Mandating health Insurance - Obamacare

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Obama’s Marxist allies move forward on healthcare, socialist agenda

Democratic Socialists of America, is despite its deceptive name is the U.S.’s largest and probably most influential Marxist based organization.

Many of its several thousand members operate through the Democratic Party, New York’s influential Working Families Party and the organization also counts thousands of of labor unionists, religious activists, journalists and college professors in its ranks.

D.S.A. helped establish and continues to support the more than 80 strong Congressional Progressive Caucus and is particularly close to “single payer” healthcare champions Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Caucus founder Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.


Quentin Young, Barack Obama, 2003

Dr. Quentin Young of Chicago is the father of the “single payer” healthcare lobby in the U.S. he is also a former Young Communist League member, a long time D.S.A. activist and a one time personal physician and long time friend and mentor to Barack Obama.
President Obama, himself has a more than 25 year history of involvement with D.S.A. members.
D.S.A. means to use its considerable power and influence to push for completely socialized health care in the U.S. in the next few years.


Frank Llewellyn

Writing in the latest issue of Democratic Left, D.S.A. National Director Frank Llewellyn outlines some of the tactics the organization will employ to bring all U.S. healthcare under direct and complete state control.
The first step is to move public opinion in the “correct” direction.

In DSA we never expected more than the passage of an imperfect bill that we could work in coalitions to improve… DSA has been fighting for a singlepayer, Medicare-for-all approach to national health care for more than two decades. We expect to continue to fight for that approach in a number of states, especially in California, as the state legislature has passed single payer legislation in the past, only to have it overturned by a gubernatorial veto.
DSAers in every state and city should be prepared to rebut distortions with letters to the editor and op-eds that talk about what socialism really is – and what true social democratic public provision would look like, particularly when health care is the paradigmatic public good that markets, let alone for profit oligopolies, simply cannot justly and affordably supply.

Next step is to punish or remove those remaining Democratic legislators still opposed to socialized healthcare.

Progressives must now work to ensure that some conservative Democrats who did not support the final bill will be punished with primaries or even third party challenges. In New York State, for example, the Working Families Party (WFP) threatened to withhold support from, or actively oppose, representatives for whom the WFP provided winning margins in the past, but who voted “no” on the health reform bill. And the labor movement also vowed to remember how people voted on this issue in this year’s election cycle. Those of us committed to true public provision of health care can reunite by participating in such efforts.

Llewellyn cynically acknowledges that Obamacare will create its own constituency.

Politically, passage of the bill is a positive step. First, because it keeps open the possibility of passage of other reforms in this Congress, and second, because it should create millions of new stakeholders in a health care system governed by democratically established rules rather than by the fiats of private insurers.

Lewellyn is clear that the private insurance industry is marked for destruction.

The Right will attempt to use the bill’s shortcomings to generate public sentiment for repeal; progressives have to use those same shortcomings to generate public support for more short-term improvements, and in the long term to build support for the elimination of private insurers.

He also explicitly links healthcare to the other items on the Marxist agenda, financial regulation, immigration “reform” (amnesty), bailouts for distressed home -owners, massive Federal aid to city and state governments and the scaling back of U.S. military commitments.

But passage of the bill does keep the door open for popular movements to demand strict financial regulatory reform, immigration reform, massive aid to states and localities, and a much-needed public jobs program. DSA and the larger progressive movement must create street heat in favor of these anti-corporate measures, as well as for a just resolution to the foreclosure crisis, and an end to United States involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

D.S.A. , together with its Communist Party, labor and Democrat allies will not stop until the entire U.S. economy is under state control and/or direction.
In an article in Democratic Left, Spring 2007 D.S.A National Political Committee member David Green of Detroit wrote;

What distinguishes socialists from other progressives is the theory of surplus value. According to Marx, the secret of surplus value is that workers are a source of more value than they receive in wages. The capitalist is able to capture surplus value through his ownership of the means of production, his right to purchase labor as a commodity, his control over the production process, and his ownership of the final product. Surplus value is the measure of capital’s exploitation of labor
Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace…

Obamacare, will not achieve that noble goal, but it is certainly a fine start.

