Obama Gets Personal, Cites Grandmother's Death

(NEWSER) - Put Sen. Chuck Grassley in the fear-the-death-panels camp. Asked today at a town hall meeting to debunk that line of attack, Grassley did precisely the opposite, reports the Iowa Independent. "You have every right to fear," said Grassley—who, by the way, is one of three Republicans negotiating a health bill on the Senate finance panel, notes the Huffington Post. "We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." More»

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama took the stage in New Hampshire today to set the record straight about Democratic health care reform efforts. Though the crowd was all applause, Obama took on the raucous protests that have characterized recent town halls. “Let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations,” he said, laughing off rumors that the government would set up “death panels that will basically pull the plug on Grandma.” More»

Obama to add end-of-life planning to Medicare

(NEWSER) - Sarah Palin's "death panels" are back. The brouhaha surrounding end-of-life counseling forced Democrats to cut it from health care reform, but now President Obama is quietly adding the same policy to Medicare by rewriting regulations, reports the New York Times . Under the new policy, beginning Jan. 1 the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive measures. More»

Consequences will be felt in November midterm elections

(NEWSER) - The midterm elections are poised to shake up the political landscape, a consequence that Peggy Noonan traces directly back to the volatile town hall meetings of last summer. "Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats saw it coming," she writes of the movement. "But it was a seminal moment, and whatever is coming in November, it started there." Noonan goes so far as to liken the activity to Iranian unrest, given that most of the coverage came on the web and YouTube. More»

(AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter says Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech last week was an act "based on racism." Carter says Wilson's comment was part of an "inherent feeling" of some that a black man should not be president. In responding to a question at a town-hall meeting at his presidential center in Atlanta, Carter also called Wilson's comment "dastardly" and said the president should be treated with respect. More»