MSNBC's Geist: Palin, Gingrich engaged in "crazy conversation" on death panels
August 10, 2009 8:07 am ET
From the August 10 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
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"How to look Un-Presidential will professing great knowledge"
Newt Gingrich is a Disgrace to his Political Party and to the rest of Us.
What happend to you Newt? You use to be a Man America could Trust.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
"...But there is nothing resembling the alleged "death panel" in the health care reform plan. A spokesperson for Palin told ABC News that the former governor was referring to a section promoting advance care planning that appears on page 425 of the House Democrats' bill [pdf]. Advance care planning includes living wills and durable powers of attorney that allow individuals to make clear their wishes for end-of-life care, whatever they may be.
And as it turns out, the cause of advance planning has been championed especially strongly by a pro-life Republican -- U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia..." This from an articlle about the sponsor.: Here is the site:
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/08/death-panel-architect-a-pro-life-republican-from-georgia.html
Palin ran her own "death panel" in Alaska:
July 15/2009
Lisa Demer of the Anchorage Daily News has broken a story that adds another scandal to the growing list of scandals that have plagued this administration, and shines the light on Alaska’s very own health care crisis.
Demer’s story centers on the horrendous condition of the Alaska’s state programs that are designed to help its most vulnerable citizens, the elderly and disabled.
The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements. [snip]
The moratorium is expected to last four or five months. State officials estimate about 1,000 Alaskans will be affected.
A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs.
Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help.
No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
http://www.themudflats.net/2009/07/15/palins-health-care-priorities-and-alaskas-daughters/
And did you ever notice how people who think this way rarely, if ever, even have noble ends in mind?
The Republicans are winning this debate through intimidation, scare tactics and reaching towards their crazy base. The Dems and President Obama need to come up with a strategy to change this course or real Health Care reform will be lost for another 20 years.
I'm very disappointed in the Democrats, and furious at the Corporate Media Whores who are letting this happen.
And nobody on Medicare has to worry about the country is going to pay for it, either. They will not be taxed for it.
America pays twice as much per citizen for health care compared to other industrial countries, yet we rank 39th in the care we receive.
"...sets up 45 different agencies..." = I don't think anyone else has, either, so I can say whatever I want.
"..there clearly are people in America who believe in euthanasia..." = This is a good chance to shift the talk away from health coverage reform and over to a straw man. Look! Look! The Democrats are going to throw granny under a bus!
Newt, when you divorced the cancer ridden wife lying in her hospital bed to run off with the woman you were cheating on her with, you lost the right to make any arguments at all based on compassion because you have none.
Newt got caught lying, and you expect use to believe that his ideas are fiscally sound. (When he was speaker, he similarly made up wild claims.)
If America has the ability to pay *twice* as much as other industrial countries, then we certainly have the ability to institute a program that will save money and increase the quality of our health care.
Medicare isn't bankrupting states; your second claim is just silly (obviously). And you miss the obvious point: if we are paying twice as much as other industrial countries and yet still get ranked 39th in the world, then yes, we have the ability to pay for a public option. That is, a public option, like Europe has, should cut our costs in half.
His ideas are worthless bits of partisan lying made up by lying partisan hacks who are not interested in you or your well-being, but in ensuring the status quo and bankrupting our nation. You talk of taxes, but you have no idea how the lower 98% are being squeezed already by skyrocketing primiums and lower and lower standards of care. We the people are getting our teeth kicked in and they want us to stay submissive and you are actually trying to help this cause??? Talk about cost. Your argument will cost us DEARLY, my friend. Dearly.
The fact is Dr Emanuel wrote ‘A Time to Die: The Place for Physician Assistance’
Quote ‘This book is about physician-assisted dying, which I think is both desirable and inevitable.’ Scared yet?
No, but it's nice to see you admit that you're fear-mongering.
It's funny how former/current conservatives in government say you can't trust the government. They know they are shady. It's like a snake saying don't trust me cause I'm a snake.
Hilarious!
"You cant trust the government"... Ok... So basically i cant trust you either Mr. Gingrich cause you are.. well, the government!
I mean seriously. How the heck can you be a government official, come on national TV expecting people to listen and say "You cant trust us"...
