House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, on July 23, released a statement warning that it "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia."
More recently, on Facebook postings, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin charged that "death panels" would ration life-extending procedures.
Belatedly, the White House and Democratic lawmakers have pushed back.
Obama answered the accusation that Democrats wanted to "pull the plug on grandma" by dismissing it last week as a rumor and pointing out that a Republican senator was among the provision's leading proponents.
Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, sponsor of a Senate amendment to provide government help to people in formulating living wills and durable powers of attorney, described Palin's interpretation, in an interview with The Washington Post, as "nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up."
But Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, defending Palin's claim last week on Fox News, said "it is within the context of what people are seeing in some of the legislation that is floating around out there, when you're talking abut panels that are going to be imposed that will be making life-and-death decisions."
By the time lawmakers, such as Cardin, began holding public meetings this month, their attempts to correct the record were met with disbelieving shouts of "Read the bill!" Angry constituents toted hand-made signs that read "Obama Lies, Seniors Die" and "Obamacare is Senior Genocide" and distributed misleading analyses of the Democratic legislation.
Obama, at a town hall gathering Tuesday in New Hampshire, acknowledged that a "legitimate concern" underlies the worry about euthanasia: that overhauling the system will lead to rationing of health care.
"Right now insurance companies are rationing care," he said. "So why is it that people would prefer having insurance companies make those decisions, rather than medical experts and doctors figuring out what are good deals for care and providing that information to you as a consumer and your doctor so you can make the decisions?"
But the next day, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, part of a small bipartisan group negotiating a Senate Finance plan, may have effectively pulled the plug on the end-of-life provision.
