After explaining the legislative process and his own efforts as a key Republican negotiator on health care reform,  the discussion ultimately returned to the false claim, which Grassley also made earlier in the day, that a provision in a House health care bill could lead to forced euthanasia of the nation’s elderly population.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, speaks to a crowd in Panora Wednesday afternoon.

The gathering, the third of the senator’s day, began with Grassley explaining the reasons why it is important for him to be a “finger in the dike” of health care reform, saying without the work of the Senate Finance Committee, a much more partisan bill would have already been passed by the Senate.

“It’s better to be in the room and know what’s going on than outside the room,” Grassley told the crowd of more than 300.

But Grassley quickly returned to the popular myth he discussed earlier in the day during a similar town hall meeting in Winterset — that a Democratic health care bill will allow the federal government the power to “pull the plug on grandma.”

Despite the fact that the idea has been thoroughly debunked by political analysts, policy experts, and even a Republican senator, Grassley maintained that the current proposals moving through congress leave the door open to government-mandated euthanasia.

The proposal to which Grassley referred would merely require Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling sessions for anyone who would like it. It would also be completely voluntary. In Iowa, a similar law is already on the books, and Grassley’s grandson, state Rep. Pat Grassley (R-New Hartford), voted for it in 2008.

President Barack Obama pointed out at a town hall yesterday that the provision in question would allow Medicare to pay doctors to counsel patients about end-of-life care issues and would not, as he put it, “pull the plug on grandma because we decided that it’s too expensive to let her live anymore.”

Regardless, Grassley said the fear still exists that health care will have to be rationed, and that older Americans will get the short end of the stick.

“When you couple this with all the other fears that people have, and you have what they do in England, then you get the idea that someone is going to decide grandma’s lived too long,” he said.

Grassley is adamantly opposed to any government involvement in end-of-life planning, even if it is simply to provide money making it possible, because those decisions should instead be made in church.

“I think the best thing to do if you want to get people to think about end of life, number one Jesus Christ is the way to start,” he said. “But after that, in the physical life as opposed to your eternal life, it ought to be done within the family and considered a religious and ethical issue and not something that politicians deal with.”

Iowa Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley slammed Grassley earlier in the day for demeaning seniors who want the choice of consulting with their doctor about important end-of-life health care decisions.

“Now is the time for a rational discussion of health care concerns, not a time to spread fear among seniors,” Braley said.

Overall, Grassley gave plenty of red meat to a crowd that was overwhelmingly conservative, seemingly an attempt to answer his critics who have threatened him with a primary challenge if he continues to work towards health care reform. At one point, he even read from a list compiled on the way to the meeting of things he’s voted against, such as the bailout of General Motors and the federal stimulus package. He also called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandating a balanced budget.

Still, it was health care that dominated the forum. Grassley vowed to continue to work with Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana to craft a “consensus health care reform bill,” but vowed that he will vigorously oppose any legislation with a public option.

“I’ve said it several times, but I will not vote for a public option,” he said.

Below is video of Grassley discussing “death panels” in Panora.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, says the nation needed Gen. David Petraeus to think for himself and challenge Bush administration failures in Iraq — not soldier on as an “apologist” for what Harkin believes is a military-disabling and foreign policy-crippling debacle.

Harkin and U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., were the only two senators to recently vote against the appointment of Petraeus as commanding officer for Central Command, which oversees both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Here’s one of the biggest apologists for our war in Iraq,” Harkin said in response to questions from Iowa Independent on a conference call with media.

Harkin said Petraeus either buys into a broken plan or is functioning as a blindly loyal general.“Someone like that who’s been so promotive of what we’ve been doing in Iraq, why should we reward that?” Harkin said. “Either that’s what he believes or he’s just following the orders of Bush. You might say, ‘Well, a military person is supposed to follow orders.’ Well, not necessarily. We expect more of our officers, especially high-ranking officers, to exercise independent judgment.”

“We’ve had generals who have retired because they oppose Bush’s policies in Iraq,” Harkin said. “I have a lot of respect for that because I think some of those who retired felt that militarily this was not the right thing to do and it was ruining our military.”

Harkin, a Vietnam-era Navy pilot, said his vote on Petraeus was specific to the man, not an indictment of the military or career officers. In an earlier interview he had suggested that U.S. Sen. John McCain’s military family tree has him rooting in “dangerous” ground for responding to foreign policy matters.

“I was an officer in the military so I don’t have anything against the officer corps, for crying out loud. There are a number of great officers in the military, and I’ve met a lot of them. Not only are they smart and bright, but I think they have a healthy outlook on the role of the military in terms of what we’re doing in the broader context of the world community.”

Harkin’s views of war and chain of command issues, the need to challenge authority in the military in certain situations, were formed early in his career as a young aide for former U.S. Rep. Neal Smith, D-Iowa, during a trip to Vietnam, according to his Senate bio.

As a staff member accompanying a congressional delegation to South Vietnam, he revealed to the world the infamous “tiger cages” inside a South Vietnamese prison camp at Con Son Island. Withstanding tremendous pressure to withhold the sensitive information, Tom’s photographs and detailed account of the tiger cages were published in Life Magazine, exposing a cover-up and unearthing the shocking, inhuman conditions political prisoners were forced to endure. As a result, hundreds of tortured political prisoners were released.

Hayden ads, “Senator Harkin’s comments are nothing more than a political cheap shot aimed at a true war hero, Senator John McCain. All Americans should welcome this type of generational commitment to service, as it provides the very foundation of our great nation.”

“I was stunned, shocked, outraged, and ashamed when I found out why the president vetoed the bill,” Braley said at the National Press Club last week. “What is more disturbing is the fact that this administration cannot justify why these soldiers should not receive the judgment they so richly deserve and have faced roadblocks every step of the way. These POWs waited years and years for justice only to see this justice stolen by the Bush administration.”

In 2002, 17 American ex-prisoners of war who were brutally tortured in Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War sued Saddam Hussein’s regime. The veterans eventually won a judgment against Hussein. But shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration stepped in and had the judgment overturned.