Althouse: Senators decide not to kill your grandma...

August 13, 2009

Senators decide not to kill your grandma...

... since you noticed.

***

Sarah "Death Panels" Palin vindicated.

213 comments:

1 – 200 of 213 Newer› Newest»

I'm Full of Soup said...: ....but she could get run over by a reindeer.; 8/13/09, 7:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Well, this is a relief. With my luck, I'd probably get Simon Cowell on my death panel.; 8/13/09, 7:21 PM
Once written, twice... said...: Woo hoo! A double Palin post day! Althouse Hillbillies gone wild!; 8/13/09, 7:23 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Reid frankly doesnt care what is in the bill on the floor. He needs to get it thru a filibuster threat and get 60 votes for closure.

If he passes anything, he and Nancy can work their magic in conference. He was quoted on a similiar issue (Public Option) yesterday.

"I'm not going to -- I have to get a bill off the floor," Reid said with a low chuckle. "So I'm not going to be threatening or suggesting anything that might come in conference. Get the picture?" I did.

WV: jubians = The Lost tribe of Israel, the Jewish Nubians.; 8/13/09, 7:24 PM
traditionalguy said...: Sweet Sarah hit a three pointer at the buzzer from half court. The futility of denying she spoke the truth which was on every one's mind, except for the Continually Bribed Congress people, astounds a rational observer.I can hardly wait until we hear what Sarah has to say about Pelossi and Obama's Energy Tax designed to destroy any remaining American industrial production forever, but which the ever astute Continually Bribed Congress people say is just "Cleaning up". Sarah will tell us what they really mean by that phrase.; 8/13/09, 7:25 PM
john said...: From the article:

In nearly four decades of public life, "this is the starkest example I've ever seen of how, if we're not careful, political discourse dissolves into some type of partisan cage-fighting, where there are no rules and anything goes," said Blumenauer, 60.

Recall that Blumenauer recently came out of an 8-year-long coma.; 8/13/09, 7:30 PM
KCFleming said...: There are two ways of rationing care to grandma:

1) The way Congress just removed, makes doctors bully grandma into signing the "no more care for me" form.

2) The way most single payer nations do it: have age restrictions, QALY scores, and burden-of-disease limits on the use of expensive care or technologies, or by simply not having enough equipment or specialists to meet the demand, and only the healthier and well connected will be able to navigate the byzantine rules well enough to reach the shore of treatment.

That is, hide your rationing by calling it bureaucracy.; 8/13/09, 7:31 PM
KCFleming said...: Either way, grandma still bites the dust.; 8/13/09, 7:35 PM
Shanna said...: 2) The way most single payer nations do it: have age restrictions, QALY scores, and burden-of-disease limits on the use of expensive care or technologies, or by simply not having enough equipment or specialists to meet the demand, and only the healthier and well connected will be able to navigate the byzantine rules well enough to reach the shore of treatment.

Exactly. Certainly calling them death panels was purposefully dramatic, but it all comes down to the same thing. Once the government is in charge, they will overrun the budget. And then they will have to make cuts. Steep ones. Who spends more money on healthcare in a week than I do all year long? Yep, grandma!; 8/13/09, 7:39 PM
LouisAntoine said...: Man, if only the Obama death panels were real!

p.s. my French grandma just turned 97. All her health care is free, free, free. The doctor makes house calls. It's pretty amazing.; 8/13/09, 7:43 PM
john said...: Montagne Mointaigne said... my French grandma just turned 97. All her health care is free, free, free.

Monty: Is this your grandma? The French have their own way of dealing with old people.

wv: accons - chipmaanks like 'em.; 8/13/09, 7:51 PM
KCFleming said...: Free? France uses market-based approaches, including copayment rates for most services that are 10%-40%. About 92% of French residents have complementary private health insurance.

Free? There is an 18.8% tax (payroll plus general social contribution tax) on employees for health insurance.

Free? Projected French healthcare deficit this year is 10.9 billion euros. The healthcare deficit accounts for 20% of the total public deficit.

Free?; 8/13/09, 7:54 PM
john said...: It's free in France because of the money they save not using air conditioning.

That, and of course, having an extra 10,000 or so die each summer makes sure that most don't get too old.

wv: ellyon - Madman across the water.; 8/13/09, 7:54 PM
dick said...: Montagne,

I loved the way the French dealt with grandma a couple of years ago when they had a heat wave. How many thousands died because the vacationers couldn't be bothered to come home to take care of grandma? And the health service did such a sterling job of getting fans and air conditioning for the oldies.; 8/13/09, 7:55 PM
Crimso said...: "Man, if only the Obama death panels were real!"

Careful with that erection there, Himmler. Well, you can always hope for some sort of Einsatzgruppen, nicht wahr? How you must pine for the Vichy regime...

TW: guentr. Creepy.; 8/13/09, 7:56 PM
john said...: Time to throw Monty from the train.

wv: untne - the Reader; 8/13/09, 7:59 PM
rhhardin said...: Intra-system goals come first, when you set up a system.

John Gall.; 8/13/09, 8:02 PM
knox said...: All her health care is free, free, free.

LOL

Haven't you guys figured out yet that some of us are not as naive and stupid as we are in your fantasies.

"Free." Jesus.; 8/13/09, 8:02 PM
hombre said...: L.E. Lee, hillbilly basher and "small business owner," weighs in.

How small is it?

It's so small that when he signed his troll contract with ACORN it was on a 3x5 card.; 8/13/09, 8:10 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: Paul Zrimsek said...

Well, this is a relief. With my luck, I'd probably get Simon Cowell on my death panel.

HA!

Do you suppose that they realized they were vindicating Sarah when they pulled that verbiage? Or that they just wanted to take the pressure off and get the phones to stop ringing?; 8/13/09, 8:11 PM
hdhouse said...: Sarah the whiz vindicated? bullshit.; 8/13/09, 8:15 PM
john said...: "Grandma, wer'e putting you up here in this nice little pension, and you can even see the top of the Eifel Tower through your window."

"Monty, Monty, why did you move me here? I just wanted to be close to you and the kids".

"I told you grandma, we live in the States now. We couldn't take you with us, the health care costs would just kill us. You will be much more confortable here, see, I bought you this cute little fan."

"Monty, I wouldn't have been much trouble at all. I miss the kids already"

"Grandma, here in Paris all your needs will be met by that nice man at HealthCare. And don't worry, we ordered the phone and they promised they would have it installed within 2 months."

"But Monty, I'll be so lonely here."

"Don't be silly Grandma, this whole building is filled with nice people your age. There will be so much to do. Bye now; we will come back in the fall, first thing, and check up on you."

wv: chbract - Minelli was great, but Joel Grey was awesome.; 8/13/09, 8:19 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Doesn't this mean that Sarah Palin has now had more to do with what's written in the health care bill than President Obama?; 8/13/09, 8:20 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Hdhouse:

"Vindication" for Palin is when she calls bullshit on your death panels and you deny deny deny but remove the offending language anyway.

Hahahaha.

wv = medec ...please use in a sentence "Obamacare plan could use a medec" :); 8/13/09, 8:22 PM
robinintn said...: Follow the link to this:
"FACT CHECK: No 'death panel' in health care bill", which is directly above the headline:
"Senators exclude end-of-life provision from bill".; 8/13/09, 8:23 PM
Matt said...: In other words, the same end of life provisions that Sarah Palin approved as governor of Alaska have been removed?

You mean the same end of life provisions that Newt Gingrich approved of not so long ago?

Gee... that's good to know.; 8/13/09, 8:25 PM
Jim B said...: The lengths some people will go to in order to deny Palin credit for anything never cease to amaze me.

The fact is that her "death panel" formulation created an immense amount of buzz - most of the major pundits mentioned it. It elevated a concern of ObamaCare opponents to a level that could not be ignored.

The Senators read the polls the same as every other political animal: they saw that it was a loser. They scrapped it.

Like it or not: this is definitely a Palin win.; 8/13/09, 8:27 PM
garage mahal said...: Unbelievable. Vindicated if you're a complete and utter moron that can't read and comprehend one paragraph. This country is so fucked.; 8/13/09, 8:30 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Jim said:

"Like it or not: this is definitely a Palin win."

Damn that is one more win than Obama has had in seven months!:)

wv = malogi = smelly cheap cigar; 8/13/09, 8:34 PM
Matt said...: Gingrich on End of Life care [aka Death Panels] a month ago:

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.

A month later - because the Democrats wanted this provision - he opposes his own common sense.

The provision saves money and works. Oh but not when a Democrat proposes it....; 8/13/09, 8:35 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh crud... and we liberazis were going going to have such fun playing God (what god!?), weeding out all those unproductive and inefficient folks and replacing them with illegals.

Who knew that our plans to harvest crippled physicists and unaborted babies under the guise of funding an optional service that most doctors think is a good idea and actively encourage would be....? Well, it seemed like such a foolproof plan.

But one or two fools figured us out. Damn you, Palin and McCaughey! Who knew that your idiocy was as much of a charade as our compassion!?

Next time, heartland. Next time...!; 8/13/09, 8:36 PM
Robert Cook said...: "The futility of denying she spoke the truth which was on every one's mind, except for the Continually Bribed Congress people, astounds a rational observer."

No rational observers take Palin for anything more than what she is: an overaged adolescent: aggressively ignorant and shallow, a shameless liar and opportunist, petulant, self-pitying and grandiose, a complete narcissist.

The end of life counseling provision was removed because the creatures in Congress are as they ever were: lacking convictions, ethics or spines, they chase votes and dollars as a junky chases dope. Congress has capitulated to the hysterics, emotional cripples and mentally subnormal who increasingly make up the right wing of our society. There's certainly nothing vindicated here but the more cynical convictions of H.L.Mencken as to the hopeless stupidity of the "booboisie." (Carl Sagan's brilliant last book, THE DEMON HAUNTED WORLD, becomes more pertinent by the minute.)

Don't mistake me, however, as a partisan for so-called Obamacare. I'm woefully resigned that whatever passes will be a disaster, and will poison the idea of true health care reform for a generation, if not longer. Anything other than full single payer for all citizens, anything that leaves for-profit insurance companies involved in the system of health-care delivery, will be catastrophic.; 8/13/09, 8:41 PM
bagoh20 said...: Damn, now I got to take grandma in. Where can I get one of them French air conditioners? Being a hillbilly myself, we just use a swamp cooler, and keep the mint juleps coming. Hee Haw !

