Chuck Grassley, Senate Finance Committee Chairman

So nice that the GOP is now running things in Washington.

The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.

The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after it was derided by conservatives as "death panels" to encourage euthanasia.

"On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. "We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

Three observations for the assembled:

1) Somebody tell Max Baucus that Chuck Grassley is running his committee. If I were ol' Max, I'd be pissed.

2) So this means the death panel nonsense will finally stop, right? (Of course it won't, but logic is a funny thing.)

3) Relating to #2, hasn't Grassley done the Democrats a huge favor by "euthanizing" the death panel nonsense? (And no, for the same reason the answer to #2 is also no.)

Seriously. At this point I have to give Grassley credit, Max Baucus can't defend his committee chair turf without saying Grassley's wrong on end-of-life provisions in the Senate version of the bill, and then Baucus gets attacked for wanting to pull the plug on Grandma again.

Max Baucus is increasingly useless, even for a Democratic Senator.

[UPDATE 3:33 PM] Steve Benen reports that the WSJ also confirms that this is true.

It's easy to mock the insane rhetoric about "death panels," but let's not forget that right-wing activists, by screaming about an imaginary threat, are getting exactly what they want.

Tucked inside a sweeping House bill to overhaul the health system is a provision that would require Medicare to pay physicians to counsel patients once every five years. During those sessions, doctors could discuss how patients can plan for such end-of-life decisions as setting up a living will, obtaining hospice care or establishing a proxy to make their health decisions when they are unable to do so. [...]

[G]rowing complaints over the provision are leading key lawmakers to conclude that the health overhaul should leave out any end-of-life counseling provisions. A group in the Senate Finance Committee that is attempting to craft Congress's only bipartisan health bill has decided to exclude such a measure, Senate aides said this week. [emphasis added]

Up until very recently, this provision was a common-sense idea that enjoyed bipartisan support. It would help seniors and their families plan for end-of-life care; it would help guide physicians and doctors; it would help save taxpayers money; and it would help honor patients' wishes. Even insurance companies are fine with it.

But after a right-wing temper tantrum, based on confusion and lies, lawmakers are prepared to dump the idea altogether.

Who wins? Unhinged activists, who are effectively being told that they'll get their way if they scream loud enough. Who loses? Everyone else.

And the protests will get louder and more intense, and the GOP will continue to feed the protests in order to try to bludgeon Democrats into doing what they want, and the Democrats will keep on folding.

Will the Democrats ever, ever stand up for themselves or for America?