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Obama Now Defends ObamaCare Mandates as New Taxes

Posted by : Meredith Jessup at 3:07 PM

When conservatives asked members of Congress to point out what provision in the US Constitution gave the legislature the power to impose individual mandates for health care coverage, Democrats scoffed, responding, "Are you serious?"

But now that 20 states are challenging ObamaCare in court, congressional Democrats and the White House are being forced to answer the question. Despite his "no tax" pledge, Obama is now changing his tune to defend the new law, as noted by (an apparently surprised) New York Times:

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes. Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax.

“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”

When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

Ha. The American people rejected that notion, too, Mr. President. Still, that didn't stop the Democrats, now did it?

Interestingly enough, the Times also notes how Democrats in Congress "anticipated a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate," and accordingly, wrote "10 detailed findings" into the legislation meant to tie the mandate to interstate commerce. "Nowhere does Congress cite its taxing power as a source of authority."

The law describes the levy on the uninsured as a “penalty” rather than a tax.


The Justice Department brushes aside the distinction, saying “the statutory label” does not matter. The constitutionality of a tax law depends on “its practical operation,” not the precise form of words used to describe it, the department says, citing a long line of Supreme Court cases.

Moreover, the department says the penalty is a tax because it will raise substantial revenue: $4 billion a year by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In addition, the department notes, the penalty is imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code, and people must report it on their tax returns “as an addition to income tax liability.”

Because the penalty is a tax, the department says, no one can challenge it in court before paying it and seeking a refund.

How convenient.

As our friend Ed Morrissey points out over at Hot Air, the Times now carries "all the news fit to print..." three months later. The Wall Street Journal's Randy E. Barnett wrote about this scenario MONTHS ago, but apparently the story was part of this week's White House Friday night news dump, meaning the Times had finally gotten Obama's OK to run it.

Way to be on top of things, New York Times.

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'Mother of Health Care'


Biden: Pelosi is the 'most strategic'

By KENDRA MARR & MATT NEGRIN | 07/19/10 7:29 PM

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “the mother of health care,” Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed Monday.

Speaking at a campaign event in Philadelphia for congressional candidate Bryan Lentz, Biden reworked a line of praise from Rep. Allyson Schwartz, who said Pelosi was the most powerful woman in American politics.

“I would rephrase that: the most powerful person in American politics with the exception of the President of the United States,” Biden said, according to the pool report. “The single most successful, the single most persuasive, the single most strategic leader I have ever worked with is Nancy Pelosi.”

Biden then pivoted to continue his recent performances bashing Republicans about the economy.

“Today’s Republican Party is repeal and repeat: It is wildly out of step with the American people,” he said. “They want to repeal the progress we’ve made and repeat the policies of the past.”

In an ABC News interview broadcast Sunday, Biden said President Barack Obama and the White House are struggling to persuade the public to give the administration credit for its accomplishments, including health care reform and a Wall Street crackdown.

In his remarks yesterday, Biden added some new metaphors to his repertoire.

The vice president said President George W. Bush squandered the $237 billion surplus President Bill Clinton left behind. Biden said the Bush administration’s economic policy was “a Ponzi scheme masquerading as a vision.”

And the man dubbed “Sheriff Joe” for his role in overseeing spending through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act talked up the success of the stimulus package in preventing a “worldwide depression.”

“My Republican friends talk about deficits,” Biden said. “For them to talk about deficits is like an arsonist talking about fire safety. I mean, this is bizarre.”

Editor’s note: Vice President Biden’s comments about House Speaker Pelosi have been changed from an earlier version of this story due to a fuller transcript of his remarks from the White House.

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Obamacare Only Looks Worse Upon Further Review: Kevin Hassett

By Kevin Hassett - Aug 1, 2010 8:00 PM CDT Mon Aug 02 01:00:06 UTC 2010


Kevin Hassett

One of the more illuminating remarks during the health-care debate in Congress came when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told an audience that
Democrats would “pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

That remark captured the truth that, while many Americans have a vague sense that something bad is happening to their health care, few if any understand exactly what the law does.

To fill this vacuum, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, asked his staff to prepare a study of the law, including a flow chart that illustrates how the major provisions will work.