WV: "icante" = French for "I'll take care of Granny?; 8/13/09, 8:43 PM
bagoh20 said...: Robert Cook said:

"Congress are as they ever were: lacking convictions, ethics or spines, they chase votes and dollars as a junky chases dope. Congress has capitulated to the hysterics, emotional cripples..."

So of course you advocate we put them in charge of our very lives and 1/6 more of the entire economy.

Pure Genius!

WV: "dystica" = what we will get the short end of.; 8/13/09, 8:49 PM
JAL said...: In other words, the same end of life provisions that Sarah Palin approved as governor of Alaska have been removed?

Yeah ... the feds paying professionals to meet with people to decide end of life is the same as encouraging education and voluntary interactions for informed, personal and private decision making -- or not -- in the context of the family and personal value system.

wv = ovednes loved ones minus the l and o; 8/13/09, 8:50 PM
Big Mike said...: @garage, if so then you're one of the people screwing it.; 8/13/09, 8:51 PM
john said...: Big Mike -

Lighten up on Garage. He is coming around to our way of thinking: "This country is so fucked."; 8/13/09, 8:56 PM
Roost on the Moon said...: How overwhelmingly stupid.; 8/13/09, 8:56 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Obama lied ..
Grandma survived

maybe.; 8/13/09, 8:57 PM
MadisonMan said...: Either way, grandma still bites the dust.

There is no way in which grandma does not bite the dust.

If some large fraction of medicare spending occurs in the last few months of life, it does make fiscal sense to change viewpoints. My own opinion -- and this happened at the beginning of Spring when we had a very old relative die, so I've thought about it a lot -- is that the default should be palliative care, not aggressive therapy to lengthen life. It seems like a hospital or doctors (not all but many), not being told otherwise, will do all it/they can to extend the life of a terminal patient by 2 months. Why is that the default? I can see that it should be if the patient says so, but why make it the default when a patient -- or that patient's family -- says nothing?

I know that my parents have a health care directive so that they will be comforted, but not aggressively saved. I frankly don't understand why people would want anything else, but not everyone is as sensible as I.

So someone explain to me: Why is do everything possible to extend life the default?; 8/13/09, 8:59 PM
traditionalguy said...: Robert Cook...Let me get this straight. You believe that Sarah Palin's master stroke was only an accident because she is an adolescent who could never have come up with that on her own. You are greatly underestimating your opponent and her quick learning curve. How many decisions to have and love an inconvenient child have you made. That mindset makes real life an adventure that Americans understand and highly value. And how many short years will it be before you are knocking on your declining years door? Think that over and tell me again that Sarah Palin is only a selfish narcissist.; 8/13/09, 9:07 PM
avwh said...: "...a shameless liar and opportunist, petulant, self-pitying and grandiose, a complete narcissist"

Glad to see you've coe around to describing your Fearless Leader to a T there, Cookie.; 8/13/09, 9:07 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: So someone explain to me: Why is do everything possible to extend life the default?

We go down that slippery slope when is a life worth saving and we will never stop.

If two months are a burden the case can be made that two years of "pain and suffering" are not worth it either.; 8/13/09, 9:09 PM
garage mahal said...: @garage, if so then you're one of the people screwing it.

Sarah Palin-->Facebook-->MSM-->Congress.

You couldn't draw up a democracy any dumber than that.; 8/13/09, 9:10 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Doesn't this mean that Sarah Palin has now had more to do with what's written in the health care bill than President Obama?

Tree cheers for Jason ;); 8/13/09, 9:19 PM
MadisonMan said...: LEM, don't misunderstand -- I'm all for saving life if that's what the family wants. You know, if they take possession of their health care, if they take on some responsibility. If my elderly relative had wanted everything done to get him through the summer, we would have acquiesced to that.

But why, if they say nothing, do we (as a society) spend all that money to buy them a month or two?; 8/13/09, 9:20 PM
Meade said...: AJ Lynch said...

"Vindication" for Palin is when she calls bullshit on your death panels and you deny deny deny but remove the offending language anyway.

Exactly.; 8/13/09, 9:24 PM
MadisonMan said...: And I don't want to downplay the difficulty in making that end-of-life decision -- acknowledging that someone you love is about to die.

But once it's made, there is just a feeling of this is right. When someone dies, it's very much like a birth. Everyone related to the dying person is in the room, and things are never the same afterwards.; 8/13/09, 9:25 PM
Anonymous said...: It may be gone, but it isn't forgotten.

As long as the nation votes Democratic, the threat of death panels will always loom just in the background ... waiting to be brought forward again once people aren't paying as much attention.

That's incrementalism. The Party of Death will just save this little battle for a day to come.

As long as they exist, they'll try to slip this through.; 8/13/09, 9:28 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: But why, if they say nothing, do we (as a society) spend all that money to buy them a month or two?

Life is our most precious commodity.

We err on the side of caution.; 8/13/09, 9:29 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Palin saved grandma and all she got was another lousy liar tag. (not here of course); 8/13/09, 9:31 PM
MadisonMan said...: We err on the side of caution.

If it's the most precious commodity, you should then be prepared to pay for it.

Complaining about government spending at the same time you advocate for extending a dying person's life by some months to me is arguing against yourself.; 8/13/09, 9:35 PM
Penny said...: Great news! Our senators finally decided they should have no hand in end of life decisions!

Next up...

Families; 8/13/09, 9:36 PM
Crimso said...: "not here of course"

Here she gets 200+ comments guaranteed. Anything that makes the L.E. Lee's of the world aggravated is fine by me.

TW: disse. Lowest form of patriotism.; 8/13/09, 9:39 PM
jimspice said...: Ughh. Really too bad.

Just make sure you all have your living wills in order, and have the difficult discussion with your loved ones to do the same. I just feel bad that those who can't very easily navigate these complex end-of-life issues will not be better able to do so with the aid of their doctors.; 8/13/09, 9:40 PM
Crimso said...: TW: waffl. Worthy of a comment in and of itself. The Dems waffl on the death squads. Would grandma hurry up and die so Obama can eat his waffls?; 8/13/09, 9:41 PM
MadisonMan said...: Our senators finally decided they should have no hand in end of life decisions!

(Unless the family is named Schiavo).

I bring that up to highlight the need for Advanced Directives for Health Care for everyone. Republican Politicians would not have ventured into the Schiavo minefield (I will contend that it did them no good to go there) had there been a signed Advanced Directive in place. Do it at any age.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I have one -- but everyone in my family -- wife, in-laws, parents, siblings -- knows what my wishes are.; 8/13/09, 9:41 PM
former law student said...: After several ambulance runs to the hospital caused by her ailing heart, my great aunt Annie decided "fuck it" and filled out a DNR form, posted in the living room where her hospital bed was located.

If she had talked to her doctor about this decision, the dude wasn't paid for his time. Under health care reform he would have been. So it goes.

RIP Aunt Annie. We all still miss you.; 8/13/09, 9:43 PM
J. Cricket said...: As the article states: "Many news organizations — including The Associated Press — debunked Palin's claim."

So the Althouse version of "vindicated" is when you lie and the AP then proves that you lied.; 8/13/09, 9:46 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Mad Man:

It is not 100% obvious or 100% apparent or 100% exact to pinpoint when someone has passed the point of no return.

I hear what you are saying but life and death just don't have the same simple scoring methodology as a baseball or football game that you would need to say (without question) the point of no return has been reached.

How many times have you stood in a hospital and were quite sure an ederly relative was not coming home? Yet years later, they are still kicking?; 8/13/09, 9:46 PM
traditionalguy said...: M M...I agree with your thoughts on end of life. The personal respect and sharing in the Death moment in an elderly loved ones last days is all a part of life. What we have here is the Kafkaesque impersonal rule set by an unknown panel like a star chamber draft board of death in which no one cares one hoot for anything but power to kill in the name of the almighty dollars that they are simultaneously wasting by the bushel on every cockamamy excuse to loot the Treasury that can be secretly earmarked for the benefit of political elite. That is making rational people wake up and fight back for the first time. Our government has been our enemy for many years tempered by news media exposes'. But the news media has abandoned the field and we have no way to avoid fighting back now. Kudos to Sarah Palin for being such a good fighter when the enemy attacks came in so fast. We wont forget that.; 8/13/09, 9:47 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: If it's the most precious commodity, you should then be prepared to pay for it.
.

I think we pay enough trillions as it is.; 8/13/09, 9:47 PM
chickelit said...: What's clearly needed is for any remaining 60's era ex-junkies to step up to the plate and show the masses just how "cool" a morphine drip can be, just like it was "in the day."

We're already overseas securing the poppy supplies.

Problem solved.; 8/13/09, 9:51 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: If I promise to never again use the term death panel, can anyone tell me how many new "Bureaucratic" panels or "Cost Curve Bending" panels were created by the Obamacare bill?; 8/13/09, 9:52 PM
MadisonMan said...: traditionalGuy, the problem as I see it with what you wrote is that Death Panel was a rhetorical flourish (a very good one). Being able to sit down and discuss end-of-life choices with your doctor is not the same as having a Death Panel. You could sit down with the doctor and decide that, for you, the best thing is very aggressive end-of-life life-extension. How is that a Death Panel?

vw: miescho (???); 8/13/09, 9:55 PM
MadisonMan said...: There should be a neologism for defining verification words.

vw: chanick: The process of defining a verification word. As in, I just chanicked my verification word.; 8/13/09, 9:58 PM
bagoh20 said...: All of health care is about extending life a little and making it physically comfortable. End of life is just different in degree.

Another advantage of private insurance is that we have more choice to decide what degree we will each pay for, by choosing the appropriate policy. Under that system, at least we only have ourselves to answer to. The idea that one citizen will tell another citizen, who they do not know, when they should die (which is what they would decide) is just wrong. That person may have worked their ass off all of their life to afford better. If so, they should be allowed to buy it, for themselves or their family members. At least in the U.S. they should. That's why we exist as a nation in the first place, i.e., Individual liberty.; 8/13/09, 9:59 PM
Chennaul said...: Well funny that you mention that but when I was arguing for Terry Schiavo-and not totally from a religious perspective but-from a right feminist perspective the response consistently from Liberals spewing hatred for anyone that even thought-

you know would you let a DAMN dog starve and dehydrate to death-

Even that call for some sort of compassion from idiot know it all Liberals was met with-

She's taking up too many of OUR resources.

