By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Sarah Palin reiterated Wednesday her concerns that people are going to be killed by President Barack Obama's health care reform.
In a new Facebook posting, Palin criticized Obama for not taking her seriously when she said a "death panel" might decide the fate of the ill or elderly in the future.
In other words, rationed care by government bureaucrats (as opposed, of course, to the rationed care by health insurance company bureaucrats that Americans have now).
Wrote Palin:
President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisers are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.
Great. Now that Palin isn't backing down from her charges, can a response from the White House be far away? Stay tuned.
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Hypocrite like Gingrich
Palin is a hypocrite about end of life just like Gingrich. there are related posts about the two at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
Here's news for all you ..
death panel opposers. They have decided to pull the republican originated end of life counseling provision. Whew, you can bring Granny out of hiding.
Now, let's pass a bill!
"Great. Now that Palin isn't backing down from her charges,
can a response from the White House be far away? Stay tuned."
Like we respond to the raving guy pushing a grocery cart down the street. She's fallen down the rabbit hole.
Curiouser and curiouser....
I'd believe Palin over Obama
"I guess the GOP figures that if we are stupid enough to question President Obama's nationality"
Do you have to be dumber than the GOP to forget that Obama refuses to save the life of any baby that survives an abortion attempt? Which lives do you suppose he thinks are worth saving? In all fairness, give Obama a break. this business is entirely above his paygrade. But letting the government handle healthcare is a disaster. If Congress wants to reform healthcare, why don't they fix any of the health messes that they already run instead of beginning a newer more expensive mess? Remember: whoever pays for your healthcare gets to tell you what healthcare you get or don't get. Period.
I wonder if Teri Schivo's
I wonder if Teri Schivo's family would agree the government would never endose euthanasia?
No,
the government allowed the FAMILY to make the decision. It was the republican congress that was doing all the meddling
And Now for the Nail in the Coffin (no pun intended)
Again, just the facts please -
Question2 – Does the AAHCA proposal grant authority to the Consultation board to limit and even flat out deny interventions to prolong your life?
Answer2 – YES. They can grant, limit SOME OR ALL of the options available to you if they so choose.
11 "(B) The level of treatment indicated under subpara
12 graph (A)(ii) may range from an indication for full treat-
13 ment to an indication to limit SOME OR ALL or specified
14 interventions
Palin's use of the "Death Squads" identifier may be over the top but the fact remains that these commissions do have the power to end your life if they so choose.
Advance Care Planning Consultation
Let's just look at the text shall we?
AAHCA – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009
Pages 429 – 430 (from sub section “Advance Care Planning Consultation” page 425, line 3)
Question1 – Does the AAHCA proposal authorize the Secretary to issue “orders” to limit or outright deny medical intervention to prolong your life?
Answer1 – YES
10 "(4) A consultation under this subsection may in-
11 clude the formulation of an ORDER regarding life sustaining
12 treatment or a similar ORDER.
13 "(5)(A) For purposes of this section, the term 'ORDER
14 regarding life sustaining treatment' means, with respect
15 to an individual, AN ACTIONABLE MEDICAL ORDER relating to
16 the treatment of that individual
Are we really this stupid?
I can't believe that people in this country actually take these propaganda statements seriously. I guess the GOP figures that if we are stupid enough to question President Obama's nationality, we are stupid enough to believe anything. Rah rah mindless nationalism! Long live the Bush King!
Palin is right
Palin is right. Obama lies, as usual. Palin is not part of the dumbed down population who is ready to believe Obama’s ridiculous fairy tales. She knows that providing coverage for 50 million MORE people and paying for Obama’s armies of bureaucrats to run the Obamacare means further INCREASING THE DEFFICIT and RATIONING.
Under the one-payer system (socialized medicine) that Obama and his accomplices plan for us sooner or later, doctors will be working for the government, following government’s orders. In spite of the doublespeak, it’s obvious that the very young and the elderly will be FORCED to sacrifice.