The result, made public July 28, provides citizens with a preview of the impact the health-care overhaul will have on their lives. It’s a terrifying road map that shows Democrats have launched America on the most reckless policy experiment in its history, the economic equivalent of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Before discussing what the law means for you, we have to look at what it does to government. That’s where the chart comes in handy. It includes the new fees, bureaucracies and programs and connects them into an organizational chart that accounts for the existing structure. It’s so carefully documented that a line connecting two structures cites the legislative language that created the link.

Ornate System

This clearly is a candidate for most disorganized organizational chart ever. It shows that the health system is complex, yes, but also ornate.

The new law creates 68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 demonstration or pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two entitlements.

Getting that massive enterprise up and running will be next to impossible. So Democrats streamlined the process by granting Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the authority to make judgments that can’t be challenged either administratively or through the courts.

This monarchical protection from challenges is extended as well to the development of new patient-care models under Obama’s controversial recess appointment, Donald Berwick, whom Republicans are calling the rationer-in-chief. Berwick will run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he can experiment with ways to use administrative fiat to move our system toward the socialized medicine of Europe, which he has at times embraced.

Closer to Home

A sprawling, complex bureaucracy has been set up that will have almost absolute power to dictate terms for participating in the health-care system. That’s what the law does to government. What it does to you is worse.

Based on the administration’s own numbers, as many as 117 million people might have to change their health plans by 2013 as their employer-provided coverage loses its grandfathered status and becomes subject to the new Obamacare mandates.

Those mandates also might make your health care more expensive. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that premiums for a small number of families who buy their insurance privately will rise by as much as $2,100.

The central Obamacare mechanism for increasing insurance coverage is an expansion of the Medicaid program. Of the 30 million new people covered, 16 million will be enrolled in Medicaid. And you could end up in the program whether you want it or not. The bill states that people who apply for coverage through the new exchanges or who apply for premium-subsidy credits will automatically be enrolled in Medicaid if they qualify.

Hurting the Elderly

To pay for this expansion, the bill takes $529 billion from Medicare, with roughly 39 percent of the cut coming from the Medicare Advantage program. This represents a large transfer of resources, sacrificing the care of the elderly in order to increase the Medicaid rolls.

For all this supposed reform, you, the American taxpayer, can expect a bill to the tune of $569 billion.

Front and center among the new taxes is the 40 percent excise tax on those lucky people with so-called Cadillac health plans. The higher insurance costs that are driven by the government mandates will push many more ordinary plans into Cadillac territory.

If the idea of taxing people with coverage deemed too good doesn’t bother you, maybe the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income will.

That will apply even to a small number of home sales, those that generate $250,000 in profit for an individual or $500,000 for a married couple.

In vivid color and detail, Congressman Brady’s chart captures the huge expansion of government coming under Obamacare. Harder to show on paper is the pain it will cause.

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Committee News
AMERICA’S NEW HEALTH CARE SYSTEM REVEALED

Updated Chart Shows Obamacare's Bewildering Complexity

Aug 02 2010



High Resolution Version of Chart (PDF) »

Washington, DC – Four months after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously declared “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it,” a congressional panel has released the first chart illustrating the 2,801 page health care law President Obama signed into law in March.

Developed by the Joint Economic Committee minority, led by U.S Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the detailed organization chart displays a bewildering array of new government agencies, regulations and mandates.

“For Americans, as well as Congressional Democrats who didn’t bother to read the bill, this first look at the final health care law confirms what many fear, that reform morphed into a monstrosity of new bureaucracies, mandates, taxes and rationing that will drive up health care costs, hurt seniors and force our most intimate health care choices into the hands of Washington bureaucrats,” said Brady, the committee’s senior House Republican. “If this is what passes for health care reform in America, then God help us all.”

Brownback, the committee’s ranking member, added, “This updated chart illustrates the overwhelming expansion of government control over health choices and the bewildering complexity facing everyone affected by this law. It doesn’t take long to see how the recently signed health care bill causes a hugely expensive and explosive expansion of federal control over health care. Personal choices that should be between a doctor and a patient will quickly be strangled in a never ending web of bureaucracy.”