At Eschaton, in a thread she was compared to a guppy was taking too much oxygen from the tank....

And over and over again it was absolutely cruel vile hatred that entered into that argument-disproportionately from the Left.

So let's allow the Liberal politicians that rode in on HATRED that positively ooze hatred towards Republicans, the military, doctors the last group that won't unionize and let them be in charge of redistributing health...; 8/13/09, 9:59 PM
Crimso said...: "Being able to sit down and discuss end-of-life choices with your doctor is not the same as having a Death Panel."

Can't do that now? Can? Have a choice? Under The Plan As It Was? Have a choice?

TW: mandent. Single-payer root canals.; 8/13/09, 10:01 PM
Chennaul said...: And to add a second point why the hell not?

Liberals are always wanting to disallow LIFE discussions-

Why?

Because it makes you all uncomfortable?

The guilt, or your will to pass the guilt?

Here is what has happened since abortions have become acceptable.

Families and boyfriends and the community can walk away from women and tell them to do the abortion for them.

Now you want Grandma to toss off more quietly so you won't have as much "burden" and hey! if you could pay the doctors to do it for you-

even better.; 8/13/09, 10:03 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I don't think the horror of Obama's "morbidity" panels was just about end of life counseling.

It was also about the best practices panels, and the many, many other committees to be formed to issue edicts about what could and could not be granted to patients.

The end of life counseling verbiage served as a handy ignition switch to vent the widespread contempt for the many other idiotic terms and concepts in Obamacare.

(Is ObamaCare spelled with the "C" capitalized?); 8/13/09, 10:04 PM
Chennaul said...: You know you could run an ad-

Abortions and Euthanasia-

Because no one likes changing diapers....; 8/13/09, 10:05 PM
KCFleming said...: "Being able to sit down and discuss end-of-life choices with your doctor is not the same as having a Death Panel."

Since that was already permitted and compensated for under Medicare as it stands now, why include it in the bill in the first place?

We're not that fucking stupid, you know. Democrats mean to pay for this shitlapalooza health care boondoggle in large part by cutting Medicare to scraps. The permissible consultation every 5 years would become compulsory, as all such gummint rules do for that is their intent.

Goddamned obfuscatory mendacious statist thieves.; 8/13/09, 10:08 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Lem : Obama lied ..
Grandma survived

maybe.

Lem is right, the fact that they are changing what the legislation says makes it seem like Obama was lying. Especially when his response to the "Are you going to kill my grandma?" type questions was along the lines of "We don't have enough Doctors."; 8/13/09, 10:09 PM
Fred4Pres said...: But instead Cash for Clunkers will be extended to Grandma and Grandpa.; 8/13/09, 10:12 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: GOMST = Goddamned obfuscatory mendacious statist thieves. Pogo invents great perjorative to describe the new socialists working on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Their motto "We Can Put Down Your Grandma But God Forbid You Ask Us To Keep Score In A Little League Game".; 8/13/09, 10:17 PM
bagoh20 said...: The idea that what Palin said was incorrect or inappropriate is a bit disingenuous.

First, although it may not be in the bill ver batum, it's clear that the system would have to make those decisions eventually to control costs. Therefore, it has not honestly been discredited.

Second, If "Death Panel" is not correct what is, "Life Panel", Ending Your "Life Panel"? There will eventually be a group of people (panel) to decide how much to spend on your Death So: "Death Panel" is actually most accurate. But then again, honesty is not a big value in this debate.; 8/13/09, 10:17 PM
traditionalguy said...: M M...You are back to defending the end of life counseling contained in the proposed bill. Fine. But as the grass roots protesters have said to their elected representatives in meetings this week, "We don't believe you". The only purpose of the Single Payer is to control all money and costs while giving out 25% more in coverage. People can read a map. That plan only works by cutting Doctor's compensation until half the doctors quit. Then rationing must save as much as possible on the end of life costs and disabled persons care costs in order to best utilise the left over Doctors within a Utilitarian greatest good for the greatest number decisions by The Life And Who Deserves It Panel. See, no more Death Panel after all. Did you ever see the Alfred Hitchcock movie of a John Steinbeck story called The Lifeboat?; 8/13/09, 10:19 PM
Skyler said...: Jason has the winning entry in the comment section:

Doesn't this mean that Sarah Palin has now had more to do with what's written in the health care bill than President Obama.; 8/13/09, 10:22 PM
Chase said...: "Being able to sit down and discuss end-of-life choices with your doctor is not the same as having a Death Panel."

Says who?

The question simply comes down to this:

Who do you trust to make the important decisions?

My wife's parents are immigrants from the Netherlands. They were horrified to learn last month that her mother's sister was euthanised by mistake, through government bungling. How many of those happening here (and it happens quite often in the Netherlands frankly) are supporters of the previous language in the bills for "end-of-life counseling" willing to accept?; 8/13/09, 10:22 PM
traditionalguy said...: With the axis between Obama and Big Pharma the "who is worth living any longer panels" could give grandma cyanide capsules to keep handy in case the Panel Investigators discover that she has assumed a younger persons ID with fake Drivers Liscense and Social Security Card purchased on the market from the industry that services the illegals coming here out of Mexico to have their anchor babies.; 8/13/09, 10:35 PM
Matt said...: Many here [and on liberal blogs too] don't understand the way the Senate works. Grassley has taken this out of the Senate Finance committee bill - however it will [very highly likely] be written back in by the conference committee and be in the final bill that passes the House and the Senate in November [or whenever].
So this provision will be back in the final bill. It is being taken out to stop the 'death panel' bullshit.

That said, why would anyone think that that it is a bad idea to have Medicare pay for end-of-life counseling? I mean, seriously? As I noted above both Palin and Gingrich supported such provisions in the past.; 8/13/09, 10:38 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: LoL .. skipping to the end of the comments withou reading.

I like to envision that Sarah Palin is sitting in her silk jammies sipping on a really nice vintage of whatever she likes to drink and is laughing her ass off while fucking with the Dems and MSM by posting on Facebook.

LOL Facebook? you can bring down Democrats in Congress by merely posting on Facebook? Who knew?

Woah....just wait until she gets out of the jammies and puts on those cruel heels and lipstick.....watch out boys.; 8/13/09, 10:38 PM
Invisible Man said...: Ah! The Sarah Palin's politics of cynicism strike again. Principled, she and the Republican party ain't.; 8/13/09, 10:40 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Tradguy:

Actually, if everyone is covered, why do you even need ID ?

Just make up a name, tell them you are 10-20 years younger than you actually are and repeat this process every ten years [but deduct another ten years from your age each time so you never get old wink wink].

wv = comati = how to avoid the big final coma = the act of hiding your real age from the ObamaCare morbidity analysis squads.; 8/13/09, 10:41 PM
garage mahal said...: This country has gone nuts. Old people on Medicare are out protesting against Medicare. People without health insurance are out protesting against heal insurance. The last republican VP candidate thinks one of her children is going to be murdered by the American government. Glenn Beck is crying against a back drop of old nazi stormtrooper footage. All this over one paragraph buried in a 1200 page proposal that simply states Medicare would reimburse people for consultations they're already having! Bonkers. but you'll notice nobody can ever explain the whole theory of how the Death Panels work; who is on them, what Dept, who has final say on the Death Panels, [That would be the Grim Reaper?] etc. Just "someone from the government might just come and talk to you someday. eek!

Idiots!

wv condi; 8/13/09, 10:43 PM
KCFleming said...: "why would anyone think that that it is a bad idea to have Medicare pay for end-of-life counseling? I mean, seriously?"

You can't be that stupid, Matt.
Or you think we're that stupid.
Which is it?

Medicare already pays for goddamned end-of-life counseling, so why is it a part of the bill now?

Three guesses, and if they don't center on cutting costs, you're way off.

Don't be so fucking obtuse.; 8/13/09, 10:43 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: DBQ:

Good point. When I saw Palin was using Facebook,I thought she was an idiot. Doh!; 8/13/09, 10:44 PM
Crimso said...: "Principled, she and the Republican party ain't."

Three words that can never be repeated enough: Public. Campaign. Financing.

And that's just for starters.; 8/13/09, 10:46 PM
chickelit said...: @traditionalguy:

Your single sentence 10:35 comment had that Touch of Evil opening shot continuity.; 8/13/09, 10:46 PM
KCFleming said...: You too, garage.
Wake up. If it's already legal and paid for, why is it in the bill now?
If it does nothing at all over what already exists, why even fight for this?

It's indicative of their whole approach to health care: You'll get what they goddamned tell you you'll get.; 8/13/09, 10:46 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Public campaign financing will remove all the Senate's bazillionaires like Lautenberg and governors like Jon Corzine and mayors like Mike Bloomberg? If not, what is your point?; 8/13/09, 10:48 PM
Crimso said...: My point is that people that bitch about Repubs having no principles conveniently forget that Barack Obama pledged along with John McCain to use public financing. And then "changed his mind" (i.e., he lied).; 8/13/09, 10:54 PM
Ralph L said...: Why is
"do everything possible to extend life" the default?
Because they could get sued if they don't.; 8/13/09, 10:58 PM
former law student said...: Medicare already pays for goddamned end-of-life counseling, so why is it a part of the bill now?

I ain't gonna read no 1000+ pages so I'm gonna guess:

The provision is being extended to all health care (thou shalt reimburse EOL discussions).

The provision is not being extended, but the bill recapitulates all of Medicare.; 8/13/09, 11:09 PM
Invisible Man said...: My point is that people that bitch about Repubs having no principles conveniently forget that Barack Obama pledged along with John McCain to use public financing. And then "changed his mind" (i.e., he lied).

Now, your being willfully obtuse. People change their minds all of the time, for all kinds of reasons. I dare say, there isn't a President of the US who hasn't reversed his position on some significant program or policy. But demogouging a position that you've taken in the past, and not having the strength of character to even admit that you once had that same "exact" position is just a completely different animal. Where's any acknowledgment of her conversion? Where's any acknowledgment that maybe, just maybe, people are encouraging end of life counseling for the same non-evil reasons that she was just over a year ago? Instead we get idiotic Facebook entries that act as if this policy is some wicked anathema that she's never heard before.; 8/13/09, 11:17 PM
Matt said...: Pogo

No, I only think you might be that stupid.
I see that cutting costs is more important to you than end of life counseling. But that is nothing new. Republicans all too often put money first and people second.