Palin knows about Obama's pro-abortion and pro-infanticide (late-term abortion) stand, as well as the stands of Obama's Health Care Czar Ezekiel Emanuel and Science Czar John Holdren, who has called for population-control policies such as forced abortions, mass sterilizations, and mandatory population controls.
Palin has read the House bill http://www.jeffhead.com/HC-HouseII.pdf. In spite of the bill’s doublespeak, you can see (pages 425-430) that we will be asked to receive end-of-life (death) counseling when we turn 65.
It's an O-P-T-I-O-N
Palin has read the House bill http://www.jeffhead.com/HC-HouseII.pdf. In spite of the bill’s doublespeak, you can see (pages 425-430) that we will be asked to receive end-of-life (death) counseling when we turn 65.
Do you understand what that means?
V-O-L-U-N-T-A-R-Y
Palin is fighting to stay
Palin is fighting to stay relevant in the national scene. The sad thing is some people find her rhetoric representative of the truth.
The conservatives are constantly pushing these negative notions on the public with portions of the legislation taken extremely out of context. Understandably, people are upset at these town hall meetings because they are being told wrong information, and they become so emotional surrounding these falsehoods that they are deaf to any reason.
I was watching Sean Hannity. He interviewed a women who spoke with Arlen Specter. When he asked what Specter's response was, she could not tell, but she remained upset. They spun the interview to position Specter negatively.
Palin has a degree in journalism, so you would think she would want to publish the truth, but I guess she missed the integrity lecture when she was transferring between colleges.
Sarah Palin as Fools Gold
It boggles my mind that anyone can take a person like Palin seriously. This is a person who had to college shop to obtain a degree (in communications no less), who cannot express herself accurately because she doesn't know what to think or even cannot think at all, and has the aura of "gold digger" written all over herself, her wink and blink, and RNC bought clothes.
Artwill & Yael have this in common
THEY BOTH HATE PALIN! And can't wait to say so.
British NHS is also accused of Death Panels
Palin and others also accused the British National health System as fostering death panels. The British are now vehemently objecting to this distortion and supporting their NHS. The British, like the majority in American, are in overwhelming support of the US health care reform.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111823858
Yeah, the NHS has death panels
Not all the Brits are enamored of the NHS. See:
"I deeply resent the Americans sneering at our health service - but perhaps that's because the truth hurts"
By Stephen Glover
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1206149/STEPHEN-GLOVER-I-deeply-resent-Americans-sneering-health-service---thats-truth-hurts.html
And see the comment posted there from someone whose mother was left to die from lack of a liver transplant because the NHS didn't allow it based on probability. Sounds like a death panel to me.
Um, this is the internet
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1206149/STEPHEN-GLOVER-I-deeply-resent-Americans-sneering-health-service---thats-truth-hurts.html
And see the comment posted there from someone whose mother was left to die from lack of a liver transplant because the NHS didn't allow it based on probability. Sounds like a death panel to me.
Anyone can type anything and post it.
Um, this is the reality side of the Twilight Zone
Here's two articles about a UK case just last month where a liver was denied by bureaucrats overruling the recommendation of doctors:
Excerpted from the second article below:
"Gary was turned down because he wasn't able to prove to doctors that he had the drive and determination to stop drinking, simply because he was too ill to actually leave hospital [to prove it] ... A transplant was his only hope, but he was denied it.
'The doctors treating him pushed for it, because they could see that underneath it all Gary was a fighter. One of them told us they had written a six-page letter arguing that he should have a transplant.
'They arranged this groundbreaking treatment with an artificial liver from the States. It didn't work. But they pulled out all the stops.
'The pen-pushers stopped it all, though. They said: "No exceptions."