Senate Steering Committee Chairman Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) called Obamacare “a bureaucratic nightmare. The Democrats’ takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor. It should concern everyone that at the center of this regulatory web is the new CMS chief, Donald Berwick, who has championed rationing and European socialized medicine. Americans were rightly outraged that this big government bill was rushed through Congress before anyone read or fully understood the bill’s consequences. Republicans will fight to repeal this reckless takeover and to ensure health care freedom to American families.”

In addition to capturing the massive expansion of government and the overwhelming complexity of new regulations and taxes, the chart portrays:

• $569 billion in higher taxes;
• $529 billion in cuts to Medicare;
• swelling of the ranks of Medicaid by 16 million;
• 17 major insurance mandates; and
• the creation of two new bureaucracies with powers to impose future rationing: the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Independent Payments Advisory Board.

Brady admits committee analysts could not fit the entire health care bill on one chart. “This portrays only about one-third of the complexity of the final bill. It’s actually worse than this.”

[Backstop]

Today is the day.

The court system in Pensacola will hear arguments as to why Barry O.'s mandatory health care is Unconstitutional.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican, is leading the charge.

I can just about guarantee this will go all the way to the USSC.

This is big - REAL BIG.

If the courts do not strike this down, it appears to me there will be no limit to what Barry O. and Co. can force us to do.

And if this is deemed Constitutional, Barry O. and Co. most certainly have underestimated the non-compliance they will see.

[American Patriot]

Is that a for-real chart???

[American Patriot]

Florida's US District Court? I don't know how they have been on issues in the past, but 20 out of fifty states have filed suit.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/ju...te-915416.html
Judge to rule next month in 20-state challenge to health reform


By Stacey Singer Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 1:54 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010 Small Type


Parts of the 20-state lawsuit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act appeared likely to proceed to trial on Tuesday after U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson heard arguments in Pensacola on the United States' motion to dismiss the case.


The case, lead by Florida, challenges the constitutionality of requiring all Americans to buy health insurance. It also accuses the federal government of trying to usurp state powers — and budgets — by dramatically expanding eligibility for Medicaid, the joint state and federal insurance program for the poor.


U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson said at a Tuesday hearing in Pensacola that he expects to hear some parts of the case, but dismiss others.


Vinson didn't specify which parts of the lawsuit likely will go to trial but said he will issue a ruling by Oct. 14.


Arguments in similar lawsuit filed by the state of Virginia will be heard in federal court in Richmond on Oct. 18.


Many legal scholars expect one or both of the lawsuits to eventually go before the U.S. Supreme Court.


Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum filed the lawsuit soon after the Affordable Care Act became law this spring.


"If the federal government is allowed to implement the individual mandate requiring citizens to have health insurance or pay a penalty, there is essentially no limit to what government can force citizens to purchase," McCollum said in a statement Tuesday.


Health reform is under attack on many fronts. In addition to filing legal challenges, Republicans in Washington are attempting to remove funding for some of the Affordable Care Act's provisions, and vowing to bring the law back for a repeal vote if the party gains enough votes in Congress following the November elections.


Despite the uncertainty, health insurers and hospitals have begun making changes in how they do business, to comply with the law.


"No matter what decision is made, health reform in some fashion will gJudgeo forward," predicted Bruce Rueben, president of the Florida Hospital Association.


The act is thousands of pages long, but it requires thousands more pages to be written as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services works out specifics.


"There is plenty of uncertainty, but hospitals are moving forward on the things they can do," Rueben said. "Health reform isn't done, it's just starting."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
stacey_singer@pbpost.com

[Backstop]

:d

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/13/federal-judge-rules-favor-virginia-challenge-health-care-law/

federal judge rules in favor of virginia's central challenge to health care law

by lee ross
published december 13, 2010
| foxnews.com

judge henry e. Hudson ruled monday for the state's claim that the requirement for people to purchase health care exceeds the power of congress under the constitution's commerce clause or under the general welfare clause.

(Looks like the smilies aren't working).

[American Patriot]

Good

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Justice Department to Appeal Virginia Judge's Ruling Against Health Care Law

Published December 14, 2010
| FoxNews.com



WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department said Tuesday it intends to appeal to a U.S. District Court judge's ruling declaring a key part of President Obama's health care law unconstitutional.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals would get the case that originated in Virginia when the state filed a lawsuit saying the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled Monday that the provision requiring people to buy health insurance violates the Commerce and General Welfare clauses. He called for the provision to be severed, but allowed the rest of the law to remain intact.

