Palin stands by "death panel" claim

Palin stands by "death panel" claim

m.apnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin refused to retreat from her widely disputed claim that a proposed health care overhaul would create "death panels," as the growing furor over end-of-life consultations forced a key group of senators to abandon the idea in their bill.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of six lawmakers negotiating on a Senate bill, said Thursday they had dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration "entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."
In a Facebook posting late Wednesday night, Palin argued that the elde

(visit the link for the full news article)

Several senators on key Congressional committees, including Sen Grassley of Iowa, are moving to drop the provision that allows for end-of-life counseling from the health insurance reform bill.

IMO I would want end-of-life counseling, including the options of hospice and/or palliative care, both for myself or to help me cope with the death of a loved one. But now it looks like that option is off the table.

I guess Palin wins on this one.

So much for the notion that this government doesn't respond to the people, no matter how far out their fears are.


m.apnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


[edit on 13-8-2009 by Sestias]

reply to post by Sestias


Funny you should mention this ...
I was just reading:

www.salon.com...

Palin and Grassley are liars

It is difficult to use polite prose when two individuals are intentionally making false statements. As many commentators have already observed, conservatives like Palin and Grassley are attempting to foment fears concerning a fairly innocuous and medically sound provision in the proposed healthcare reform legislation that would compensate medical providers for offering "end-of-life" counseling to individuals. During the counseling sessions, the caregivers would provide information to patients related to: advanced directives, healthcare proxies, state and national resources that assist patients and families regarding end-of-life issues, palliative care, and care in a hospice setting (see sect. 1233 of the proposed healthcare legislation).

Despite the plain language of the proposed statute, Palin and Grassley continue to float their death narratives. As Politico reports, Palin remains defiant and has released another statement (in response to criticism by President Obama) which asserts that: [I]t's misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. . . ." Of course, Palin's new statement fails to point to any specific language in the bill that would make such counseling mandatory. Furthermore, Grassley made his "pull the plug on grandma" statement after many commentators had already debunked Palin's death panel claim. Facts mean nothing in a smear campaign.

The rest of it is an equally interesting read ...

If one is interested in mass psychosis that is.

[edit on 13 Aug 2009 by schrodingers dog]

Originally posted by Sestias

Several senators on key Congressional committees, including Sen Grassley of Iowa, are moving to drop the provision that allows for end-of-life counseling from the health insurance reform bill.

You can get end-of-life counseling now. There are plenty of facilities (religeous, health, state, attorneys, etc.) that are designed to assist people SHOULD they WANT this kind of help. Living wills are one way to go.

IMO I would want end-of-life counseling, including the options of hospice and/or palliative care, both for myself or to help me cope with the death of a loved one. But now it looks like that option is off the table.

You can get hospice now!

You do realize that this panel is also designed to determine the best course of treatment, i.e. surgery or pain pills? Like I said, there are many qualified people to help you should you find yourself in this situation. BUT the government is not who should be making these decisions in my opinion.

I guess Palin wins on this one.

Just goes to show how the protests of extremists can influence legislation.

I feel like I'm speaking to Obama himself. Let me set this straight: I oppose this healthcare bill and I am not an extremist!

C'mon -- you really believe Obama when he tells you that EVERYONE protesting healthcare is a nut or extremist? That's what they want you to think.

Heaven forbid REAL PEOPLE with REAL CONCERNS are actually opposed to this multi-trillion dollar reform that puts government in control of healthcare.

reply to post by lpowell0627


Mmm, the OP didn't do him/herself any favors with his comments as they related to his cited article.

Sure, not everyone who opposes hc reform is an extremist, though some surely are.

Anyone who opposes it or defends it on knowingly false grounds is simply disingenuous.

[edit on 13 Aug 2009 by schrodingers dog]

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Yes, there are extremists. But I believe that they are the exception and NOT the rule. I also believe that that word is thrown around WAY to liberally these days. It's meant to invoke fear and anger, and accomplishes both.

Here's a pretty good sum-up of Obama's plan. Finally, someone can manage to be opposed to something WITHOUT sounding like a lunatic or throwing around exaggerated circumstances. (meaning Palin, not the OP)

David Frum: "It's not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric. If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic -- if he were those things, somebody should shoot him. But he is not. He is an ambitious, liberal president who is spending too much money and emitting too much debt. His health-care ideas are too ambitious and his climate plans are too interventionist. The president can be met and bested on the field of reason -- but only by people who are themselves reasonable."

Link: politicalwire.com...

Note: I added the bold type myself.

I have to say, whether there are some out there who are supremely satisfied with what passes for the health care industry in this country or not, I think this 'activity' of 'former' Governor Palin is just fuel for her political career.

She cannot afford to be ignored if she is to pursue candidacy when the curtain lifts upon the next 'act' in their 'play'.

And since, by a stretch of reason and a healthy dose of partisan pablum, one can see how the intrusion into the end-of-life decision-making process by government authorities could be considered offensive to some, she can do so without having to concern herself unduly with the nature of the difference between what she implies and what reasonable people infer.

Seems like opposition is more important than reality... as usual....

And besides.... what version of which draft is she using to source her comments..., and the same question can be asked of the proponents as well...

A link to another source on this story:

belowthe beltway

reply to post by lpowell0627


Objection duly noted. I've edited my opening post to take out the "extremist" charge.

reply to post by Sestias


I've already explained how the subject provisions go FAR BEYOND end of life counselling. So I won't address again why the plan was drivel.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It's not just about the elderly and infirm making their own choice, regardless of faith.