Have we all lost our minds?
but then, there is the venerable;
Yes, the left does have an answer: single payer health care, like the rest of the industrial world has. If the US is paying *twice* as much as the rest of the world, yet we are ranked 39th, then we obviously need to follow what the rest of the world does.
The way we take care of our uninsured in this country currently INCREASES the cost of that care. Just getting those people insured will help bring costs under control. Helping others keep their insurance regardless of employment status will also help, and will reduce the financial wipe-outs that occur when people get slammed by a major medical problem.
WE'RE ALREADY PAYING. Republicans pretend they're not paying. But we already pay for the uninsured. We pay when our society prefers to bankrupt families rather than treat their illnesses. People have to choose between cost and treatment, or have those choices made for them by bureaucrats.
First off, no one has read and understood the final incarnation of the health care reform,,, because there isn't one yet. There are only leaps-of-faith that whatever "something" government churns out will actually work, and won't be just as bad or worse in another direction.
If platitudes and empty promises had as much cash value as they have True Believer vote-value,,, then there would be no problem paying for it at all.
Oh, and those who want to compare "all those other" countries in Europe, should sit down and take a real close look at all the little things that make those countries & their societies work, and allows them to provide what they do. Many of them; Have mandatory military service; Don't hand out Public benefits to illegals; Have strict quotas on immigration; Require people to learn the language; Only provide secondary and/or higher education to the best & brightest; Have no Affirmative Action or 14th Amendment; Allow communities to set the Standards of behavior and some even let the districts determine most of the "Rights" of the Citizens; Have strict policies on what immigrants can & can't own; who can vote on what,,, etc etc etc. (A few even teach Religion in school)
There is a whole lot more to the Social Contract in ALL those countries than the 'they spend less per and get universal coverage' statement reflects.
Oh my God! Where are you getting this nonsense? This is so ill-informed as to be funny. I happened to have lived in a socialist country for a year (Germany), so I think I know a little about Europe. Some of what you claim is true, but completely irrelevant.
Mandatory military service? Yes, but the US had the draft for along time.
Required to learn foreign languages? Yes, because they are surrounded by countries that speak other languages. Is the US exercising social control because we make our children learn math?
Many of them don't need affirmative action because they are homogenous societies.
Allow communities to set the Standards of behavior? Yes, that's generally called democracy.
Let the districts determine most of the "Rights" of the Citizens; yes, democracy.
By the way, Germany puts the US to shame as far as a democracy goes. In some elections the turnout is 90%
Completely irrelevant? You go on to point out that not only am I pointing to facts as you know them firsthand, but you supply the requisite 'but thats because____' to validate them.
Notice that the countries in Europe are now 'states' in the EU. They aren't asking the President and Congress of the EU to give them health care, nor are they asking the EU to tell them how to live, how to preserve their culture(s) or how to make the rest live & think the same.
The modern EU has become very much like the states in this Union began and were intended to remain. The equivalent would be all of us going to our State governments and demanding health care reform/universal coverage, which is exactly the sort of thing our States were designed to do, and very much part of the Powers they excepted OUT of the [limited] general government, just like education, welfare, and so on.
What they have in Europe now, and yes very much what makes that possible, has been made virtually impossible in the U.S.,,, and by the very forces that now clamor for it.
Notes: "Math" is universal, its not a 'language' per se, that point is a strawman.
In the EU, and in most any given country in it as you wel know, one can turn a corner, top a hill or drive a short distance and encounter very distinct cultures and traditions. Thats where the True Diversity of the European countries is manifest. Sure, you can point to some of the major urban/commercial centers as semi-"homogenous", but by-and-large it is not that way.
You will find many different groups in social control of many different areas, (Community Standards) and they are allowed, even protected, in their chosen way of life amongst those of like mind and similar circumstance. Many different ways-of-life, many different worldviews. THAT is what makes them what they are, proud of what they are, and able to be what they are. THAT is what makes them feel secure and at home, without the ideological/cultural turf-warfare we see in this country today. THAT is what makes them invest and be invested IN their Nation(s). they keep their Identities, and happily allow others to keep their own. Not like here.
Gemeinschaft v. Gesellschaft
Our one-size-must-fit-all federal government was not designed to, and is fundamentally incapable of giving us that, or allowing us to have it.
