[Pardon me for veering away from science fiction for a moment,but the following has a bit of writing and fiction involved in it.  I don’t usually get political, but I thought it was interesting.]

Let’s give credit where credit is due.  Sarah Palin, by herself, created the “Death Panels” as a work of fiction.  Constantly associating them with Obama is bad authorship.  Obama would be plagiarizing if he stole the idea from Palin, who is the creator.  

Anyone who can take what was meant to be a clause that provided End of Life Counseling and turn it into some sort of tribunal is a fiction writer with nefarious purposes (unlike those of us who have no nefarious purposes).  

End of Life counseling would be nice.  Not many of us look ahead towards our deaths.  I remember how calm my parents were when they came to us and showed us the shiny bullet-like urns they had bought for their cremation.  Or how they asked us to draw up a list of things we wanted from them in their will.  Or as they prepare to retire and don’t have a house to call their own (as a minister, my father was housed in a parsonage provided by each church).  As they approach death, they are thinking through all these things.  Did they have help?  Yes, they did.  A pastor-friend who talked to them about wills and cremation.  But it’s good to talk about the end of life and what you want that to look like.

Who wants their last days controlled by a hospital, or by people who don’t have your best interests in mind, or who, by not having a will or any written statement, just don’t know what you want in your last days?  

The clause in the Healthcare makes it VOLUNTARY, but also gives the doctors compensation for this counseling.  It’s only fair and it’s better to discuss what YOU want at the end of your life, rather than what someone else forces you to have.  Hospitals can keep us alive, nearly indefinitely…now we get to choose HOW we are treated at the end of our lives.

I urge the media to stop referring to these as Obama’s Death Panels, and start referring them to their proper author, Sarah Palin.  If she wants to talk about them, let her wear the albatross that they are.  If she wants to deny folks the right to talk about their own treatment, then let her be treated with the kind of hatred she is stirring up towards the President.  

It’s her Fiction.  Let’s give her the credit.

[update: NYT article says we’ve been here before.  Which means Palin plagiarized.  Wow.]