To the editor:
Does Obamacare have death panels?
NO! The original health care reform law written in the House of Representatives did have language that would have allowed terminally ill patients to receive free end-of-life counseling from physicians paid for by Medicare.
However, Sarah Palin called this counseling "death panels," and so the final version of the Affordable Care Act that came from the Senate and approved by the House and signed into law by President Obama does NOT include free end-of-life counseling for terminally ill patients.
This does NOT mean that Medicare stops paying hospital and medical expenses for those patients because it still does. Unfortunately, thanks to Sarah Palin, terminally ill patients do NOT receive free end-of-life counseling from physicians paid for by Medicare.
David L. Faust
Selinsgrove
