That quote is usually credited to Republican Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA), who said it in 1918 in the midst of World War I. Now, we're in the midst of a political war over health insurance and Republicans are demonstrating they know well how to apply Johnson's aphorism.
Just when the "birthers," the delusional political partisans who insist that President Obama is not a natural born citizen, are losing their amusement value, they have morphed into "deathers," delusional political partisans who insist that President Obama is conspiring to kill old people. They aren't so funny in this guise, although The Daily Show satire of the deathers is pretty funny.
Today, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) joins New Gingrich and Sarah Palin as Republican Party leaders who are peddling that myth of "death panels" shamelessly. Grassley told a town hall meeting today, "We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." Earlier, Sarah Palin decried Obama's "death panels" that were going to kill her baby. Gingrich defended Palin by telling George Stephanopolous, "You're asking us to trust the government when there clearly are people in the government who believe in establishing euthanasia."
All of this makes Pete Sessions (R-TX) sound relatively sane. The only outrageous falsehood he told at last week's town hall meeting in Texas was that the Democratic bill eliminates private insurance. Sessions didn't condemn the sign "Euthanize ObamaCare, Not Our Seniors" that was cheered by his town hall audience, but at least he didn't explicitly endorse it, either.
Isn't there someone who can calmly and rationally discuss end-of-life medical care? Someone interested in solving the health care crisis in our country and not just interested in scoring cheap, political points? Someone who might suggest something like this:
"More than 20 percent of all Medicare spending occurs in the last two months of life. Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin has developed a successful end-of-life, best practice that combines: 1) community-wide advance care planning, where 90 percent of patients have advance directives; 2) hospice and palliative care; and 3) coordination of services through an electronic medical record. The Gundersen approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care. The Dartmouth Health Atlas has documented that Gundersen delivers care at a 30 percent lower rate than the national average ($18,359 versus $25,860). If Gundersen's approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year."
What's that, you say? Someone actually did say that, in an essay in The Washington Post? And it wasn't a socialist, granny-killing spokesman for the Obama administration? It was former Republican Speaker of the House New Gingrich, you say? As recently as July 2, 2009? How fast Gingrich's story changed when he saw political advantage in encouraging the spread of fear, uncertainty and doubt. It turns out that the American public is right to fear euthanasia. Truth was its first victim in this war.
23 comments:
The Government already has the funds to pay for Universal Health Care. It is time to stop the madness and violence at the health care reform meetings. Using shift work for white collar jobs could cut the cost of the 500 million square feet of office space currently in used by the federal governe=ment by up to 50%. This would save enough money to provide universal health care. It could also reduce the carbon footprint by 50%. For details go to:
http://whitecollargreenspace.blo...e.blogspot.com/
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whitecollargreenspaceguy@hotmail.com
whitecollargreenspaceguy ... umm, OK.
I caught an amusing clip from one of Jon Stewart's recent shows. They showed some of Obama's responses to some of the more colorful questions. They invoked the imagery of Pinhead from Hellraiser, except it was Obama with the name Healthraiser.
The hemorrhaging has begun. I hope he has coverage for that in his government plan.
Andy, thanks for seconding my compliment of Jon Stewart. Even conservatives are saying nice things about him.
By the way, rumors of Obama's political demise are greatly exaggerated.
i wouldn't go that far Ed. I never watch his show. I only saw this clip because i ran across it online.
I find most of Jon's comments to be disingenuous at best. Amusing to some people? Yes. Evidently enough to keep his show going.
"rumors of Obama's political demise are greatly exaggerated"
I don't know Ed. NPR hasn't started in on him yet, but the pundits on This Week and on Wolf Blitzer's round table have certainly had a go at him this week. Health Care, Afganistan, Secretaries of State who are still bitter over the 2000 election (which, granted she's right about, but still, that was 9 years ago, she needs to get past it).
BTW, I love Jon Stewart. He's ready and willing to point out anyone who's making a fool of themselves.
Andy, if you "never watch his show" then you probably aren't in the best position to be passing judgment.
Sherri, it's how Obama reacts to criticism that matters, not whether the pundits' have a go at him. It's the pundits' job to have a go at those in power. If anything, they do him a service by letting him know where his weaknesses are. And all Presidents have weaknesses.
You will also find a Jon Stewart clip featuring uber right wing nutcase Glenn Beck saying that healthcare reform is driven by Obama because of slavery reparations. I sh*t you not.
Its typical selective reading by right wing nuts. They see one Daily Show clip and they selectively declare victory and never notice the dozen other times the world makes fun of them.
"Anonymous" at 8/13/2009 8:35 AM, thanks for the feedback. Yes, Glenn Beck is inciting racism. Yesterday, our local DallasBlog featured an article by regular contributor James Reza titled, "A Black Fuehrer?" Open racism is acceptable again on the far right. Disgusting.
Anon,
I also don't watch Glenn Beck or Lou Dobbs, Maddow, Olbermann, O'Reilly, or any of those rabble rousers for the same reason. To be honest, what difference is there between any of them? Jon Stewart sells his form of political comedy/news. Glenn Beck does the same.
I can turn on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc or open any newspaper to see denigration of conservative values. Believe me, I am painfully aware of the frequency of attacks on conservatives, whether they are spun as comedy/satire or not.
So why are all these townhall meetings so necessary if POTUS has everything well in hand?
Racism on the right.... mysogyny on the left. Where is a "moderate" to go?