It's about letting someone else make that decision altogether.

President Obama wants a third party to determine value of life v. cost of life in treatment of the elderly and infirm:

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. ... And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.”

"After the Great Recession"
New York Times Magazine, April 28, 2009 (published in print May 3, 2009)

Obama advocates rationing and the use of third parties to determine cost and necessity of treatment, rather than the patient or guarantor. Read the article to see what he says about his own grandmother's care!

As for this being about party and ideology, why not consider what Salon writer Camille Paglia says:

Obama’s Healthcare Horror
Heads should roll – beginning with Nancy Pelosi’s

www.salon.com...

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

(emphasis gleefully added)

Oh, and what does the liberal Salon and its blogger say about Palin?

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. ... On reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.

But wait! It's the right wing extremeists that just won't listen, right?
Ask Camille:

And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals.

Somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House.

I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.

So. It's the right's fault if this bill fails?

Camille thinks otherwise:

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way?

How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves.

Oops.

Deny Ignorance!

jw



[edit on 13-8-2009 by jdub297]

The way I see it is that the interpretation and ravings of an idiot seems to have gotten the bigger idiots all up in a rage.

Seriously, why are people listening to her?

reply to post by Sestias


Wow! Look at the power of Sarah Palin.
Go get them Sarah!
No wonder the libs are terrified of her.
That "Death Panel" sound bite had them all running.
Hey there is no death panel! OOps! Someone just showed me.
There really is a panel that would decide life or death.
I think ObamaCare will crash and burn.
Sarah has them on their heels.

Most doctors already do some of this kind of thing and almost all hospitals ask you if you have a living will when you go in as a patient.

If the medical advisory group becomes the gatekeeper and can decide that your quality of life or even life expectancy is limited, then yes, they do become a death panel by delaying and/or denying treatments or procedures that could save your life.

It becomes a question of money. How old is too old to get a pacemaker or to remove a brain tumor or a kidney transplant? How much money should be spent on a premature infant? How premature is too premature to try to save the child? If someone has a serious injury and is retarded as Palin's child is, how much should be spent on that person?

These are real and serious concerns to have and no one should be mocked for having them.

If their main job is to reduce costs, they can only do it by reducing the number of people actually getting the more expensive treatments, diagnostics, and surgeries.

Don't think that is the health care reform most people want.

Originally posted by Sestias

Palin stands by "death panel" claim

m.apnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin refused to retreat from her widely disputed claim that a proposed health care overhaul would create "death panels," as the growing furor over end-of-life consultations forced a key group of senators to abandon the idea in their bill.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of six lawmakers negotiating on a Senate bill, said Thursday they had dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration "entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."
In a Facebook posting late Wednesday night, Palin argued that the elde

(visit the link for the full news article)

For the first time since I was introduced to Ms. Palin via the election campaigns, I respect her. How about that?

That vague and distorted piece of work never should have seen the light of day to begin with.

This process has been so incompetently manged by the administration that there is no way we will get any serious kind of reform this year. Perhaps some modest changes so that they can hang their hat on the accomplishment, but no serious reform.

The simple fact is that they don't have a plan. There is a house plan, a senate plan and a mock-up plan from the administration. It is impossible to articulate what is in and what is not in a "plan" when one does not exist. It is also possible to make truthful statements that something is in or not in a plan when there are a number of plans out there and things are in one and not in another.

All the "right wing extremests" want is to have a simple outline of what is in the plan and what is not. Having worked in private industry in a very complex sector for 25 years, I don't care how complex an issue is, it can be boiled down in a fashion whereby the basic tenets can be understood. The fact that the supporters of this within the government (or even outside of it) can't do that is impossible to believe. These are smart folks. They don't WANT to boil it down. The fact of the matter is that 70% of Americans are satisfied with their healthcare. I believe that 30% who are not is a significant number and that something must be done to correct that problem. Hammering something down the throats of the country that impacts something as basic as healthcare absent the ability to articulate what the plan means is irresponsible.

One thing that I have always believed is that when smart people consistently behave in a foolish or stupid manner, there is something else going on. That is clearly the case here as what is going on is not about health care. It is about a massive extension of government. Since private enterprise can not compete with tax funded government, it will only be a matter of time before private insurance is no longer available and Obama has said exactly that.

Once you are dependant on the government to keep or get healthy, you become a slave to the government. That is the ultimate objective here.

If the administration wants to get this thing passed they will compomise, boil it down so that folks can understand it, and then sell it in a bi-partisan way. They won't do it and therefore they will not get their reform.

reply to post by Hazelnut


I disagree.

My Mother is a Hospice Homecare worker.

These things are needed.

I'd rather see them back in the bill.

People are DIEING NOW. People are not getting the help the need and more are hurting because of losing their jobs.

The health care industry already rations health care. Guys, you are railing for CEO's who are making billions of dollars off of DEATH.

Why in the hell are CEO's being made out as good people in the media? The CEO's and stockholders are the ones who have helped send this country down the tubes.

reply to post by HunkaHunka


Good for her.

When I was at home taking care of my terminally-ill father, the home hospice people were a huge help.

Tell her "keep up the good work"

reply to post by jdub297


You don't have to defend your position anymore. The Senate Finance Committee, at least, has taken that option out of the bill.

There have been other threads debating the merits of that provision. The issue now is Palin's victory and what other sections of the bill will possibly be rewritten or defeated.