Palin Wins Big Victory Against Death Panels Despite Media Frenzy
Dennis Miller likes to temper his praise for Sarah Palin by saying that he supports her because of the vile reaction she brings out in some of the biggest clowns in America. I don’t think Dennis goes far enough, becuase Palin also gives fits to the English with the Economist, dubbing her “patently ridiculous” and the Financial Times, which ran an Op-Ed and a News Analysis piece from Edward Luce, both saying pretty much the same thing, “No amount of contrary evidence will puncture the view that Mr Obama plans to establish “death panels” that will decide which grannies get to live or die”. So it must have come with some discomfort to our English friends that not only had Sarah Palin read and understood the Healthcare Bills (as opposed to most politicians), she also started a serious debate that made it all the way to the Senate to fix legislation about end of life issues.
Closer to home, the Tribune gave in and admitted that the Senate scrapped one of the provisions referred to by Gov. Palin as a Death Panel. But not before getting in a litany of attacks “The Palin claim about “death panels” was so widely discredited that the White House has begun openly quoting it in an effort to show that opponents of the health care overhaul are misinformed”. So, if I have this straight, because the side that is in favor of the end of life provisions says that the opponents are misinformed, then Gov. Palin is discredited. What a brilliant independent minded press we have where all that it takes to confirm a story is listening to our silver-tongued President campaign.
A red light should turn on in every newsroom in the United States when the ruling Emanuel Family makes charges like “‘It’s An Absolute Outrage” directed at Sarah Palin and anyone who might take time to read the bills before Congress.
A more inquisitive press might note that Pres. Obama was trying to push through his healthcare takeover before the August recess without so much as a debate on any of the issues addressed by the bill. It took a highly agitated American public working with the highly agitating talk show hosts to bring about any serious conversation on what is perhaps the biggest issue in American Politics (since we can no longer talk about the Iraq War). Something as simple as a Facebook Post by Sarah Palin (wasn’t Obama supposed to be the Facebook candidate?) set off a completely reasonable discussion as to the role of the Federal Government in life and death decisions. The media did everything it could to discredit the idea that the Feds will have a role in healthcare resource allocation, which is of course, a fundamental part of any healthcare reform. Call it a Death Panel if it will wake anyone up, but it is definitely true that the Federal Government will be making financial decisions about healthcare regardless of the wails of the Emanuel Family.
I’ll paraphrase a Congressman I spoke to at at Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) lunch in Chicago last week, “we can’t keep up with constituent requests over passport processing, how will we ever manage the backlog for CAT scans?”, which gets to the heart of the questions that should be coming up in the Press, and do occasionally come up at Town Hall meetings. Do we trust our politicians with centralized control of the healthcare industry?
Keep in mind that the last time Pres. Obama really set in on health care, we ended up with Tony Rezko choosing members of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, a major set of scandals and an indicted Governor.
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John Powers is the President of the Chicago Daily Observer
Well done, John.
Sarah Palin gives hiccups to the talkers. No less a fatuous goof than Paul Begala recently called the former Governor and ‘Intellectual Lighweight;’ yet, Palin can articulate what is in this speedball* Health legislation, eminently more clearly than the President.
* speedball -is a term commonly referring to the intravenous use of heroin/morphine and cocaine together in the same syringe.
I’m a democrat because I’m for pro-choice and for the poverty allevation.
But the way I see it now, I find that Obama is no ECONOMY President. All his efforts in the last 8 months have been a train wreck.
I’m willing to give this Woman another chance.
For starter, thank you Ms. Palin for expousing that very scary “death panel” being shoved by Obama’s minions to our throats.
I have an old parents and 1 grandmother to take care of. Besides the doctor, I don’t want anyone especially somebody from the Government to intervene with my decisions when time comes.
Again, thanks for the good article. All I’m asking is an unbiased reporting and analysis. Because I know that both Republican and Democrat politicians are CORRUPT.
The true “death panels” aren’t in any bill presently going through Congress – they are in the “best practices” or “medical protocols” that are being formed by a committee set up under the earlier stimulus bill. Rham Emmanuel’s brother (who thinks life isn’t “viable” until age 2 and that old people should do with less medical care) serves on this committee, but we don’t know who else has been forming these “best practices”. No one wants unnecessary medical care – although the media scare tactics on every imaginable disease possible have people running more frequently to doctors for potential problems – but these “best practices” won’t take into consideration the specific person – their family longevity, their activity level or what they give back to society.
I know of a man locally who is 91 and in good health. 5 days a week in the summer he skippers boats with severely handicapped people out on Long Island Sound, as a volunteer for 2 hours at a time. This summer he will skipper at least 300 trips for these people. In his “spare time” he restores historic airplanes and until he turned 90 he then flew them. He sings weekly in his church choir and is a boy scout leader as well as taking care of his infirm wife. No “best practice” nor “medical protocol” would take his contributions and good health into cønsideration.
I don’t know about you, but I want those decisions to be made between me and my doctor – no one else.
Great, accurate article!
For the Federal Government to be in control of our health care is ludicrous – look how they’ve handled Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, Hurricane Katrina, etc.