-
Read more:
'Please help me Mum, I don't want to die': Last words of alcoholic, 22, who died after being refused liver transplant
By Julie Moult and Ryan Kisiel
Last updated at 12:17 PM on 21st July 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200692/Please-help-Mum-I-dont-want-die-Last-words-alcoholic-22-died-refused-liver-transplant.html
So how did this bright-eyed little boy come to die of drink at 22? Read his mother's story and decide
By Jenny Johnston
Last updated at 5:03 PM on 23rd July 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1201509/So-did-bright-eyed-little-boy-come-die-drink-22-Read-mothers-story-decide.html
Insurance agents reject more in US
Umar,
You point is well taken, however it happens in the US also. The socialist systems you hate only have 3 to 5% overhead so they can pay for more operations. Our wonderful insurance companies take up to 30%, that's alot of denied operations. Google Nataline Sarkisyan, she was denied a liver transplant by Cigna. Liver transplants also have a waiting list, they are hard to come by. When I looked up the case you mentioned in your comment, it turned out to be much more complex than you let on. It certainly is not a case of evil government officials. The young man had cirrosis of the liver at 22! I'm sure the person who did get the liver is happy, those difficult decisions are made every day. Of course Steve Jobs can get a liver right away, that's American healthcare.
Death panels are the issue
manderso1, I don't necessarily "hate socialist systems". When my wife gave birth to our first child in Malaysia, the cost for everything from start to finish was US $6.00.
My objections are not to "socialist" v. "capitalist" approaches to medical care, my objections are to managed care systems operated by bureaucrats. I have every bit as much contempt for the corporate thugs mentioned in Michael Moore's "Sicko" as I have for the NHS bureaucrats who killed that young man.
Agreed that the health care system in America is a catastrophe and requires "change", but not Obama's variety.
We could start by tripling the number of medical colleges and students to increase supply. Then we could subsidize medical students so that they don't have to start out as near bankrupts. We could provide financial incentives to general practitioners to give up insurance altogether and accept only cash payments, which would radically reduce the charges that they would have to make. Physician assistants could be authorized to prescribe some non-narcotic drugs for everyday complaints. There are so many other alternatives that I'm sure you and many others could suggest. All without establishing a new layer of officious bureaucrats who will kill you "ethically", as they did in the UK liver transplant case.
Finally, you state that "When I looked up the case you mentioned in your comment, it turned out to be much more complex than you let on. It certainly is not a case of evil government officials. The young man had cirrosis of the liver at 22!"
Okay, so he did. So what? Here is what worries me: You are allowing your subjective view of the cause of his cirrhosis at age 22 to allow bureaucrats to decide what medical course should be taken in his case. This was most certainly a "case of evil government officials" or at least a case of Vogon decisionmaking. And that is precisely WHY everyone who opposes "Obamacare" is deeply concerned about it.
Insert language into the statute that forever forbids the use of subjective judgments about why a patient is ill to deny that patient medical care - either by government bureaucrats OR by HMOs - and I'll reconsider my opposition to Obama's health plan in an instant.
ludricrous...
when you're in a hole Sarah, stop digging. You're becoming a caricature of yourself.
WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?
where are these angry Republicans coming from? where was Sarah Palin or any of these defenders of America during the last 8 years when Bush was President, and he and his Neo-Cons were destroying the Constitution and almost any International Convention (Geneva) there is?
The claims (death panels) are so ridiculous that is going to put off all the Independents that switch party so often, and is going to leave the Republicans with only the "faithful" base of 30% of the population, those that are close minded and won't listen to anything the other side says. I always listen to the other side and question the facts that somebody presents to me. Is the only way of taking smart decisions.
The same place you are now
Obama kept the rendition program and the wire tap program ( and even extended it's reach). Where are your same calls about "destroying the constitution"?
Palin
Palin is such a loose cannon. She is either incredibly stupid or just incredibly destructive. And the people who buy her line of garbage are even worse.
For the record, here are the facts on Obama's health care: read it and get educated. http://pol.moveon.org/truth/lies.html?rc=fb
Say what?
For the record, here are the facts on Obama's health care: read it and get educated. http://pol.moveon.org/truth/lies.html?rc=fb
moveon.org and the 'facts' are complete strangers.
Detail
The moveon.org reference cited above is not a serious piece. The title alone tells you all you need to know:
"Top Five Health Care Reform Lies—and How to Fight Back"
The piece then goes on to cite inflammatory, inacurate 'positions' in the most prejudicial way possible :
Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!
Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!
Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!
Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!
Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!
The piece then goes on to offer refutations for these non-positions using itself as the primary source for most of them, and the white house press releases for the others, without offering even a single objective position. Let's look at one or two a bit more objectively, shall we? I think I'l pass on the "Obama wants to euthanize your grandma" quote, and go straight to one with real meat on it:
" Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!"
If I have a business, and I have the option of choosing a subsidized public plan or a non-subsidized private plan, which will I choose? Once I have made this strictly economic decision, have my employees changed health plans? Democrats 'outlawed' nothing, they simply stacked the deck, much as they did when exacerbating the recent mortgage debacle, for which they take no responsibility and from which they apparently learned nothing.
let's skip to another really important one:
"Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!"
First off, Obama never had and still doesn't have a health care plan. The congressional bill, which the White House is contributing little or nothing to, is still being written. Obama is little more than a cheerleader. Second, the Democrats already doubled the deficit, and that's just what we know about for certain. There is no tort or public employee reform contemplated at this time for this bill. Will this 'bankrupt' America? Well, much of America is already bankrupt in effect, merely preventing the formality by massive government takeovers doesn't change much. The truth is, government has already bankrupted much of America, and this sure won't help.
moveon.org = Obama's propaganda machine
You are right, FlyDiesel. moveon.org is part of Obama's propaganda machine to enslave us.
Why is Obama holding every
Why is Obama holding every entity in the medical field accountable for costs except the big pharmaceutical companies? For some reason, he seems to be giving them a free pass.
The Country does not want Government Ran Health Care
To watch the contortions the left is going thru to sell this to folks who are happy with the status quo (According to Rasmussen 62% of Americans rate their health care as either excellent or good) is almost painful!
Seriously folks, it is a bad bill, a bad plan, and would result in the country never digging its way out of debt.
http://www.classicalideals.com/HR3200.htm
We already HAVE death panels!
That's why we're trying to change the system.
Palin Health Care
The point is not whether reform is needed, but rather what real reform is. Confiscating enormous amounts of private capital for the government to squander, while allowing public unions and trial lawyers to attack and plunder the resulting system is not reform. You can see what will happen easlly enough; look at California, trailing the entire nation in recovery, a horrible school system, hospital emergency care driven under, public employees bankrupting the state, 60% of school money disappearing into non-teaching voids, roads and energy generation decades behind, etc. And, Pelosi is in SF this week congratulating herself and supporters on their 'enlightenment' and 'progress'.
Palin or Chicken Little?
It amazes me that Palin, and indeed the entire Republican party, sounds more and more like Chicken Little running around screaming "The sky is falling, the sky is falling." every day now. Come on, you guys kept pulling the wool over every ones eyes for 8 years, leave the work of repairing your screw ups to the rational people, ok???
Yes mrhistory
You have the attitude the Star likes--trash Sarah Palin at every opportunity.
Haven't seen Yael or Barb report on these lovely commnets from Obama:
AARP endorsed the plan--the haven't
UPS and FedEx are doing great its the PO that is a mess
Yeah, Yeal, if I was you, I would write about Sarah Palin, too.
I hope she is better informed.
Many Palin supporters say they like her because she is "just like us". They like her folksiness, her family first appeal, and applaud her lack of worldly knowledge.
Ancient hominidaes selected the biggest, strongest, and brightest as tribal leaders. They expected their leaders to make enough sound decisions that the tribe would survive. Wild animals continue to follow this policy for the most part. Although it is no longer necessary for humans to select leaders, based on their physical stature, they still should have superior intelligence as well as leadership ability.
I just can't imagine a presidential campaign by Miss Sarah based on the slogan: "Vote for me. I'm just as dumb as you are."
Time to Pull the Plug on Compromise?
Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley make it appear that compromise is already brain-dead—maybe it is time to just pull the plug.
Maybe it’s time to go for the strongest healthcare reform bill we can get 50 votes on. I have heard hardly a peep from the right about compromise for weeks.
