Damage Done, Grassley Recants on Death Panels

They know the damage has been done, that the talk about so-called non-existent death panels has impacted health care reform, so now the GOP is saying "Mea Culpa." Such is the case of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) who championed the idea less than two weeks ago.

On August 12th, Grassley told a health care town hall in his home state of Iowa:

"There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Meanwhile, on Face the Nation on Sunday, Grassley admitted there was no such thing as a "death panel."

He stammered his way through explaining why he said that, however.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Now, Democrats say there is nothing in this legislation that would pull the plug on grandma, or even require people to discuss it. Why did you say that, Senator Grassley?

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY: I said that because--two reasons. Number one, I was responding to a question at my town meetings. I let my constituents set the agenda. A person that asked me that question was reading from language that they got off of the internet. It scared my constituents. And, the lang-- the specific language I used was language that the President had used at Portsmouth, and I thought that it was-- if he used the language, then if I responded exactly the same way that I had an opposite concern about not using end-of-life counseling for saving money, then I-- I was answering--

BOB SCHIEFFER(overlapping): All right.

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY: --and relieving the fears that my constituents had--

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, did you--

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY (overlapping): --and from-- from that standpoint, remember, you're talking about this issue being connected with a-- a government-run program, which a public option would take you with. You would-- you would get into the issue of saving money, and put these three things together and you're scaring a lot of people.

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well--

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY: And I know the Pel-- Pel-- Pelosi bill doesn't intend to do that, but that's where it leads people to.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, but that's-- that's what I was trying to get from you this morning. You're not saying that this legislation would pull the plug on grandma. You're just saying there are a lot of people out there who think that it would--

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY (overlapping): No, no.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --or do you want to say this morning that that is not true, that it won't do that?

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY: Well, it won't do that.

"It won't do that." End of story. But, as I said, the damage is done.