Citing similar cases in which judges ruled for the U.S. government, a Justice Department spokeswoman said the department is confident the law will be kept whole once it goes to a higher court.

"This is one of a number of cases concerning the Affordable Care Act pending before courts around the country, including four in which challenges to the law were unsuccessful that are already being heard by courts of appeals, including one by the Fourth Circuit," reads a statement from spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.

Expecting the appeal, some who back Virginia's suit have called for the case to go directly to the Supreme Court, skipping the appeals court level, but the Justice Department said it wants to see the case through the entire court hierarchy.

"Virginia's suit is based on a state statute that is not applicable nationwide, and the Department believes this case should follow the ordinary course of allowing the courts of appeals to hear it first so the issues and arguments can be fully developed before the Supreme Court decides whether to consider it," Schmaler said.

"As Judge Hudson noted in denying an injunction, the individual responsibility provision does not go into effect until 2014, so there is more than sufficient time for the courts to consider this case in their normal course of business," Schmaler continued.

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Judges Ruling Reveals The Trojan Horse of Tyranny

Congressional approval of nationalized health care is the “Trojan Horse” of tyranny in a carefully orchestrated scheme to secretly “legalize” socialism.

From the time reporters were questioning Congressional leaders about the Constitutionality and contents of socialized health care until the current decision by a District Court judge, the plan of bringing about a legalized police state has been carried out without hardly a whimper of resistance from elected officials.

The government has taken control of the housing, auto and financial industries through bailouts and equity positions, but there is much more coming--and its found in the legality of socialized health care.

Connecting the dots between a 2,700-plus page health care bill and the other actions by the government provides undeniable evidence that the White House and certain members of Congress were complicit in the artful craft of deception and malfeasance in violating both the intent and the spirit of the Constitution and the best interests of every American citizen.

On March 9, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke about the health care bill at the National Association of Counties, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.” She said it was about America’s future, nutrition and diet.

The president’s wife December 14th attended the signing into law of the $4.5 billion “Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act.” She said the nation has a responsibility to make sure America’s children receive the right nutrition.

“We can’t just leave it up to the parents,” she says. Indeed the government is not leaving any foodstuffs up to private citizens.

Congress has passed legislation that puts the federal government in control of the nation’s food supply. This IRS of farming, soon to be signed into law, establishes a “Surveillance System” that can spy on farmers, provides government authority to collect fees and mandates reports from those growing food, even in their own back yards. The health care bill, however, is the enabler.

In ruling the health care law unconstitutional, District Court Judge Henry Hudson revealed a more sinister motive. He said, “This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by Commerce Clause jurisprudence.” He said the government’s assumption of powers “could apply to transportation, housing, or nutritional decisions,” and that “The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers.” 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour.” Our nation is in satan’s snare save the vigilant stand in the gap.

Read the decision:

http://clipsandcomment.com/documents/hudsonopinion.pdf

Have a Blessed and Powerful Day

Bill Wilson

The Daily Jot

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White House attempts to quiet revived talk of 'death panels'

By Jason Millman - 12/27/10 09:31 AM ET

The Obama administration is trying to quiet talk about so-called “death panels” after The New York Times reported Sunday that a new Medicare regulation includes incentives for end-of-life-care planning.

The Medicare policy will pay doctors for holding end-of-life-care discussions with patients, according to the Times. A similar provision was dropped from the new healthcare reform law after Republicans accused the administration of withholding care from the sick, elderly and disabled.

However, an administration spokesman said the regulation, which is less specific than the reform law's draft language, is actually a continuation of a policy enacted under former President George W. Bush.

"The only thing new here is a regulation allowing the discussions … to happen in the context of the new annual wellness visit created by [healthcare reform]," Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin told The Wall Street Journal.

In 2003, Medicare added a consultation visit for seniors new to the program, according to the Journal. Another 2008 law, enacted under Bush, said the visit can include “end-of-life” planning discussions.

Sarah Palin, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, sparked controversy last summer when she said the reform law's end-of-life provision would create “death panels,” in which “government bureaucrats” would decide who receives care. President Obama countered the claim by saying his administration didn’t want to “pull the plug on grandma."