I would be willing to get a second opinion; but it would need to include an occasional fact and a modicum of reasoning. My sense at the moment is that continuing the current, insurance controlled system will only result in healthcare in America suffering an slow, expensive, agonizing death.
Insurance reform
Having worked for insurance companies and worked as insurance broker, the system IS broken NOW. It is a maze of weird contracts & bonuses to brokers for placing employer groups with certain carriers or certain plans. Spitzer found this with Marsh and MetLife, too bad he lost credibility, he was doing a great service.
It's not about healthcare, it is a huge business. Leave out the doctors for a minute (BTW most doctors I know hate insurance companies and hate the HSA plans since they are forced to play bill collector because employees cannot afford the high deductibles nor do most even understand how the contracts work since each insurer operates these differently). HSAs - only the super wealthy will be able to collect tax free rollover funds that are self audited...another tax break for the super wealthy under George Bush.
Where to begin, there are rebates by big pharma to insurance carriers for using THEIR cholestrol lowering, hypertension, anti-depressant, ant-asthmatic, anti-reflux med as the drug of choice on insurance company drug brand formularies (formulary is insurance jargon for list of acceptable drugs they will cover for certain diagnoses), bonuses to brokers (the heavy hitters are super powerful and are middlemen betweeen employer group & insurance carrier) who place employers with plans & wade through benefits & plans all different by carrier & by state for fully replacing another carrier with their carriers, huge bonuses up to 20% or more of premium depending upon how much business they have placed with a carrier during a certain time frame, year or 1/2 year (which is huge & adds to our healthcare costs & some brokers only driven by big bucks will move employers even though it is not in the group's best interest to line their own pockets) not to mention the regular monthly premiums commissions at an average of 5% each month alone paid every month no matter what service is provided, and top seller events -trips to 5 star hotels with families & other "prizes" to brokers who place the most business with them in a year which means moving employer groups for full replacement bonuses or changing their plans in some way by spin makers or what these guys like to call "smoke & mirror" presentations. All competing for our premium dollars and taking away from healthcare. Then there is a convoluted maze of contracts some claims are paid by medical groups whose utilization review boards determine "standard" care practices & then given end of year rebates by the insurance carriers when they do not spend on patients called "shared risk" bonuses.
I could go on forever but that is why they need brokers and people who understand a system that started simply enough in the late 40s with Blue Cross & over the years let special interests & each carrier create a convoluted quagmire and hodge podge of regulations that have evolved into the mess we have today with many making big dollars and placing employers with carriers and plans to line their own pockets and selecting brand drugs based on rebates. Remember the banking messed up the financial system and people indirectly based on money issues but health insurers convoluted contracts not only impacts their finances, but people and their health and has become so complex with swaps, bonuses to brokers by carriers and pharma to carriers which are nothing more than kickbacks, underrides and overrides that have nothing to do with a free market system. Having a huge uninsured or underinsured populations creates more bankruptcies and is the number one cause of bankruptcy. Hospitals pad their bills to those without insurance since they give insurers great contracts so that their plans are in the preferred category & drive patients there. Who pays? Indirectly government & the uninsured
I have seen groups denied by underwriting in the over 50 employee (mid-market) category in CA for acne medication, asthma, not to mention that if anyone has Crohn's disease the entire group is automatically declined forcing growing employers and/or groups that have coverage but "accidentally" hire someone with a disease that doesn't kill them but costs a lot of money to treat, like Crohn's to stay with a carrier and plan if they were lucky enough to get one before they grew out of the small group guaranteed issue in CA. It is not only an individual that suffers, also groups that are not in states with guaranteed issues clauses and are not big enough to overcome actuarial odds with a big risk pool, or in CA the midmarket can be denied group coverage. For individuals losing coverage, HIPAA requires that individuals are not excluded from coverge if they do not have a gap in coverage max window is 64 days however there is no lid on costs and no mandates on this coverage, resulting in HUGE deductibles at ridiculously high prices that no individual or most individuals could not afford, often without prescription coverage. In other words, HIPAA did not go far enough due to insurance company and HIAA lobbies.
