Mr. Clinton offered up a personal story, relating how he and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, decided to draw up living wills after her father became gravely ill. He deemed advanced directives extremely important in many cases where a person may not be lucid or mentally able to make individual decisions during those final days.
Charges that the provision would set up panels to determine who lives and who dies are “crazy,” he suggested. “I personally think that helping someone draw up a living will is not helping senior citizens to die,” Mr. Clinton said.
During that same speech on Thursday night before the Netroots Nation conference of progressive/liberal bloggers, the former president also vigorously defended his and his wife’s unsuccessful efforts to enact health care change in 1993-1994. He disputed what he deemed revisionist accounts of what Mrs. Clinton did or did not do. And he argued last night that prospects were far better today – with a Democratically controlled Congress, the lack of a filibuster threat and the growing desire for change – than during his administration. [
rc]
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
By Kate Phillips
PITTSBURGH – Former President Bill Clinton on Thursday night waded into the so-called “death panel” debate raging in noisy town hall meetings, saying there was “nothing anti-life or anti-American” about helping people draw up guidelines like living wills.
Conservative opponents of Democratic proposals on overhauling health care have rallied against a provision in House versions of the bills that would reimburse doctors who counsel Medicare beneficiaries on “end-of-life’’ issues.
Photo: John Heller/Associated Press
Mr. Clinton offered up a personal story, relating how he and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, decided to draw up living wills after her father became gravely ill. He deemed advanced directives extremely important in many cases where a person may not be lucid or mentally able to make individual decisions during those final days.
Charges that the provision would set up panels to determine who lives and who dies are “crazy,” he suggested. “I personally think that helping someone draw up a living will is not helping senior citizens to die,” Mr. Clinton said.
During that same speech on Thursday night before the Netroots Nation conference of progressive/liberal bloggers, the former president also vigorously defended his and his wife’s unsuccessful efforts to enact health care change in 1993-1994. He disputed what he deemed revisionist accounts of what Mrs. Clinton did or did not do. And he argued last night that prospects were far better today – with a Democratically controlled Congress, the lack of a filibuster threat and the growing desire for change – than during his administration. [rc]
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
