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Opponents of health care reform on the Right and in the insurance industry have been employing scare tactics every time they step in front of a microphone and open their mouths. One of the parts of the proposed health care reform legislation they’ve been grossly exaggerating and downright lying about is aimed at both seniors and aging baby-boomers, and that is that the health care reform will force seniors into counseling every 5 years in order to try and convince them that it would be better for society to choose death over life. In other words, the government would be promoting euthanasia.

Part of this inaccurate portrayal of one of the proposed health care bills, was started by anti-health care reform sensationalist Betsy McCaughey, on former presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s radio show when McCaughey claimed that on page 425 “the Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.”

Nothing could be farther from the truth, but by quoting page numbers she lends credibility to her claim, this of course is eaten up by Right-Wingers. Then you have actual members of Congress fanning the flames of falsehood and the spread of lies becomes even more viral. House Minority Leader John Boehner warned Americans about the same provision claiming that it "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law."

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