Let's not let the insurance companies rule America, in many ways they already do and block a public option. I mean it's just an option and they are using Sarah Palin as a mouthpiece to spread rumors and fear into the many that do not understand their plans anyway. Insuraers decide what treatment options are covered, it is foolish to say that we actually have choice... no one can go to their doctor and say they want an MRI something I have heard critics say will be lost UNLESS they pay out of pocket. They usually have to try many treatment options before they are given more expensive ones anyway unless they are in an executive boutique plan that further separates the haves and have nots. The millions of uninsured who once had insurance & missed their HIPAA cut off or could not afford insurance and took their chances to pay their mortgage instead, this loss of coverage can happen to anyone and no one knows the secret underwriting guidelines that change continually based on whether the insurers CEO wants to emphasize number enrolled or needs to contain costs and that vary from company to company....
The system is plagued by special interests that all compete for YOUR premium dollars. We need to rebuild the system but since we probably won't be able to do that we MUST HAVE a public option so that insurers are forced to use their cash earmarked for payout to pad pockets TO patient care rather than marketing gimmicks and tricks. We have to do this now while the debate is on.
How can we build cars if we cannot compete with Japan/Europe/China on wages since employers do not have to factor in the cost of health insurance in to product costs & rates continue to rise? Each year rates will continue to rise and factor into our GNP eroding our standard of living.
I wonder who is giving Palin these ideas and if they plan to offer support in 2012? It is time that we do not look only after ourselves and our own special interests but those of our society & the competitiveness of our country. This is the time to improve and offer a public option. I agree that this will force insurance companies to be competitive rather than shadow price and collude with each other while competing for powerful broker and consulting firms to place their employers with them. It will allow us to compete in a global economy. It would give dollars back to the premium payers to use on healthcare.
Pull the plug on compromise?
Amen to that, Grinreaper. The Republicans' sole objective is to kill any health care reform at all. So long as the private for-pay system is reaping hundreds of billions of dollars for insurance and pharmaceutical and for-profit health care companies, they do NOT want it reformed at all. That would take money out of the pocket of some of their wealthiest and most powerful party donors.
Besides, it is not the wealthy that are suffering and dying under our existing system of health care un-insurance and while the GOP is always willing and able to pitch to the masses, they sure don't want to spend money on low or moderate income citizens. The rich and powerful are the Republican party's constituency. They simply use evangelicals and angry southern whites as cannon fodder to win votes and power.
This is a nation that loathes its poor and less fortunate and the Republican party caters to that class hatred. But I will say this: the GOP is absolutely the best at getting people to vote against their own best interests. They do it every election by pushing emotional hot-buttons that have nothing to do with anything.
True rationing
"In other words, rationed care by government bureaucrats (as opposed, of course, to the rationed care by health insurance company bureaucrats that Americans have now)."
I think the Dems seriously misuse the word rationing with regards to the private healthcare system. When a private insurer refuses, or “denies” payment for a particular procedure, you as the patient still have the freedom to pay out of your own pocket, or to find another private insurer that will pay for the procedure.
I have read the HR3200 in it’s entirety. No such freedom like the one that I just described exist in this plan. Quite the opposite, these two choices are expressly prohibited! Now that’s true rationing.
Blatant Falsehood
No one can prevent a person from paying for any legal service in this country. But that Dems would explicitly prohibit it is a blatant lie. I can tell you that without having read the 5 bills being considered, because it would be unconstitutional to forbid people from purchasing a legal service with their own money.
Dems are politicians. They want to be re-elected. If someone tells you that the Dems in Congress are proposing something that would result in no Democrat ever being elected in this country ever again, it doesn't pass the "smell" test. Politicians of either party don't do things like that. I can also tell you, without having read the bills, that they don't include a provision that only those who swear loyalty to Satan and denounce Jesus Christ can get health care. Again, not because I have read them, but because politicians who want to be re-elected don't do things like that. Kenja thinks we are all naive and easily fooled.