Page One: Unemployed Alaskan Woman Has Facebook Account
I can’t quite make out her name in all the clutter, but based on her profile she apparently lost her job recently and, as such, might understandably be very concerned about making sure she had health care for her and her very large family. More from the mother of several:
[W]ho will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Huh? You know, I already knew that there were massive problems with the Democrats’ versions of the proposed government run health care, but even I had no idea we were going to have “death panels.” You know, maybe I should give them another look! That’s sounds like something really edgy and cool right out of a Judge Dread movie!
16 Responses to “Page One: Unemployed Alaskan Woman Has Facebook Account”
Once again the liberals pretending to be moderates weigh in with left wing snark.
How dare Palin engage in a bit of hyperbole or a figure of speech?! See, it's ok for Pelosi to grossly malign Tea Party protestors as “carrying swastikas” based on a couple signs detected amongst the tens of thousands caught on video, engaging in the false smear that they all are paid operatives of the insurance companies and Nazi's to boot. It's no problem that lefties are now playing the race card, implying that the driving force opposing ObamaCare is bigotry.
But let Palin use the words “death squad” and the result is a major twisting of panties amongst liberals claiming to be moderates.
Here are a couple pieces of the puzzle. Palin was and continues to be harshly criticized for having a baby with Down Syndrome instead of an abortion. The same group of people leveling this criticism is pushing a plan designed to put the government in charge of all health care in America through ObamaCare. That plan will include panels appointed by them to empowered to determine which benefits are offered and which are not. Is it really such a stretch to think that over time they might not make a decision that, based on amniocentesis results, a mother will be steered onto an abortion track and denied prenatal care for a child with known “genetic defects”?
Are you ignoring the eugenic roots of the “Planned Parenthood” movement in America? Are you forgetting that this kind of policy thinking has already been operative in some countries?
Now certainly one can disagree with Palin's words of warning. But the approach of the left is not one of considered refutation, but an attempt to exclude them from the debate through ridicule and intimidation. One might expect more of a moderate, but only if they were actually a moderate and not a flaming liberal at a blog with a misleading title. .
You're really too funny for words, so thanks for the amusing comment. If you'd ever read this site before you'd know that I've been fighting against the Democrats' health care proposals since the topic came up and we've had some very spirited debates on the subject here. However, Palin's comment wasn't just a “bit of hyperbole.” It was a pointless slash and burn attack from an uninformed point of view. If you want more information on the so called “death panels” I suggest reading this piece from Charles Lane.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…
There are a couple of questions to be answered on the specific language of section 1233, but they are hardly a cause for concern compared to the massive problems found in the rest of the proposals which will effectively kill the insurance industry, severely limit or eliminate the high quality private coverage many of us enjoy now, and further drive up an unsustainable deficit which already threatens to topple the country sooner rather than later. Wasting time on these trumped up “death panel” stories shows a lack of intellectual curiosity, an unserious attitude toward a serious subject, and a blind partisan hatred which blocks out reasoned argument.
Palin gets mocked because she states things as fact that have no basis. Here concept of “death panel” is based on medical coverage for end of life counseling (financial, medical and other advice for those who are approaching death). She is ridiculed because her statements have no basis in fact.
Many of the same people mock Pelosi and others for crazy comments. Though Pelosi at least has some basis in fact, as there have been at least 4 pictures of people at town hall or other meetings with signs carrying swastikas.
All Palin does with comments like this is show that her harshest critics have a point. I wonder how John McCain feels when he reads her comments and remembers how he barely vetted her before almost elevating her to within a heartbeat of the presidency. There are serious problems with the proposed health reform, but death panels are not one of them. This debate over health care (1/6 of the economy) is so important that it should be waged by intelligent people on both sides, but I guess that would be asking too much.
@Jazz. I'm sorry if I maligned you in some way. I had no idea you were part of the paid insurance company, driven by deeply seated racism, swastika wielding mob opposing ObamaCare.
It just seems that almost every time this blog shows up on Memeorandum I find a hotbed of sanctimonious liberalism. There could indeed be selection bias on my part or the referring site.