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Obama enacts end-of-life plan that drew 'death panel' claims

Starting Jan. 1, government will pay docs to advise about late-life options

By ROBERT PEAR
The New York Times
updated 12/26/2010 12:20:18 PM ET 2010-12-26T17:20:18

WASHINGTON — When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

The final version of the health care legislation, signed into law by President Obama in March, authorized Medicare coverage of yearly physical examinations, or wellness visits. The new rule says Medicare will cover “voluntary advance care planning,” to discuss end-of-life treatment, as part of the annual visit.

Under the rule, doctors can provide information to patients on how to prepare an “advance directive,” stating how aggressively they wish to be treated if they are so sick that they cannot make health care decisions for themselves.

While the new law does not mention advance care planning, the Obama administration has been able to achieve its policy goal through the regulation-writing process, a strategy that could become more prevalent in the next two years as the president deals with a strengthened Republican opposition in Congress.

In this case, the administration said research had shown the value of end-of-life planning.

“Advance care planning improves end-of-life care and patient and family satisfaction and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives,” the administration said in the preamble to the Medicare regulation, quoting research published this year in the British Medical Journal.

The administration also cited researchby Dr. Stacy M. Fischer, an assistant professor at the University of ColoradoSchool of Medicine, who found that “end-of-life discussions between doctor and patient help ensure that one gets the care one wants.” In this sense, Dr. Fischer said, such consultations “protect patient autonomy.”

Opponents said the Obama administration was bringing back a procedure that could be used to justify the premature withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from people with severe illnesses and disabilities.

Section 1233 of the bill passed by the House in November 2009 — but not included in the final legislation — allowed Medicare to pay for consultations about advance care planning every five years. In contrast, the new rule allows annual discussions as part of the wellness visit.

Elizabeth D. Wickham, executive director of LifeTree, which describes itself as “a pro-life Christian educational ministry,” said she was concerned that end-of-life counseling would encourage patients to forgo or curtail care, thus hastening death.

“The infamous Section 1233 is still alive and kicking,” Ms. Wickham said. “Patients will lose the ability to control treatments at the end of life.”

Several Democratic members of Congress, led by Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, had urged the administration to cover end-of-life planning as a service offered under the Medicare wellness benefit. A national organization of hospice care providers made the same recommendation.

Mr. Blumenauer, the author of the original end-of-life proposal, praised the rule as “a step in the right direction.”

“It will give people more control over the care they receive,” Mr. Blumenauer said in an interview. “It means that doctors and patients can have these conversations in the normal course of business, as part of our health care routine, not as something put off until we are forced to do it.”

After learning of the administration’s decision, Mr. Blumenauer’s office celebrated “a quiet victory,” but urged supporters not to crow about it.

“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue.

“This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican
leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”

Moreover, the e-mail said: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.”

The e-mail continued: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

In the interview, Mr. Blumenauer said, “Lies can go viral if people use them for political purposes.”

The proposal for Medicare coverage of advance care planning was omitted from the final health care bill because of the uproar over unsubstantiated claims that it would encourage euthanasia.

Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, and Representative John A. Boehnerof Ohio, the House Republican leader, led the criticism in the summer of 2009. Ms. Palin said “Obama’s death panel” would decide who was worthy of health care. Mr. Boehner, who is in line to become speaker, said, “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.” Forced onto the defensive, Mr. Obama said that nothing in the bill would “pull the plug on grandma.”

A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that the idea of death panels persists. In the September poll, 30 percent of Americans 65 and older said the new health care law allowed a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare. The law has no such provision.

The new policy is included in a huge Medicare regulation setting payment rates for thousands of services.

[Ryan Ruck]

Individual mandate declared unconstitutional and nonseverable. Whole act void! Wooooo!

[American Patriot]

NUKE 'EM!!!!!!!!!!!!

You beat me by 30 seconds

[American Patriot]

Obama.... do you hear us NOW?

Hello! America has spoken. Now, stop screwing with American Capitalism. This is NOT and NEVER WILL be A SOCIALIST COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ryan Ruck]

[American Patriot]

Lol

[Ryan Ruck]