Death Panels already exist…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/death_panel_is_not_i n_the_bill.html
H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The Council is the brain child of former Health and Human Services Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle. Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council’s purpose – http://tinyurl.com/c44ah5
Who is on the Council? One of its most prominent members is none other than Dr. Death himself Ezekiel Emanuel. Dr. Emanuel’s views on care of the elderly should frighten anyone who is or ever plans on being old. He explains the logic behind his discriminatory views on elderly care as follows:
Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.”
Sarah tweets, Obama retreats, nuff said.
I detest Palin. Her stupid claim that end of life counseling is a death panel is a total perversion of language. If this is how Republicans gain victory they should never have a say in American politics again.
All I can hope is that there is karma and as she is dying, nobody provides Palin with counseling to help her deal with her death.
I have worked at a cancer institute, and end of life issues affect everyone, from providers to the patients family. To condemn treatment just to gain attention from the press corps is irresponsible, contemptable and disgusting.
May her political career rest in peace.
My wife who died of brain cancer in a hospice and fought the whole way, once fired an Obstetrician who ‘counselled her’ to abort my son, over a ‘test’ that showed ‘conclusively’ that he would have Downs Syndrome – she was a member of LaPorte County Planned Parenthood, as well.
Not only was this ’scientific’ person wrong, but morally off the wall.
I’ll take a Sara Palin over a ghoul in lab coat any day.
Oh Please Mark,
Can you also “hope” that no group of Federal bumblers will visit me when I am dying?
JMK
Could this discussion be more insane? People are terrified that “faceless government bureaucrats” will be making health care decisions for them? Just who do they think is running the insurance companies – loving family members? It’s a bunch of bureaucrats – with the added bonus of being profit-driven and greedy. The argument is so absurd it’s laughable. These ninnies are FIGHTING TO HAVE CORPORATIONS DENY THEM HEALTHCARE.
Many millions of Americans have been dumped from private insurance when they found themselves ill. Millions more are denied life-saving healthcare by private insurers EVERY DAY. The reason we have a health insurance crisis is because private insurers run their businesses for profit, not for the welfare of individuals. No one does “death panels” better than a for-profit insurer’s actuary, assisted by thousands of managers and clerical workers. We pay their salaries so they can do this.
The shame of it is that that the fearmongerers blatantly lied just to frighten seniors and to force this very useful and important counseling right off the table for no other reason than political point-scoring.
Lisa,
I am actually more terrified of the track record of the Pres. Obama and the Emanuel Family than I am of a faceless bureaucrats.
JBP
Rationing care is a given in the health care plans being developed. This will deny care based on cost, and what a white house individual(Rhamm’s brother) decides. Sara is right, and should be congratulated. One thing that really bothers me is that there are no discussions about tort reform in any of these conversations. Mal practice insurance is out of control, because attorneys take cases to judges and juries who will determine huge payouts to make the attorneys rich as can be. I’m all for making bad doctors pay for pain and suffering, but the current situation is not sustainable to use a word Obama has used about the current health situation in the US. Tort reform should be the first thing attacked in any health care reform.
Lawmakers have not been doing their job if they pass bills without reading and knowing about them. This has been going on and now The People suffer.
# 16 said:
The true “death panels” aren’t in any bill presently going through Congress – they are in the “best practices” or “medical protocols” that are being formed by a committee set up under the earlier stimulus bill. Rham Emmanuel’s brother (who thinks life isn’t “viable” until age 2 and that old people should do with less medical care) serves on this committee…
EJ Emanuel has known since at least 1988 that Advance Directives give ending life decisions to doctors. Without an Advance Directive, the doctor is morally obligated to treat the patient as a patient until death. The following article was published in 2003:
Gregory W. Rutecki, M.D.
http://bmei.org/jbem/volume8/num3/rutecki_an_evangelical_critique_of_advance_directives.php
“Emanuel 29 followed nursing home patients for two years after the completion of an advance directive. After medical record review and physician interview, the authors concluded that in many cases the patient’s choices were overridden because their physician disagreed with the wisdom of their choice. On occasion, the override represented the withholding of treatment because the physician decided it would not benefit the patient. End-of-life choices through vaguely worded advance directives may be primarily relegated to physicians who lack a consensus about what it means to be human”. “With increasing governmental and third party intrusion into the contemporary contract model of medical care, will advance directives become a coercive tool that rations end-of-life care by offering euthanasia as a cheaper alternative to life?”
29. op. cit., Emanuel, E.J., et al., 1988.
Lisa writes: “Just who do they think is running the insurance companies – loving family members? It’s a bunch of bureaucrats – with the added bonus of being profit-driven and greedy. The argument is so absurd it’s laughable. These ninnies are FIGHTING TO HAVE CORPORATIONS DENY THEM HEALTHCARE.”
Allow me to make two key distinctions between private and public options Lisa. First, if a private insuror treats you badly you can shop for other coverage and second, with private insurors you have two other options; you can appeal their decisions and/or sue them. With Obama care (H.R. 3200)there shall be NO APPEALS and NO LAWSUITS (page 30). Unlike private insurors, the Feds will win every dispute, every time.
As a bonus, under H.R. 3200, the Feds will have direct access to your checking account (page 59), and every officer or employee of the healthcare plan will have access to your complete financial records (page 195). This is of course, intended to eventually confiscate assets, both as to health care, and taxes.
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