You want us to take the example of the European countries? Work towards some of the things that may allow us to do that. Go back to the Constitution.
Yes, you are a crackpot. According to you, Europe practices social control because it makes their students learn foreign languages! Can you possibly get any more silly? And yet, here you are posting as if you scored some sort of point.
Do you think the US practices social control by making our students take 4 years of English, or 2 of math? The tyranny! And your point about math being a universal even makes *less* sense than your previous post. I didn't think that was possible, but it is.
And no, the countries in the EU are not like the states in the US. Germany, for example, has its own states.
No, I did not even remotely say that "Europe [sic] practices social control because it[?] makes their students learn foreign languages!". What I said was that many of the countries in Europe make [immigrants/anyone who lives there as a Citizen/ receiving social benefits] learn the local/national language.
Math,,, being a universal language, makes no sense to you??? Are YOU serious? Are there other maths out there (other than government budgetary math and corporate balance sheet math) struggling to be accepted?
Perhaps you missed the main point I was making in that, which is simple. Many of the elements that go in to the culture and customs of the countries that many on the left like to use as examples for healthcare reform,,, which allows those countries to be what they are, and do what they do, and thus offer what they offer,,, are anathema to the left. They would never willingly allow many of those things to actually happen here.
Its not nearly as simple as "they spend X amount and get_____, while we spend X amount and get minus______ ." There is a lot more to it than that.
I was simply debunking [another] common myth about those 'wonderful' European Health Care system(S)
No one wants to confront how the sausage is really made.
You should adjust your tin foil, the sun is heating your marshmallows.
All money is printed.
The question is about how to make what we currently pay for our health insurance go farther and produce better results. Getting most everyone insured is the first step.
Ah, no. I never said we should just print money to get out of debt. You are simply making that up. We are using deficit spending to help us with an ailing economy, something that Nobel-prize winning economist Krugman says is absolutely needed.
Good to know.
I also recall when dissent was patriotic.
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/08/death-panel-architect-a-pro-life-republican-from-georgia.html
Fact is, if/when Monsanto wants to use OUR money to build roads, ports and other infrastructure in some third world country, so they can grow franken-food and pay children $0.50 a day to spray pesticides or inject BGH into livestock,,, FOX news will run 'humanitarian pieces' on the poor starving soon-to-be-exploited saps of that nation.
By the same token, if Momma-Corp is getting too much resistance from the mis-treated workers in some banana republic,,, well FOX will expose how the place is 'being over-run with terrorists'.
Getting FOX to change is as easy as,,, buying it.
But I am glad to see MMFA's sugar daddy is coming to the rescue.
From Southern Beale, a very important point:
Don’t talk to me about death panels, Sarah Palin.
You, who so carelessly bolstered a lie about healthcare reform to score a cheap political point; you, the most craven of political opportunists, who fearmongers about some dystopian socialist/fascist fantasyland; you, who earlier this year were only too happy to accept free medical, dental and veterinary care from the U.S. military for Alaska’s remote villages; you, dear lady, are an idiot.
In your free market wonderland everyone somehow manages to get healthcare, even those who are poor or live in isolated areas, though the poor and isolated in your own state required assistance from the federal government.
And despite all of this, you appear blithely unaware that the free market healthcare system we have now does, indeed, have “death panels.” I’ve been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.
You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.
If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.
Amen.
the trouble on the right is that they won't admit who is financing and organizing them. they want us all to think that the teabaggers are just showing up out of some kind of collective mind wave that they all spontaniously had. the fact is the big money on the right is driving the teabaggers "outrage" the trouble is that they are driving it with lies. show me where MMfA has posted a lie. i can show you many from your handelers on the right. wanna see who can compile the bigger list of liers?
Where are we getting the money for health right now? If we have no money for health care, then why are we spending *twice* as much as our European counterparts (and getting abysmal care for it)? You are saying we can't afford a watered-down European-like program because it will coast *less.*
Health Care,,, Halliburton/KBR/Blackwater-style.
Has anyone spotted anything in any of the Proposals that would absolutely forbid huge, no-bid, no-real-oversight, sweetheart contracts to sweetheart companies/organizations?