Andy, there is a difference with Jon Stewart that, like I said, even conservatives recognize.
GOP spokesperson Cliff May was on the show, talking about torture, and told Stewart, "Literally, this is the best conversation I've had on this subject anywhere."
This was after conservative Bill Kristol advised him to do the show, saying, "You'll be pleasantly surprised. He doesn't take cheap shots. Jon is smart. You'll do just fine."
By the way, everyone, not just moderates, should condemn both racism and mysogyny, and not distract attention from one by bringing up the other.
Also by the way, town hall meetings are an old tradition, useful in all political climates.
Well I'm glad Cliff May had a grown up chat with someone.
There are kooks on both sides. Unfortunately, we can't just drag them all out into the street and put them down like rabid dogs now can we?
So I generally avoid rewarding people like this by avoiding their programs. I vote with my wallet, and I vote with my viewership.
Andy, I endorse your position.
Ed,
When you can tell me, with 100% accuracy, not 99%, 100%, every time, all the time you know when that 2 months starts, go to it. There are too many examples of people who beat the odds.
Yeah, I would love to greatly reduce the money spent in the last two months of people lives. The only problem is the crystal ball that give 100% perfect answer on when the last two months starts has yet to be made.
signed LoneRider
Lone Ranger,
I think the idea behind the counseling is more along the lines of helping people make a living will. That way folks who want extreme measures taken to try to save their lives will get them, but those who don't, will not. The counseling could help people state in detailed and legal form what they considered extreme measures and what they did not. If you're close to the end and in constant pain you can tell the doctors that if you have heart failure that they are not to resuscitate you. You can also say that you want to be kept alive so do whatever is necessary to do that.
With the current system, if you don't tell them what you want, no matter how much pain you're in or how small your likelihood of survival is, they're going to keep you alive at any cost. I think that is what Ed is getting at.
Lonerider, you are right, we can never know for sure when death will take us. That's why everyone, including young people, should consult with their doctors about what their rights and options are for when the time comes. Waiting until near death is often too late. By that time, the decisions are going to be made by others, not you. The proposed bill will cover the costs of such consultation every five years. Many private health insurance policies already cover such consultations. Denying this benefit to people on Medicare is simply cruel.
P.S. Sherri has it exactly right.
Patients should have the right to decide for themselves what extraordinary treatments they want and don't want. Significant savings in our health care system can be achieved just by not forcing unwanted measures on patients who don't want them. This isn't rationing health care. It's honoring patients' rights to have a say in their own health care. One of the reforms that would do this is adding a Medicare benefit to pay for end-of-life consultations with doctors. The GOP protests just might succeed in getting this benefit removed from the bill, a result that would serve neither seniors nor taxpayers.
"There are kooks on both sides."
This is a red herring. We are not talking about "kooks on both sides."
We are talking about deliberate attempts to lie from the right and kooks on the right.
That there may be "kooks on both sides" (as if there are only two sides and as if we know what sides of what we are talking about) is not at issue.
Speaking of Jon Stewart, he is a satirist, and when Glenn Beck makes his claims that are no less ridiculous than "man didn't land on the moon" he is quite serious.
In the same clip where Stewart makes fun of Beck's insanity, he makes fun of democrat incoherence on health care.
Lumping Stewart in with O'Reilly, and Beck is an attempt to distract. Either that or its an attempt to excuse reprehensible conduct by claiming such conduct is OK by falsely claiming "they do it too."
"Anonymous" at 8/14/2009 11:46 AM, you are right. There are the kooks and then there are the liars. The shouters at town hall meetings are kooks who really believe the nonsense they spout. The GOP politicians like Grassley and Gingrich don't believe the nonsense (Grassley himself voted for end-of-life counseling before the GOP saw it as something to distort and exploit) but they spout it anyway to stir up the kooks. That's simply dishonest.
By the way, I don't know which group to assign Sarah Palin to.
P.S. Besides the GOP kooks and liars, I believe there are reasonable, honest people in the GOP, too. They are not speaking up. The kooks and liars seem to be in control of the party.
Ed, oh, yes, there are "reasonable, honest people in the GOP", just as there are in the Democratic Party...the problem is that party rules for both parties make it easier for highly partisan (for a given issue) people to control the party.
This is not because the rules actually say this, but because the rules don't account for human nature. For example (this is a GOP example, but I think it works similarly in the Democratic Party), while anyone who wants to vote in the Republican Primary can vote, only the people who attended the precinct convention after the vote (i.e. at 7:01 p.m.) get to elect delegates to the State Senatorial District convention and to vote on resolutions to be submitted up the chain.
Thus, any group with a little organization is able to swamp the precinct conventions, which means they swamp the state senatorial district conventions, which means they swamp the state convention...you see where this goes. Human nature dictates that those who are angry about something will show up the second time for the precinct convention, while those who aren't, stay home and watch the results on television.
In short, the way the rules are laid out, special interest groups have the advantage in both parties...which is exactly what we can observe.
People who vote in the primary do indeed help determine the party's candidates, but they don't determine the party's platform as chosen by the state and national conventions or by the executive committees for each state.
This is why the platforms of the two parties are often somewhat out of sync with a majority of people who actually vote in that party's primary...
Bill
Bill McCalpin, thanks for the feedback. So how do you account for the fact that reasonable, honest people in the GOP are not speaking out against the falsehoods being told about the health care reform bill(s)?
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