Governor Sara Palin of Alaska is not afraid to say what she feels. Unlike most politicians  who “calibrate” - to use a word from President Obama’s vocabulary – who calibrate their message carefully, sometimes to avoid the harsh truth of their message, Sara is not afraid to use strong language to make her point abundantly clear.

        The reason we need to support courageous people like Sara is that the media will relentlessly try to destroy them. Take for example the Associated Press report by Erica Werner. The issue is whether or not government should pay doctors for their time in counseling the elderly on legal matters such as living wills, and appointing legal proxies. These are matters that should be discussed with an attorney.

        Werner crows that the Obama healthcare bill H.R. 3200 is supported by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. The meaning of “palliative” in the legal sense is treatment that does not cure the ailment but is an attempt to merely mask the symptoms. A perfectly reasonable assumption is that the Hospice organization supports the bill because it will replace surgery that cures with palliative treatment until the patient dies of the illness.

        Werner defends statements made by Obama that his plan will not create “death panels”, as Sara claimed. In a article entitled “Palin Stands by ‘Death Panel’ Claim”, Werner’s argument is this “the bill she [Palin] cites merely authorizes government reimbursements to doctors for voluntary end-of-life consultations.” I’d like to point out two words Werner uses and explain why I think she chose them. The first should be obvious. She uses the word “merely” as if there is no mandate in the bill. In fact the bill mandates that everyone shall have end of life counseling every 5 years and those who have a terminal illness will be counseled more often.

        How the doctors are paid can create a “moral hazard” and a conflict of interest. For example, Medicare pays a set fee for a 15 minute visit, but pays less then 4 times that amount for a one hour visit. Consequently doctors spend 15 minutes with 4 patients in an hour instead of one hour with one patient. Obama has made it clear that doctors are only in it for the money, so I wouldn’t expect a strong rebuttal from the White House to this argument. So paying doctors to counsel and then rewarding them when a patient enters Hospice is not “merely” reimbursing doctors. It will determine the outcome.

        The second word used by Werner I want to comment on is the world “voluntary”.  Werner used the term at least three times to emphases that the elderly patient will make an independent decision. As an attorney I would like to be present during those counseling secessions, and I would expect to be “reimbursed” for my time to make sure that whatever decision was made by an elderly and infirm patient was truly voluntary. It should be obvious from the many reports of scamming senior citizens that they are more susceptible to being misled into making wrong choices for their lives.

        I totally support strong language to illustrate a point. Sara refused to back down or “recalibrate” her words, because when you see Sara you are seeing the real deal. The democrats use strong language all the time. We had to listen to it for eight years during the recent Bush administration. Strong words like “death panel” make a point and a strong point at that. When you read, watch and listen to a member of the liberal media sitting in judgment of a conservative republican, you can be sure that the media is afraid of the truth and their only recourse is to discredit the messenger.