Democrat: Should we allow Medicare to pay for a doctor to have a conversation with granny about a living will or about what happens if she slips into a coma?

Republican: No, she's going to die anyway and we'd rather save money so we could use it to pay for the next war we declare.

Anyway, you must have either not read or chose to ignore the first part of my comment which is that this provision will be in the final bill. It was only taken out of the finance committee bill.; 8/13/09, 11:17 PM
Chase said...: You can't be that stupid, Matt.

Actually, when it comes to slippery slopes, it doesn't get anymore stupid than our friends on the left.

My favorite example. When Lawrence vs Texas came down from the Supreme Court voiding sodomy laws, there was widespread agreement that the ruling wouldn't lead to "gay" marriage. But some of the very people who filed briefs on Lawrence detailing that it had nothing to do with gay marriage were later stating publicly that gay marriage could now freely happen because Lawrence "opened the way". I am related to one of those very people who made such previous statements in the media and then later stated the exact opposite - in less than 18 months!

Now this one example - and there are literally hundreds of others on political issues and wordings of every stripe from the left - says that either the people making the original statements are incredibly naive and stupid or flat out disingenous and basically evil (my law professor relative is in the first category, sadly.

I do not trust wording from liberals/leftists who vote for things saying simply trust me. The same liberals/leftists who vote for Supreme Court Justices who favor "living Constitutions" or "Latinas who are wiser than whites".

And why should you? Because they agree with you on political points?

Out here in CA we have a Superintendent of Public Schools and a Secretary of Education. One states that home-schools are fine. The other says that home-schools are illegal in California.

They both read the same law - and yet one person is an ass, either willingly or stupidly seeking to harm children and families by preventing homeschooling in Calfornia.

Who gets to decide? Here's a hint: don't bet on the government.; 8/13/09, 11:21 PM
Chase said...: Matt, you are a bright guy but if you honestly believe that the Republicans - which is still the strongly pro-life party - would be the ones deciding to not pay for Granny when clearly Democrats salivate for the opportunity to perform euthanasia

then you are flat out at idiot level on the IQ scale my well meaning but clueless friend.; 8/13/09, 11:26 PM
Penny said...: I don't bet on my government, but I am sure not going to bet against them either.

I'm here, talking, able to influence, if only by voting once a year and flapping my jaws on Althouse.; 8/13/09, 11:31 PM
traditionalguy said...: @ Chicken Little...Can you imagine Orson Wells confronting Arlen Spechter about what is really in Barack Hussein Obama's Final Solution plan for uppity white grandmothers?; 8/13/09, 11:34 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Chase said:

"You can't be that stupid, Matt."

Wanna bet?

wv =vicaplug = life's plug?; 8/13/09, 11:36 PM
JAL said...: A very informative. Repeat - very informative Town Hall.

Led by a rep who was elected last time with >70% of the votes. He speaks without a teleprompter. He knows what he is talking about. Worth listening to. There would be 31 new Federal agenies, commissions or mandates in place. The Health Czar would decide which doctor, which treatments, which medicine you would get.

Also interesting is the rationing in Oregon.

Thanks. But no thanks.; 8/13/09, 11:40 PM
Penny said...: Traditional guy, I have great respect for your humanity. I feel I have come to know you somehow, and whether we agree on this topic or not, we can come to figure out a better way to talk and agree, or to talk and disagree.

At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna, I need to ask you if, in your heart, you believe that those who don't think like you think, are enemies?; 8/13/09, 11:45 PM
Matt said...: Chase
I'm joking and being rhetorical to get a rise out of Pogo and other Republicans [you too I guess]. The funny part about your response is that you claim I am being irrational saying Republicans want granny to die but yet you turn around and say that Democrats actually really want to do that.

News for you; Both views are irrational. I was joking about the Republican beliefs. You know, like Ann Coulter jokes [only she doesn't show her hand].

Anyway nobody wants granny to die and, no, Democrats do not salivate over euthanasia.
My main point, in all honesty, is that this provision is not a bad one. But right wing politicians are using it for political gain in the same way the left wing use social security.
Everyone wants to scare granny for political gain. It's ridiculous. But it works. And that is why both sides do it.; 8/13/09, 11:48 PM
bagoh20 said...: Quite frankly my liberal friends, the main objection to government interference in health care is simply that: WE DON"T TRUST POLITICIANS. If you do with something this important when you don't have to, then you are simply foolish.

We see how they have handled responsibility before and we don't want them in this. It really does not matter what the bill is now - it's what it will become.

Are you really arguing that these people do things well, smart, fair, efficient, or cost effective?

Their corruption and incompetence is the one thing both sides agree on (approval ratings in the 20s)

We disagree about whether we should give the car keys to the drunk uncle with a drinking problem who wrecked every car we ever let him drive before.

The content of the current bill is really just ancillary to most people protesting it, and I think that's just wise.

It's not what the con man promises you, it's that he can't be trusted that matters.; 8/13/09, 11:57 PM
Penny said...: We say the same thing in different ways, Matt.

Politics is very serious business. Why do we allow it to become a "game" with winners and losers?

WV: ludectu

Ludectu! I did NOT!; 8/14/09, 12:07 AM
Chase said...: My main point, in all honesty, is that this provision is not a bad one. But right wing politicians are using it for political gain in the same way the left wing use social security.

Actually Matt, you are missing my point (my fault).

Even without such wording or provisions, decisions will be made much more than they are now regarding the value of treatment and who gets it. It has to happen. Just because it may not happen frequently on Medicare now is irrelevant to what will have to happen when the full bill comes due. Cuts in the program will be inevitable at some time and - no matter who is in charge - it will mean ultimately deciding who gets to prolong their life and who doesn't. And that decision WILL be made by someone in or appointed by the government IF this massive health care reinvention plan goes through. It WILL happen.

That's why the question will always be:

Who gets to decide?; 8/14/09, 12:07 AM
Penny said...: Bagoh, the interest in the topic on both sides of the aisle is to be expected. The great thing is that the bunch in the middle are waking up.

WV: Pustie

Some day, maybe. ;); 8/14/09, 12:15 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: The fact that the Granny death consultations are being dropped, at least for now until the conference committee reinserts them, is really irrelevant to what is going on here.

The one complete bill out, HR 3200, is set up so that there will be established panels that have the sort of life and death decision power that so many are scared of, and that means that unelected bureaucrats will be making these life and death decisions for granny, and ultimately, for the rest of us, at least when we reach her age, and likely long before.

All the "Best Practices", etc. hokum that is being proposed is just that - cover for denying medical treatment based on the preferences of unelected bureaucrats.

Yes, maybe this is inevitable, with Medicare going bust in the near future. But the justification for this power grab by the Democrats was not that, but rather, the 47 or so million who don't have health insurance right now, and therefore do not have the same level of health care as those of us who work and pay for our insurance.; 8/14/09, 12:15 AM
former law student said...: Quite frankly my liberal friends, the main objection to government interference in health care is simply that: WE DON"T TRUST POLITICIANS

Ah, I understand. I have similar feelings.

I don't trust people who profit by providing me goods and services. And white people -- I've only ever been screwed by white people, as a matter of fact. Well, there was this Korean guy once. But, basically, white people. And businessmen (and women).

vw: plisgra, a french brand of butter sold by speakers of clipped english.; 8/14/09, 12:16 AM
Chase said...: By the way, I am a registered Democrat. Voted for Carter/ Reagan/ Bush Sr./ Clinton/ W/ W/ Palin (hell, I like her!)

Voted for my Democratic Congressman last 3 elections. Am a supporter and friends with the DA here (a former Dem Party head in So Cal).

Pro-life, pro-gun control (not all, but a lot)Pro Israel (anti Syria, North Korea and hopeful on Iran). Actually like Hillary despite my constant fun I make of her. Don't hate Obama, just think he's wrong. Admire but still detest Rahm Emmanuel. Think Michele Obama's hot and a great Mom. Like Jesse Jackson, but not his son or Al Sharpton (since they always seem to be lumped together).

Haven't regularly listened (come to think of it haven't listened at all on the radio to Rush Limbaugh for years (have a few major beefs with him though I have often agreed with him), have never listened to Sean Hannity (sp?), detest Rachel Maddow and Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann (actually wish Olbermann was back on SportsCenter - awesome!)and still believe W was great.

Like Whoopi Goldberg and the Elizabeth girl(?) and love Sheri Shepard but not Joy Behar(sp?).

Since you asked . . .

Hate CSI NCIS and pretty much any show that Jerry Bruckheimer has used to waste the quality of dramatic TV.

Loved Frasier. Own the series. Great family stories. Love Tyler Perry movies (TV Shows not so much).

Loved "Glee". LOVED it.

Oh, sorry - thought I was on Facebook!; 8/14/09, 12:23 AM
traditionalguy said...: @ Penney...Thanks for the question. I also respect your sensitive nature. The traditions I have been part of in my life do recognise the existence of evil men that need to be resisted and defeated or they will defeat you. My ancestors are Atlantans since 1821, and we have been defeated in a war. The difficulty is always using good enemy recognition. The scriptures say that our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil. In the political arena the fight with these spiritual forces of evil is always for the capture of men's minds and hearts. For example, the Jews never seem to be without some enemy actively seeking their destruction and death for the silliest of non-reasons, and they always need to resist that in a very real way. As an evangelical Christian, I see the Jewish People as the canary in the coal mine along with us. When men are under the influence of evil spiritual forces seeking the Jews' death, then we Christians know that we are the co-targets in line for the same treatment. My analysis of B. Hussain Obama and his politics tells me that he is another Haman like character toward the Jews, and therefore I am committed to resisting Obama's plans. But I could be wrong about him; we will see soon enough when the status of Jerusalem again captures Obama's eye.; 8/14/09, 12:26 AM
Chase said...: Bruce Hayden,

Thank you for once again saying it so well.; 8/14/09, 12:26 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: It's not what the con man promises you, it's that he can't be trusted that matters.