Good response on your part. I will subject my comments to “recalibration”. Ah heck, I'll just apologize. We simply disagree on Palin's remarks.
@Jazz: Besides, why have blind hatred when you can make blind love. Much more exciting that blind love is.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming…
Right on, T! This is one of those surreal moments at TMV. I think Kathy's going to get accused of working for the “Lewin Group” next.
“Is it really such a stretch to think that over time they might not make a decision that, based on amniocentesis results, a mother will be steered onto an abortion track and denied prenatal care for a child with known “genetic defects”?”
Thank God, we should test for intelligence… I wasn't too keen on Obama's current version of the healthcare plan, but if we can do this, I say “Bring it on!”
I knew I should have gone into genetics. I could have made a killing, and doubly so if Obama steers stimulus money to genetic research.
how dare anyone use palin's kids as political props!!
oh wait. that was her? woopsie.
Yes – it's really a huge, gigantic, lying stretch to think that providing people with optional counseling to help make a living will can somehow be twisted into forced genetic prenatal counseling and forced abortion.
Yes, the government is like a loving parent and would never do anything like that. What was I thinking? The forced internment of Japanese, and Tuskogee experiments on syphillis were obviously done by private insurance companies.
@@ I wasn't too keen on Obama's current version of the healthcare plan, but if we can do this, I say “Bring it on!”
@@
If you want to pretend you have bravado, then why can't you pull it off without my money?
I am not certain I understand anyone trying to justify the “death panel” comment. That is not part of any government health care plan and really has no basis in reality. Does that happen under Medicare and Medicaid? No, but apparently those government run plans are ok, this is based on evil?
Show me language from the bill that could anyway be construed to imply this death panel would exist. Or any language that could be read to allow such a panel. Do not radically distort some vague concept to allow this panel, I want actual language to show this is the intent or the likely result; Palin is clearly implying that is the goal of this plan. I'd also like to know if there has been any evidence of this occurring elsewhere in the world — as the US is one of the last major developed economies to consider a broader plan to make certain everyone has insurance, the “death panel” must have been a result of such coverage under one or more of the many diverse systems throughout the world.
Or perhaps this evidence doesn't exist and Palin is.either lying or just speaking unintelligently about the plan. For a public figure to do either, they deserve criticism. This isn't about Pelosi or anyone else. It is not about liberals/conservatives/neo-cons. It is about debate of an incredibly large change in the structure of health care coverage in the US, something that will radically alter a system that while flawed also has many strengths over a government plan.
As a believer in smaller government, there are many realistic concerns I have with the plan, particularly the original House bill. On the other hand, we do have a system where the disparity in health care is dramatic and unjust. The import of this legislation is too high for that not to be intelligent debate on both sides regarding the ideal plan. Palin's comments instead are some irrational and thoughtless critique with no basis in reality that serves to stir passions in certain Republicans while doing nothing to pursue actually reasoned debate (and helping to create an environment where such debate is less likely).
I am not at all certain how such lies or misinformed statements can be defended when we are on the brink of such an important decision.
casualobserver: LOL!
bill117, nice comments. On this sentence: “Or perhaps this evidence doesn't exist and Palin is.either lying or just speaking unintelligently about the plan.”
Maureen Dowd has the best way of putting it (from today's column): “she put up a demented, fact-free Facebook rant trashing the president’s health care plan….”.
I simply love it: “fact-free”. It seems so non-confrontational yet snarky.
“Long before anyone started talking about government “death panels” or warning that Obama would have the government ration care, 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, a leukemia patient from Glendale, Calif., died in December 2007, after her parents battled their insurance company, Cigna, over the surgery. Cigna initially refused to pay for it because the company's analysis showed Sarkisyan was already too sick from her leukemia; the liver transplant wouldn't have saved her life.”
Read more about present-day death panels in
“The 'death panels' are already here”
Sorry, Sarah Palin — rationing of care? Private companies are already doing it, with sometimes fatal results
at
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/08/11/de…