"Death Panel" Clause Stripped From Senate Bill, Grassley Nails House

Democrats have been smashed over this and the Senate Finance committee has wisely withdrawn it from its bill:

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said in a statement that the committee “dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”

A Senate Finance Committee aide confirmed that the panel was not discussing end-of-life measures, adding that they were “never a major focus” of the committee’s negotiations.House committees have passed legislation that would provide Medicare coverage for optional counseling sessions on end-of-life services.

In his statement, Mr. Grassley called the House legislation “so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences.”

“On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options,” he continued, adding “Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can’t.”

End-of-life care recently became a hot-button issue in the debate over health care reform, with conservative critics charging that proposed legislation could encourage euthanasia.

Grassely nails on Rangel and Waxmen's fantasy in the house. That bill is quite similar to the stimulus in that it lacked any general idea and became a patchwork of liberal pet projects and policy ideas. As part of the Bi-Partisian group in the Senate its clear Grassely along with the Democrats are being far more attuned to this debate then the elected Democrats who have adopted hatred and smears as their standard operating procedure. For the record there are still several health bills in Congress, the Dodd-Kennedy bill as well as several versions floating around the house leaving the possibility that this will survive.