Right-wingers are trying to make you die in pain

Christ almighty, this is fucked up in so many ways. By "this" I mean today's news that the Senate health-care negotiators have dropped the provision in the health-care reform bill that would have provided hospice counseling and other end-of-life advice. First of all... VOLUNTARY, okay?? Secondly, since when does counseling about hospice = euthanasia? Do Americans even know what hospice is? Apparently not. They're so fucking stupid that they believe these BLATANT LIES put out by right-wing nuts who don't believe the lies themselves but are deliberately and maliciously doing whatever they can to torpedo health care reform and, by extension, Obama himself. And these sheep don't bother to do some basic checking to see if such an outrageous thing might possibly be, oh I don't know, maybe a wee exaggeration? Or even a complete falsehood? Nope, they just believe what they're told by liars. Who are using this provision to play on stupid people's primitive fears of death, which is hugely ironic because hospice eases the physical and emotional pain of impending inevitable death. So what the morons are unwittingly saying is "No, we don't want end-of-life counseling -- sounds kinda scary. I think I'd rather die a painful, isolated, expensive, undignified death in a hospital in the true American tradition! Living wills? Health care proxies? Bad idea! I'm not gonna die, and you can't make me!"

I feel strongly about this (gee, can you tell?) because my mother died peacefully and painlessly in a hospice staffed by compassionate and caring people. Since then I've done a lot of reading about hospice. Not surprisingly, the movement got a foothold in England before it did so here, and it's always up against denial and fear of death and pain, which ironically would be greatly lessened if they would just face the fucking fact that we're all going to die and accept some help with that -- not help in hastening death, but in making it more bearable.

And guess who are among these lie-spreading right-wing nuts?

1. That ignorant, paranoid, demagogic bitch, Sarah Palin -- surprise! She was fun to laugh at during the campaign (thank you, Tina Fey!) and during her totally incoherent farewell speech ("It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future..."), but this is NOT funny, it is frightening. Sadly, I bet more people are reading her ghost-written Facebook bullshit rather than a mainstream newspaper to get their so-called information.
2. Chuck Grassley, whose new title is the Shitbag Senator, who said at a town meeting, "you have every right to fear" the provision... There are some people who think it is a terrible problem that grandma is laying in a bed with tubes in her... and that the government should intervene."
3. Some mental case named Betsy McCaughey, who for some reason gets time on cable TV and radio to spout complete lies about "absolutely mandatory" end-of-life counseling. The AARP, which supports the provision (as does the AMA), had to issue a response noting that her commentary was "rife with gross—and even cruel—distortions." But that doesnt stop flaming assholes like Rush Limbaugh from spreading the lies.