The place where I disagree with you is that this statement seems to be based on an assumption that the bureaucrats who will be making these decisions are either corrupt or incompetent. But we get to the same place if we assume that they are angels, and that they will be doing the best job they can in deciding who lives and who dies, because their mandate will be to cut costs, and to do that, they need to deny needed health care to someone or another. It cannot be done any other way.

As someone (I think economist Megan McArdle) pointed out, there are two ways to "ration" any good or service. You can do it with price, where price is ultimately set where the supply and demand curves intersect, or you can do so by government fiat. But when you do it by government fiat, you either have almost no demand, when price is set too high, or waiting lines (queues to the Brits) when set too low, because demand exceeds price at that price. So, the only way to cut down on waiting lines (absent raising prices to the market price) is to deny coverage. And, of course, medical procedures are very often much more time critical than, for example, automobiles during the Soviet era when people would wait for a decade or so because of government set prices.

So, even if you had philosopher kings deciding these matters, they would still be condemning people to death by their actions.

Of course, the bureaucrats who would be making these life and death decisions are human, and may indeed be corrupt and venal. But they don't have to be for people to die at their hands.; 8/14/09, 12:32 AM
Chase said...: traditionalguy,

I find it difficult to imagine Obama being as evil and self serving as Haman. I believe that his current policies towards Israel are not nearly as strong as they should be, but I don't see that as part of a master plan by him and his associates for leaving Israel out to twist in the wind. I just believe that he is wrong, and can be convinced by some of his pro Israel staff and advisors to rethink his direction.

If it turns out he is another Haman - meaning bent on seeing Israel's failures and defeats - well, we know what happened to Haman.; 8/14/09, 12:35 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Why do we allow government bureaucrats to determine where planes fly in the sky? Seriously, I think it's time to dismantle the FAA. Enough with Air Traffic Control. Give me Air Traffic Liberty. Down with all government programs, except for those that give me money.; 8/14/09, 12:41 AM
Chase said...: traditionalguy,

Also, I'm from South Carolina (Beaufort, originally) and have relatives that were on the Confederate side.

First saw "Gone With The Wind" in Atlanta in 1964. During the Atlanta scenes of death , I still remember out loud comments of "Damn Yankees!" being said by the audience. Several women wept passionately (and loud!) during those scenes. My aunt leaned over to me and said "that's some of your relatives lying there". Still creeps me out. Haven't watched it since.; 8/14/09, 12:45 AM
Chase said...: peter hoh,

Seriously, I guess I'm just to dense to see your point.

So, if someone controls where planes land, they should take over doctors and every medical decision too?

You're right - makes sense!; 8/14/09, 12:47 AM
Beth said...: Thank God! Steven Hawking is safe.; 8/14/09, 12:47 AM
former law student said...: I would like to question the implicit assumption that the public option will supplant all private health care payment schemes. People who believe this will happen also believe that the public option will be inefficient, unresponsive, ineffective, and will provide cost savings, if any, by rationing or actually denying care.

Well, if this is true, who would pick such a public option over the existing private options? Masochists? Sadists?

Will people not spend a little extra money for an upgraded service? Will not the same factors now motivating employers to provide health care (employee recruitment and retention) continue to motivate employers to provide more than the minimum contained in the public option.

Further, if low priced options inevitably drive more expensive options from the market, why do for-profit health insurers continue to exist alongside non-profit ones?; 8/14/09, 12:48 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Quite frankly my liberal friends, the main objection to government interference in health care is simply that: WE DON"T TRUST POLITICIANS.

Of course, I don't trust politicians. But that isn't really the issue here. What is relevant is whether you trust unelected unaccountable bureaucrats. Congress isn't going to be making these life and death decisions. They are much too smart for that. Rather, they have constructed numerous panels that will be staffed by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats who will be the people making the decisions about what health care is covered for whom.

FLS may not trust the private sector to make this sort of decision. But at least you have recourse, both legal and economic. The legal is easy - if an insurance company denies payment that they should have covered, according to the terms of the insurance contract, you can sue, and if you win, you are likely to get punitive damages if you have a good attorney. And the economic recourse is that if one company rejects too many claims that it should be covering, then policy holders are going to flee. This is esp. true for group policies that get periodically renegotiated and relet.

But with the unelected bureaucrats, you have no recourse whatsoever. They are doing their job, and their job will be to save money. Not to save granny's life, or the most lives, but money. And there won't be a damn thing you can do about it, legally or economically. Maybe politically - but that has its own significant problems, esp. for a national system.

If the panels decide that it is more important to spend money on breast and ovarian cancer than on prostate cancer because those female cancers are more politically correct than the male one, there won't be a damn thing that I could do, even if it means that I die as a result.; 8/14/09, 12:50 AM
traditionalguy said...: Chase...What pro-Israel staff and advisors? And to better answer Penny, people who disagree with me always help me learn a better way to understand and enjoy the wonderful gifts that all people bring to us.; 8/14/09, 12:50 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Chase, you think that the Democrats propose to "take over doctors and every medical decision"?

And you think my hyperbole is too much?; 8/14/09, 12:51 AM
Beth said...: Now if only Alaska would turn its back on Healthcare Decisions Day and stop pressuring Grandma to jump off a cliff.; 8/14/09, 12:53 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Bruce, do you think the FAA tries to save money? Of course they do. And they try to save lives at the same time. These are not mutually exclusive goals.; 8/14/09, 12:53 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Beth, when will you accept that it's okay when a Republican does it?; 8/14/09, 1:00 AM
Chennaul said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/14/09, 1:00 AM
Chase said...: peter hoh,

Please describe to me what you believe would be the ideal situation for Health Care in America.

I'm serious. I won't make lite of your ideas. But I will point out in advance that whatever idea or concept that you have, it will be far more inefficient in the long run the more the government is involved. As Bruce is pointing out, the promise of govennment efficiency (lower costs of drugs because of governement buying power, for example) will eventually be offset by govenrment decision that will make the quality of care lesser than it stands for the majority - not everyone, but still the majority - of Americans today.

And that is inevitable. Costs will have to contained and the dream of a large pool and a large government handling everyone will just be too expensive. And that's WITH so-called private options still being available. Think about it a little bit, and go the full steps that must take place. It can't work without decisions that will negatively effect the life quality and eventually the life span of Americans.; 8/14/09, 1:01 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I would like to question the implicit assumption that the public option will supplant all private health care payment schemes. People who believe this will happen also believe that the public option will be inefficient, unresponsive, ineffective, and will provide cost savings, if any, by rationing or actually denying care.

I think you look at this too simplistically. For example, right now Medicare, Medicaid, etc. are being cross-subsidized by private insurance - some for Medicare, and a lot for Medicaid and other state programs. There is no reason to believe that the tactic of cramming down reimbursement levels won't continue with the government option. And, the more people on a government program, whether insurance or program like Medicare, the more that everyone else will have to cross-subsidize them, which will drive up non-government policy costs even further. And, at some point, the difference between the government option and private plans will become so great, that most will be forced through economics to switch. Add in a bit of tax subsidization, and it only gets worse.

The problem with my scenario is that providers can refuse to deal with government payors of any type - for awhile, until so many providers are refusing to take payment from the government that they are ultimately legally given the choice of all or nothing - taking government payments, or no insurance payments.

"fulshist" - drop the last "s", and you get my view of ObamaCare.; 8/14/09, 1:03 AM
Chase said...: Peter, the FAA has admirable goals. But, the system is still poorly funded and in many cases still terribly inefficient - terribly so. In other words, the government could source air traffic control out - and definitely save money and increase the overall quality. It's been suggested many times, but has too many political implications. Are you troubled at the thought of Air Traffic being controlled by private companies?

If so - why don't you trust them?; 8/14/09, 1:06 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Chase, can you point to your healthcare proposals so I can read them, first?; 8/14/09, 1:07 AM
former law student said...: Bruce H. raises an important issue. How responsive will the public option be to the population it serves? Without a citizens' lobby I don't see how users could influence the bureaucracy. Currently citizens frustrated by a government agency can turn only to their Congressman. Presumably this would be the only channel of redress for the public option as well.

I would like to point out another likely shortcoming of the public option: failure to evolve as health care evolves. Medicare was state of the art in 1965, mirroring such employer-provided care as Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The concern was paying for surgery and the attendant long hospital stays.

Nowadays it seems that all surgery is an outpatient procedure. Since Medicare started, more and more conditions are cured or kept at bay by prescription drugs. Drugs have become the high cost item for many patients. Unfortunately, Medicare did not adapt to this change until four decades after its founding, during the W. administration. Obama's public option must be made to be more responsive.; 8/14/09, 1:08 AM
jimspice said...: Regarding the Palin quote from Robinson: look it up online, and then check out the sentence immediately following.; 8/14/09, 1:11 AM
Chase said...: Preach it Bruce!

You have given the moist succinct and logical explanation anywhere of the proposed Obamacare / Congressional plans.

I personally don't understand the reason for moving so fast AND trying to do everything at once. If they can begin by subsidizing Medicare correctly, that would be hopeful. But there is some need (?) to rush in and multiply an already inefficient government program like Medicare 100 times.

Not that is SCARY!; 8/14/09, 1:12 AM
Chase said...: Sorry Peter - I asked you first!; 8/14/09, 1:12 AM
Beth said...: Peter, oh, you mean like with deficits? Or changing your position with the political winds?

Palin was for death panels before she was against them.; 8/14/09, 1:14 AM
Chase said...: fls,

thank you for the thought provoking comment; 8/14/09, 1:15 AM
former law student said...: Again, Bruce H makes an excellent point. The public option must pay its own way. While I doubt it will follow the customary fee-for-service model, if it does it must comparably compensate the providers. (For example, volume discounts from the "reasonable and customary" fees should be allowed.); 8/14/09, 1:16 AM
Chase said...: Beth!

Thanks for the info on NOLA. My trip was postponed to Oct 14. I'll bug you you for more info before then.

Am disappointed that I didn't get to a good restaurant. I love living in Southern Cal, but let's face it - who visits here for the food?; 8/14/09, 1:17 AM
Synova said...: I'm pretty sure that the FAA has little or nothing to do with airline schedules.