Remember, there is more than a small chance that the Republicans will gain control of the Stultifara Navis again, eventually,,,
And, if the ultra-power-hungry-wing can't do it through that Party, they will just re-infiltrate the Democrats, again, to get at it. (as if they don't already and always play both sides)
Again, the US spends *twice* as much as European countries and we rank 39th in the world. We are already spending twice as much as we should, but you think we should continue down that wasteful path.
We are going to put health care into the same hands that control some of the consistently highest amounts of spending-per-child, with some of the highest teacher-to-student ratios, that still manage to consistently produce the absolute lowest-performing schools in the entire Nation... And not just recently, or during the last Administration, but like,,, always.
Honestly, I think many have abandoned all rational thought, available evidence, and prior experience,,, and ran straight off into the realm of mountains and mustard seeds on this issue.
Also, while you're at it, address all the people who would fight tooth and nail before giving up their Medicare or SSI -- government programs that run with far less overhead than any corporate program.
Why is it corporations are so terrified of a public option if the government is so inept?
As a matter of fact, I am VERY much for a reform of the entire system. The whole mess is fundamentally flawed, and I personally would accept some forms of Public Option(s). I just don't happen to have any faith that this or any other Administration/Congress is actually going to give what they advertise. I truly believe whatever they eventually churn out, will be every bit as bad or worse than what we have now, in some other direction. I think We The People are headed for yet another [less-than] zero-sum-gain.
To that last point, I don't think the corporations are really all that terrified at all. This bleating-frenzy they've whipped the right-wing into,,, insures that the big corporate players and moneyed interests will get the 'compromises' they like, and they will get to slip whatever they actually want into the Law while this distraction persists.
There are always plenty on the left that are far less than zealots when it comes to Representing the common man vs. pandering to their socio-economic base and personal gain. (Out of everyone in Congress or the Administration, (D) or (R) there is probably no one that has spent more of his Public career representing corporate interests, by way of the "persons" in his home corporate-mecca state of Delaware, than our VP.)
All the bickering works beautifully for them, as they can say they did "something", they can say they tried, they can blame 'other guy' because what they end up with is tripe, AND they can lick the boots of their true masters.
Have you read/attempted to read the Senate proposal? A perfect example of intentionally convoluted legislative excrement that is. Obviously written by highly trained corporate-lawyers on-staff, who no doubt stand to make a mint off of deciphering it as private consultants in the near future. (as they did with NAFTA et al) I'd lay dollars-to-donuts that the people who sponsered that Bill, would find it impossible to explain provision-by-provision in a serious question and answer session by a professional. I spend a lot of time reading Law and Regulations, and that Bill fits right up near the top in terms of complexity.
When/if that gets put into practice, when business, industries and people start having to live with it, it will be a nightmare. But thats nothing compared to when it gets into the Courts, and all the promises and platitudes and simplistic explainations about what it does and doesnt do no longer mean a thing. The Courts will interpret the language used in the Law itself, not what some pundit or politician said in a town hall years before.
Some provisions will eventually get tossed out or rendered moot. Key elements may get declared unconstitutional, which is quite likely to happen on something of this magnitude, and quite possibly well within the intentions of those who are drafting it, and those who are 'compromising' it.
With all this uproar, with the sheer scope of this change (if it even makes it off the ground), you have to be keenly aware that every detail that CAN be challenged, will be challenged.
No, don't get your unrealistic hopes up too high people. This is and has been shaping up to be a big,,, mess.
Don't be surprised to find yourselves like the Pro-Lifers and Social Security reformers after the last Administration,,, Aborted and Insecure.
30% ??? I think a seriously close look at all the profits siphoned (which I think is much more than 30%) PLUS the profits that THOSE ill'gotten profits generate in-turn,,, would absolutely astound everyone.
Easy to over-look just how many are riding the gravy-train. The billions upon billions that are going into the hands of the money-changers gets used as capital and then leveraged, it gets re-invested, it bloats balance sheets, it under-writes, it floats business models, it fuels forecasts, it underlies speculation,,, on and on and on.
Every actual dollar of that represents an exponential amount of 'dark money' that doesnt even actually exist at all, except on the ledgers in the Ponzi-scheme of our larger economy.