Key senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from health overhaul legislation after language in a House bill caused a furor.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.

As I mentioned in my previous post, even Camille Paglia realizes that Sarah Palin's death squad metaphor is merely capturing Americans' collective unease with potentially ceding end-of-life decisions to a government-run national heath care system.

For more than a decade in Congress, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer . . . So it is something of a surprise to the Portland Democrat that he has earned a new measure of fame in recent days — as author of a health-care provision that some critics say would set up a "death panel."

That's pushing it, but it does have potential for abuse, if patients are pushed into making such decisions by their doctors.

Blumenauer responds:

In nearly four decades of public life, "this is the starkest example I've ever seen of how, if we're not careful, political discourse dissolves into some type of partisan cage-fighting, where there are no rules and anything goes," said Blumenauer, 60.

Palin's response was this:

"With all due respect, it's misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients," she said, noting that the provision authorizes consultations whenever a Medicare recipient's health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home.

Blumenauer defends his position thusly:

Blumenauer said the measure he supports would merely allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. Topics include living wills, designating a close relative or a trusted friend as a health care proxy and information about pain medications for chronic discomfort.

What on earth ever happened to people making these decisions for themselves, with their family members, and drawing up the paperwork either with a lawyer, or by using one of the sample forms available from various sites online?  Doctors don't already have enough to do treating their patients without having to play the role of lawyer, for which they don't have a degree and are not licensed to practice, as well?  It's absurd.  Let the doctors treat patients, and let the lawyers do the legal paperwork.

Blumenauer conters with this:

"This has taken on an outsized significance and so more people are paying attention to it than ever before," Blumenauer said. "I think you will see more people use this to say, 'What will happen to me if I am in an accident? Here's what I want.' More people are going to take matters into their own hands."

If that's the objective of the provision, then draft a bill requiring all citizens who are no longer minors to have such documents.  Make the forms available through congressional representatives' offices, and let those who don't have internet access and a printer print them out at their local library.  Don't make it part of a nationalized health care system.  And don't push lawyer duties onto doctors.

What I find really confusing though, is that the article switches back and forth between the Senate and Congress bills, and quotes from Senators and Representatives.  It sounds like the provision has only been dropped from the Senate version, and not from any of the ones floating around in the House.

Granted, the AP is one of the MSM news outlets, so the article has a liberal bias to begin with.  But, it really astounds me that anyone with a journalism degree is so devoid of clarity, and full of "reporting" that is just plain confusing.  There is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension.  The author of the piece was not given a byline -- just an AP dateline -- but, the article was about as clear as a potter's clay slurry.  A news article shouldn't require the reader to examine the subtext, and possibly re-read several paragraphs to digest it all, as if it was classic literature.