Still, there is absolutely nothing that proves to us that airlines, without the FAA, could not organize themselves to provide safe air travel every bit as well as the government can do so, particularly with the present ability for any citizen to track events. We can't know because we don't have parallel systems to compare.; 8/14/09, 1:18 AM
Chase said...: Let's say that there are the 47 million without health insurance that we're told is the number. Why can't we start with those 47 million instead of trying to rework everyone else?

After that, consider the options and move forward.

In the next issue: suggestions for fixing current insurance.; 8/14/09, 1:21 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Chase, the solution is simple: cut capital gains taxes.

Works for health care and air traffic control. And if not, then cut the capital gains rate some more.

Of course government programs have waste and inefficiency and bureaucrats that usurp liberty (except when it comes to the military and the war on drugs) and as such, I am inclined against them.

The government is already in the health care business. Does it make sense to make it better? Or should the government pull out? Or just stay in far enough to shovel lots of money to the firms who hire the best lobbyists?

I am opposed to single-payer plans that I have heard about. I like the idea of using subsidies to achieve universal health insurance coverage -- something like MassCare, if I have my facts straight -- since we are already spending a bundle to pay for hospital visits of those who are uninsured.

I'd be much more convinced by the anti-government side of this argument if those promoting it had a track record of being anti-government when the GOP was in charge.

When the GOP was in charge, they added to medical entitlements with Medicare, Part-D. Can you justify that program? Could you admit that the White House lied about the costs in order to pass it?

Instead of an honest accounting of where we are, we get this false narrative about death panels. That's what frustrates me about the conservative side right now.; 8/14/09, 1:30 AM
Chennaul said...: peter-

First of all there is a bit of a problem with your FAA vs. Health Care analogy-

Diseconomy of scale..

And if you follow your argument because we let the government do "x" then why not let them do "y"...

You could see were you end up with a philosophy of statism.; 8/14/09, 1:35 AM
Synova said...: So...

Is the State of Alaska the health insurance provider for that State?

Do neither of you, Beth or Peter, see any fundamental difference in authority and coercion that exists if a government entity holds the purse strings and makes "suggestions" and when they don't?

Perhaps we should consider the two roles of government in promoting good nutrition.

In general the government has campaigns to encourage good nutrition that are not coercive... unless your food is paid for by the government...

What happens when your food is paid for my the government?

The government tells you what you may buy and what you may not. The recommendations and television ads and promotional efforts are replaced by regulations and rules.

I doubt that anyone thinks that it is NOT a good idea to think things through and have a will and let people know what you want to happen and how to deal with "heroic measures" and related things.

But not everything *good* need be *compelled*.

That's tyranny.

Unless Alaska is in a position to compel or intimidate, this is nothing more dastardly than a campaign to encourage people to eat healthy meals.

To bring up another sex analogy... there is a *reason* why it is *always* rape when someone with particular authority or influence has sex with a subordinate or patient or client.

Even when it is "voluntary" it really is not.

(My earlier sex analogy was that charity was to taxes as making love is to obligation sex.); 8/14/09, 1:36 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Synova, I picked the FAA because somehow, we accept that level of federal regulation and control without critics screaming socialism.; 8/14/09, 1:36 AM
Chennaul said...: see *where*..jeez..; 8/14/09, 1:36 AM
Peter Hoh said...: madawaskan, I intended the FAA analogy to counter the notion that everything the state does, it does badly.

The FAA also serves to demonstrate that a government agency can work to improve safety (save lives) and control costs.

I'm not using the existence of the FAA to advocate federal reach into our health care decisions.

---
Chase, I agree that I'd rather see a few issues tackled rather than an attempt at a big overhaul of the system.; 8/14/09, 1:42 AM
Chennaul said...: So you think this was bad and indefensible-

When the GOP was in charge, they added to medical entitlements with Medicare, Part-D. Can you justify that program? Could you admit that the White House lied about the costs in order to pass it?

So going full hog is OK?

And again your FAA might be one example of where the government hasn;t exactly made a pork of it but there are plenty of bad examples-

Social Security

Medicare

Frannie and Freddie Mac...; 8/14/09, 1:43 AM
Synova said...: "I'd be much more convinced by the anti-government side of this argument if those promoting it had a track record of being anti-government when the GOP was in charge."

That wasn't anyone here.

And I'm sure we weren't the only ones complaining about GOP ineffectiveness and big-spending ways...

IN FACT people were so disgusted with Republican spending that the Democrats now control the House and Senate.

So I'd be more "convinced" if you weren't making up some fantasy about a big shift from wholesale approval of the GOP's spending to disapproval because now it's the Democrats. Now it's the Democrats *because* many many people were furious at the Republicans for just that reason.

That's the biggest reason, BTW, that charges that the Tea Partiers are Republican stooges is moronic. The Republicans can only wish! They've shown up at protest rallies expecting a welcome and got booed from the podium.; 8/14/09, 1:43 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Synova, have you read what the author of the Senate version of the "death panels" provision has to say about this?

Without too much spin, here's Senator Isakson has to say.; 8/14/09, 1:45 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Synova, I'm not accusing you or others here of "wholesale approval" of GOP spending, but there was a hell of a lot of silence.; 8/14/09, 1:47 AM
Chennaul said...: Well peter honestly try to get some economy of scale in your perspective...; 8/14/09, 1:50 AM
Peter Hoh said...: madawaskan, I'm sorry I'm not the full-on proponent of the President's plan that you would like me to be. I'm not using Medicare, Part-D to justify the current proposal. I'm using it to call BS on the sudden fiscal conservativism that is breaking out among the GOP and their media supporters.; 8/14/09, 1:51 AM
Synova said...: "Synova, I picked the FAA because somehow, we accept that level of federal regulation and control without critics screaming socialism."

We accept a system that has been in existence a very long time and which is essentially transparent to those who travel by and utterly irrelevant to those who do not... which is a whole lot of people, actually.

The government as the largest provider of health insurance... even assuming we are *all* wrong and private insurance is not impacted at all... will be transparent or irrelevant to NO ONE.

Do you know what else the government is very good at? It is very good at having a military. We have an utterly fabulous military... effective, professional... absolutely first class in the world.

And I know just *exactly* how ineffective and stupid and hide-bound and eff'd up it can be... and that is *with* people willing to give up essential rights and freedoms and committed to cooperation so that all the cogs fit together in just the right way and so that everyone can expect everyone else to behave in a predicable and dependable manner.

Without the suspension of rights and freedoms that every other American has as a matter of course, the military could not function at all.

Some things the government does well.; 8/14/09, 1:53 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Synova, any thoughts in reaction to what Isakson has to say?; 8/14/09, 1:57 AM
Synova said...: Isakson seems to be another person who doesn't see the difference between government encouraging people to plan ahead and government passing a law that requires everyone to take action to do their best to help people who know that their care depends on the government to plan ahead.; 8/14/09, 1:59 AM
Chennaul said...: Well peter I don't get it.

You're more bothered by the BS of the party that is impotent than the actual large, and rapid actions of the party that controls the House, Senate and Executive.

What do you think might have a more real long term effect the supposed BS of Republicans or the grand scale actions of the Democrats?; 8/14/09, 1:59 AM
Peter Hoh said...: madawaskan, the BS of the GOP brought us Obama, so you tell me.; 8/14/09, 2:00 AM
Synova said...: Oh... it's 1AM.

BAD PUPPY!

wv: wyosersc; 8/14/09, 2:02 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Synova, Isakson just wants to pay the doctors who do the VOLUNTARY consultations that Palin praised in her proclamations.

Is your position that if medicare is paying, then one should not be permitted to discuss living wills or end-of-life planning with his or her doctor?; 8/14/09, 2:03 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Looks like Newt didn't have a problem with "Death Panels" a few months ago, when he was praising them for saving money while providing "the same outcome."; 8/14/09, 2:12 AM
Chennaul said...: Peter-

Heh...

That might be a fair point but I think historical epic circumstance and a nasty press that is no longer journalism might have had something to do with it.

Anyways here another Isakson story-I guess Obama misrepresented him?

“The irony is that actually one of the chief sponsors of this bill originally was a Republican — then House member, now senator, named Johnny Isakson from Georgia — who very sensibly thought this is something that would expand people’s options,” Obama said in Portsmouth.

Not so fast, Isakson said.

“This is what happens when the president and members of Congress don’t read the bills,” Isakson said Tuesday.

“The White House and others are merely attempting to deflect attention from the intense negativity caused by their unpopular policies.

“I never consulted with the White House in this process and had no role whatsoever in the House Democrats’ bill,” Isakson said. “I categorically oppose the House bill and find it incredulous that the White House and others would use my amendment as a scapegoat for their misguided policies.”; 8/14/09, 2:14 AM
Chennaul said...: Ugh I have to hit it-

The end point I guess would be that they took this out of the bill for whatever reason.

Sugar always makes the pill easier to swallow.; 8/14/09, 2:18 AM
Synova said...: I've really really got to go to bed, Peter.

What I'm saying is that... even if something is appropriate in one circumstance that does not make it appropriate in another.; 8/14/09, 2:28 AM
Synova said...: Peter, again, I went to your link about Gingrich.

There is a difference which apparently people are blind to between what a private system can do without infringing freedom and what a government can do.

A Lutheran organization that is a voluntary association of providers and consumers can institute a program that is much more efficient than Medicare without doing violence to liberty.

The author and commentators were all scoffing that the government proposal was *exactly the same thing*.

This is like saying that sex with one person is *exactly the same thing* as sex with someone else because it was physically the same action.; 8/14/09, 2:39 AM
Crimso said...: "Palin was for death panels before she was against them." And Peter Hoh at 2:12.

It's okay. Invisible Man has assured us it's okay (even common) for polticians to change their minds.

TW:repod. As in "The pod people need to repod Palin, since (based on her complete change in beliefs and philosophy) the copy is clearly not indiscernible from the original."; 8/14/09, 5:38 AM
bearbee said...: Government needs to be prevented from taking over health-care.

Merely excluding end-of-life provisions is a token to take off the heat.

If legislation passes, there is nothing to prevent slimy politicians (but I repeat myself) from surreptitiously adding it back at a later time.

The focus needs to be that the country is BROKE and cannot afford $2 trillion 'reform.'

So-called government 'efficiencies' are bogus.

Medicare/caid outstanding examples of government 'management.'

