McCaughey opposed the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 debated in Congress in 2009. She made allegations about certain provisions of the bills that provided for Medicare payments to physicians for end-of-life and living will counseling and about Ezekiel Emanuel, then an adviser to the Obama administration's budget director and chairman of the bioethics department at the National Institutes of Health. McCaughey's claims may have inspired Sarah Palin's more high-profile claims that the legislation would lead to so-called death panels. The provisions in the legislation that McCaughey advocated against were removed from the bill before it became law.