CBO says WH and Congressional reform estimates are full of crap.; 8/14/09, 5:43 AM
KCFleming said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/14/09, 6:22 AM
KCFleming said...: I have become convinced that there is nothing short of force or the threat of force to prevent the nationalization of health care. Hence the anger seen in the town hall outbursts. But they will fail, because we have been introducing socialism on the installment plan for decades now, and they have won, and we will be screwed.

Ben Franklin said "You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." And it's true; the liberal belief in a 'right' to health care that must be paid for by confiscating from Peter to pay Paul and (and even the 'undocumented worker' Pedro) is a chimera, like a Ponzi scheme or a unicorn or a perpetual motion device or turning base metals into gold. He wants something for nothing, man's oldest dream, but it leads to all sorts of evil.

No matter that less than half of citizens now pay any federal income tax, and they are in effect voting to pick the pockets of the few in favor of the many, something the Constitution prohibited, at least until the liberals waved their hands and the Supreme Court said otherwise and now here we are, on the cusp of repeating the major economic failures of the past 150 years, where socialism finds it's eyes are bigger than its stomach, and it's eyes are very very green.

I am uncertain how the US will collapse, but I now believe it is a certainty. My proof? That people believe in unicorns like single payer health care.

I was very angry about this last night; I have been for weeks, because it means my career is effectively over, or that I will have to leave the country, or that I will have to participate in a secession (I'm hoping on Texas). And godddamnit, that pisses me off. My apologies to those I swore at, but when you fuck with a man's livelihood and pick his pockets at the same time, you better expect push-back.

In the Kübler-Ross grief cycle, the death of medicine has me by the short hairs.; 8/14/09, 6:24 AM
Crimso said...: "or that I will have to participate in a secession (I'm hoping on Texas)."

While I understand the sentiment, isn't there a SCOTUS precedent that seems to indicate secession is illegal? Althouse?; 8/14/09, 6:27 AM
KCFleming said...: The American Revolution was illegal.; 8/14/09, 6:28 AM
Anonymous said...: I work for the FAA. While it does some very important things very well, no one familiar with its workings would suspect it of cost-effectiveness. (Next month is the last of the fiscal year, and we'll be playing our annual game of "squander all the leftover cash, or we won't get it again next year". I don't kn ow whether or not this happens in the privatized ATC systems of most other developed countries.); 8/14/09, 6:47 AM
Crimso said...: "The American Revolution was illegal."

So was the War of the Rebellion. One was a good idea, the other wasn't. I'd rather not have to watch my minor son end up in a latter-day Republic of Texas, and then have to renew my passport, etc etc. Though I would admit that it would be tempting to immigrate. David Crockett lived right down the road from where I now sit. "You can all got to Hell, and I will go to Texas." You might make it a tagline (and I'm not making fun of you; I realize you're upset watching something you love under assault by a bunch of idiots with pitchforks and torches).; 8/14/09, 7:12 AM
KCFleming said...: I don't want any of that to occur; I've got kids of my own. Shit, I'll be dead in just a few decades (or less, who knows?), but they're just starting out. I grieve for them, too.

But human nature is immutable; once the state becomes merely an organized mob for theft, it is doomed. As has always been the case. Damned hard to accept, harder to have happen right in front of you.; 8/14/09, 7:18 AM
hombre said...: What do end-of-life counseling sessions have to do with "death panels?" That's a BHO red herring.

Death panels are committees that create Zeke Emanuel/Peter Singer standards to decide who deserves to live and who does not. The grim prospect of these panels is not eliminated by modifying EOL counseling provisions. The panels are inherent to government-run health care.

How dumb are we?

(wv) gralker = the grim reaper that will stalk us all under gov't health care.; 8/14/09, 7:50 AM
hombre said...: Sort of like eugenics and its offspring selective euthanasia are inherent to left-wing secularism.

Isn't that some of what the protesters fear, what with BO, the baby-killer, Rahm, the robot, and his brother, Dr. Death, consorting in the White House?

And we used to think Peter Singer was a morbid kook! Just look how far we've come since January!; 8/14/09, 8:05 AM
Anonymous said...: Woo hoo! A double Palin post day! Althouse Hillbillies gone wild!

Given that this constitutes the vast majority of your content...why are you even here, Lee?

No rational observers take Palin for anything more than what she is: an overaged adolescent: aggressively ignorant and shallow, a shameless liar and opportunist, petulant, self-pitying and grandiose, a complete narcissist.

Bob, she also saw what Obama was going to be long before the majority of his supporters did. She has been pretty spot-on with everything Obama has done to date.

Three words that can never be repeated enough: Public. Campaign. Financing.

Will never happen. Our current President has pretty well killed it dead.

Now, your being willfully obtuse. People change their minds all of the time, for all kinds of reasons. I dare say, there isn't a President of the US who hasn't reversed his position on some significant program or policy. But demogouging a position that you've taken in the past, and not having the strength of character to even admit that you once had that same "exact" position is just a completely different animal.

I.M, he said he'd use public financing in February 2008. He changed his mind in JUNE 2008. So, outside of "Wow, I'm making a ton of money" inspired this change of mind in 4 whole months?; 8/14/09, 8:23 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Synova, I picked the FAA because somehow, we accept that level of federal regulation and control without critics screaming socialism

It really takes a special kind of lunacy to conclude that anyone thinks a Federal agency that regulates air traffic is akin to socialism. Strawman much? I mean someone awhile ago tried to tie having firemen was akin to socialism. Jaysus Christo.

You know there are some government programs that are good and quite a few that are bad. FAA is an example of a good one. Public Housing is an example of a bad one.

Eveyone benefits by an organization that regulates air travel and makes it safer. I don't benefit from public housing. In fact, it turned out to be a major detriment and a reason I packed up and moved when my former township asshats thought it would be a splendid idea to allow a whole aprtment complex to be built to allow Section 8 housing right next to my subdivision. Within a year, we had 2 carjackings on my street alone, graffiti on street signs, trash strewn on the streets, our community pool and park was trashed and I finally had enough when a guy 4 doors down from our house was gunned down in his front lawn.

Thanks but I've seen public housing up close. I'll pass on future government social engineering thank you. Deliver the mail, repair the streets and bridges and defend the country.; 8/14/09, 8:25 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Now, your being willfully obtuse. People change their minds all of the time, for all kinds of reasons. I dare say, there isn't a President of the US who hasn't reversed his position on some significant program or policy.

Yes people change their minds all the time usually because of some come to Jesus moment. Like when someone who supported capital punishment one day realizes it’s cruel and inhumane or a pro-choice becoming pro-life for the same reasoning. The only thing that person gains from that change of mind is a new perspective on an issue.

In Obama’s case his change of mind was due to the fact he finally realized that he was making a shit ton of Benjamins in private donations. His change of mind was something that benefited him personally which automatically makes me question his credibility on everything. When someone has a major policy change the first thing I look for is to see how it benefits them. In Obama’s case there was around 600 million reasons for him to change his mind. Therefore he’s just like every other lying, calculating piece of shit politician out there. The difference between me and you is that you seem to still be enraptured by his Hope n Change bullshit whereas he’s simply living up to the low standards I held him in since jump street.; 8/14/09, 8:39 AM
bearbee said...: ...an overaged adolescent: aggressively ignorant and shallow, a shameless liar and opportunist, petulant, self-pitying and grandiose, a complete narcissist.

Obama?; 8/14/09, 8:47 AM
Invisible Man said...: Bob, she also saw what Obama was going to be long before the majority of his supporters did. She has been pretty spot-on with everything Obama has done to date.

Actually, Palin is completely wrong. She said that Obama "pals" around with terrorists, except that he has been even more vigilant than Bush in the area of the world where more terrorists live, Pakistan & Afghanistan. She also said that he would destroy the economy, in which he's done the exact opposite by helping to bring it back from the brink.

Sarah Palin is wrong about just about everything including her reasons for jumping ship on her constituents. She's a habitual liar whose pettiness is only eclipsed by ability to say mind numbingly stupid things. Anything agreements just highlights your superficial, "she didn't like Obama" for various partisan reasons, and you don't like Obama for various partisan reasons.; 8/14/09, 8:49 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Pogo, et al, It's okay with me if this bill fails because of legit concerns raised about the scope and size of federal programs/spending. But if it's derailed by false narratives, then we have ceded the business of governing to the marketing people.

False but accurate -- now approved by the people who used to mock that shit.

Synova, right now, the Gundersen Lutheran Hospital system program applauded by Gingrich is being paid by the federal government for managing their patients' end of life care.

I don't see a difference between what they are doing now and what Isakson was proposing.

You wrote: A Lutheran organization that is a voluntary association of providers and consumers can institute a program that is much more efficient than Medicare without doing violence to liberty.

Their program is not some private thing completely outside of Medicare. They are getting reimbursement from Medicare. Don't you see that?

Gingrich wanted to see the hospital system's approach applied more widely. By the government. Newt said, "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."; 8/14/09, 9:01 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: She's a habitual liar whose pettiness is only eclipsed by ability to say mind numbingly stupid things.

Indeed. I mean Obama has kept all his promises about: pulling out of Iraq, not beging beholden to special interest groups, accepting only private campaign funds, transparency in government, no more earmarks in legislation (ROFLMAO)....

Obama is a sage. I mean only an idiot like Palin thinks we have 57 states. Only an idiot like Palin thinks Austrians speak Austrain.

I mean Obama is a very pragmatic person. He took six months to pick out the right dog for his childrens but insists we have to ram down a massive health care bill in a month. Yeah. He's a real peach.; 8/14/09, 9:05 AM
KCFleming said...: "Gingrich wanted to see the hospital system's approach applied more widely. By the government."

And for that he is an ass.; 8/14/09, 9:05 AM
Bill R said...: The idea of "Death Panels" didn't come from Sarah Palin. It canme from Barak Obama himself. Here he is explaining the concept in an April interview in the New York Times.

___________________________________

THE PRESIDENT: ... If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn't have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life - that would be pretty upsetting.

LEONHARDT: And it's going to be hard for people who don't have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

LEONHARDT: So how do you - how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.
________________________________

It's interesting that the president excludes clergy from the "panels" and instead includes "ethicists". The most prominent "ethicist" in America is a Princeton professor named Peter Singer. Singer believes, among other things, that it's immoral to use animals for food but quite OK to use them for sex. He's an avid proponent of abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide. Here's just one of the many charming quotes from America's leading "ethicist".

"killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person"

Wonderful.; 8/14/09, 9:07 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: You know what this is failing? It's failing because there is a bill out there that the fucking idiots who drafted it don't even know whats it it. It's failing because Obama denies its about single payer yet can't explain what he meant when he previously claimed he wanted single payer.

Want to fix the uninsured problem without a massive overhaul that threatens to change the entire system? Simple. Offer Medicare Part A to everyone who does not have insurance. Period. Require a monthly premium that they have to pay and raise the Medicare payroll tax (it needs to be done anyway) and oila, its fixed. Its not perfect, it doesnt cover everything but the horeshit about people going bankrupt because of a broken leg goes away. Now people have catastrophic coverage.

Earth to Obambi: People really don't like change. It was a nice slogan but generally people don't like massive change. Go to any business office (oh that's right you never worked in the private sector, silly me) and tell the employees that there is going to be CHANGE here and watch how excited everyone gets. Go slow dipshit. Try expanding an existing program and see how it works before throwing a pile of cowshit on the wall to see if it sticks.; 8/14/09, 9:13 AM
hombre said...: IM wrote: She said that Obama "pals" around with terrorists.

Do you deny that he hung around with Ayers or that Ayers was a terrorist? Hell, even Axelrod wasn't that disingenuous.

[H]e's done the exact opposite by helping to bring [the economy] back from the brink.

You're kidding, right?

The OMB said recovery would begin by year's end without the stimulus. Yet, foreclosures are up. Unemployment surged again this week. The projected deficits will be greater than all previous deficits combined. Banks are still going broke at record rates. We have yet to see the results of cap and trade and the health care fiasco. Etc., etc.

What, exactly, has Obama done to rescue the economy?

(wv) "repal" = making friends with the guy trying to repossess the car you couldn't afford that you traded your "clunker" for.; 8/14/09, 9:21 AM
garage mahal said...: Earth to Obambi: People really don't like change..

You mean, conservatives who didn';t vote for Obama don't like change. And why even have elections? He ran on health care reform strongly, he is trying do exactly what he talked about doing. He won soundly against the other guy who was against this plan he is trying to enact.; 8/14/09, 9:22 AM
hombre said...: Given that this constitutes the vast majority of your content...why are you even here, Lee?

He's here because this site is his assignment from ACORN/Kos.

"Small business," you know.; 8/14/09, 9:27 AM
Anonymous said...: He ran on health care reform strongly, he is trying do exactly what he talked about doing.

Or, in the case of individual mandates, exactly the opposite of what he talked about doing.; 8/14/09, 9:29 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: peter hoh said...

Pogo, et al, It's okay with me if this bill fails because of legit concerns raised about the scope and size of federal programs/spending. But if it's derailed by false narratives, then we have ceded the business of governing to the marketing people.

Can I assume that you'd be equally unhappy if the bill passes due to the false narratives of the left?; 8/14/09, 9:35 AM
Paddy O said...: "He ran on health care reform strongly"

I think this is partially true, but I think this really misses what the problem is.

Obama ran on hope and change. And by change he was really emphasizing the idea of new political climates, new openness to new ideas, new ways of doing things that could reinspire a generation that politics as usual isn't the way politics has to be.

The really big sticking point in all of this is that Congress was immensely unpopular, and Congressional leaders on both sides had hardened partisan politics.

Obama's promise of hope and change got almost immediately undermined when it became clear he wasn't going to transform this partisanship, and wasn't, indeed, even going to take the mantle of leadership over the key programs. Instead, he used massive political capital to reward partisan supporters and alienate opponents. All while letting the already extremely unpopular Congress define the details of Obama's policies.

Instead of there being hope and change and unprecedented transparency there was a situation in which everything most everyone didn't like about the Bush administration and the Republican Congress was continued or increased this year. Massive, over-complicated, over-ambitious, unreadable, unwieldy bills were forced through--with the speed trying to get things done without even hoping for a slight bit of bipartisanship.

They won. That's true. But they didn't win on "winners gets the spoils," they ran on hope and change. And the hope for change did not mean instantaneous transformation, but rather the kind of listening, sharing, working together, development of effective programs. Precisely the opposite of Bush's supposed cowboy ways.

Everyone sees Obama in this new expression of his self--which opponents long charged was his real self. He's not a new way of doing things. He's not about hope in the political system or change in the old partisanship. He's about handing over power to the very people who were extremely unpopular, along with Bush, for quite a while.

People didn't vote for massive, and immediate, transformation in vital areas of life. Well, a lot of people voted for that in regards to withdrawal from Iraq. Instead of hope and change, however, we got bullying and arrogance. We got massive deficit spending with minuscule results.

The change that was sought was change in politics as usual. But, all everyone is seeing is the usual politics, and the Congress becoming the defining leadership, rather than being reformed by strong leadership.; 8/14/09, 9:46 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: You mean, conservatives who didn';t vote for Obama don't like change. And why even have elections?

I try and credit you with a higher than average level of intelligence but I'll assume for the sake of argument you're a 17 year old and explain. Yes, garage, people by nature are adverse to sweeping change. Like I said, if you ever worked in a business office the last words folks want to hear other than 'you're fired' is the boss saying 'there's going to be changes around here.' Change in moderation can be a good thing. Change in the Messianic Obama world where we're going to pass a massive Cap and Trade bill alongside a massive health care bill in the midst of a crushing recession while saddling the nation with a debt we're never going to get out of does tend to make rationale people who understand basic mathematics and economics and understand that money doesn't come from pixie dust or unicorn turds.

He ran on health care reform strongly, he is trying do exactly what he talked about doing.

Wait, during the campaign he was all about universal health care. Now he's claiming it's not universal health care. Which is it garage? I mean his story changes more often than Madonna adopts orphan Africans.

He won soundly against the other guy who was against this plan he is trying to enact.

52% to 48% is soundly? That's a lesser margin of victory than Bush 41 had over Dukakis. But hey, if thats what gets you through the day.

WV - cringul An afflication I get when trying to use reason with liberals; 8/14/09, 9:46 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Yesterday I was told by a co-worker that I had a bizzare hangup with my expectation that legislators actually READ the bill that they are proposing.

I honest to Allah don't even know how to continue a conversation with someone who actually holds that kind of belief.

ME: I should not expect the persons voting on a piece of legislation that very may well have a direct impact on my health care not to mention my tax liabilities to have actually have read the bill?

HER: It's over 1000 pages, how can you expect them to read the whole thing? That's what they have staff for!

ME: /facepalm; 8/14/09, 9:51 AM
Big Mike said...: @garage, Peggy Noonan has the perfect answer for you. The link is here.

For me the money quote is:

"The president seemed like a man long celebrated as being very good at politics—the swift rise, the astute reading of a varied electorate—who is finding out day by day that he isn't actually all that good at it. In this sense he does seem reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, who was brilliant at becoming president but not being president. (Actually a lot of them are like that these days.)"; 8/14/09, 9:53 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Obama ran on hope and change. And by change he was really emphasizing the idea of new political climates, new openness to new ideas, new ways of doing things that could reinspire a generation that politics as usual isn't the way politics has to be.

He's nothing more than the same thing we had before. He's tied to the same special interests that those that came before him. The only difference is he flashes his toothy smile and the ladies and metrosexuals wet themselves and forget he lies every time he moves his lips.; 8/14/09, 9:56 AM
traditionalguy said...: The American swing voters have decided that they cannot trust a leader who keeps putting out campaign memes in place of speaking to them about the clear as day truth of what the Democrat Cabal in Congress is doing to us on his watch. I don't even think the mythical middleclass tax cut he based his entire campaign upon could save Obama's butt in the coming elections. Now what did the President of Honduras propose when he found himself in a similar situation? Obama has the US government agencies fighting to get that legitimately impeached Honduran Ex-President back into power a la Chavez in Venezuela. Then Chavez and the Hondurans could bring Obama's favorite Iranian Tyrants war upon us up across Mexico into our southern border. Meanwhile all our Army and National Guard Units and Marine Corp Divisions are diligently stuck like sitting ducks for the Iranian sponsored roadside bombers while they are told to try to pacify a worthless area of the Afghan Mountains. Great minds must think alike.; 8/14/09, 9:57 AM
Paddy O said...: "debunked"

That's an important little bit in that article. What's interesting is the article I read yesterday.

Palin is said to stand by claim, even though it is debunked. But, notice the curious little activity going on in that article. Palin said what she said. Essentially she said that there will be policies in place that might decide on when to withhold care from those who might need it, but might be seen as extraneous or otherwise not worthy of the cost.

But, this article goes on to give major space to the idea that there is no way there are going to be euthanasia or assisted suicide policies in place. What was debunked was a, maybe malicious, redefinition of Palin's use of "Death panel". This article at least makes absolutely no comment about rationing of care but instead focuses on dubunking the unmade argument that Obama supports euthanasia panels--like some kind of evil Nazi.

Palin was talking about health care rationing. The article "debunked" the idea there would be euthanasia enacted. Which wasn't what she was talking about, which raises the concern that health care rationing is indeed a key part of cost savings, and would be a part of "voluntary" counseling, in which one side might be, for whatever reason, pressed to encourage certain options and may even be empowered to enforce such options. Label one party irrational or not attuned to the common good for all, and it becomes easy to nudge voluntary conversations into involuntary lack of care.; 8/14/09, 10:00 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: @garage, Peggy Noonan has the perfect answer for you. The link is here.

Perfectly said. Garage thinks the country has gone insane. I tend to agree because 52% of the voters elected a man whose main accomplishment was........

I mean I am astounded that in the midst of a crushing recession his main focus at this point is passing a massive cap and trade bill that will only benefit Wall Street and crush the middle class, a health care reform bill that is just going to add even more crushing debt all at a time when our biggest debt underwriters are divesting away from the dollar. Oh and lets not forget the stimulus of $780 billion in which $25 billion when to his vaunted shovel ready projects and the rest to Acorn and tattoo removal in Kali-for-nia. The man is either completely ignorant of economics or trying to destroy the national economy. Take your pick.; 8/14/09, 10:02 AM