Patterico's Pontifications

8/11/2009

Health Care Quote of the Day

Filed under: Government,Obama — DRJ @ 4:57 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Despondent words from Ezra Klein about health care reform:

“When you have to explain why your bill won’t create death panels, and what will make sure that it doesn’t, you’ve pretty much lost the argument.”

Klein concludes that some American protesters think their government is capable of madness, and he thinks “there is no answer” to that. I think he’s right.

— DRJ

70 Responses to “Health Care Quote of the Day”

  1. I have yet to hear one Dem at these townhall meetings actually defend the questions regarding the coming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid bankruptcies. If they can’t effectively counter those questions (and they can’t without lying about it), this thing will go kerblooey.

    Dmac (e6d1c2)

  2. How can any government determine who is entitled to medical treatment? The term “death panels” are well named.

    Thomas Jackson (8ffd46)

  3. Ezra Klein

    The protesters believe the government capable of madness.

    Ezra, that very much explains the Revolutionary War as well as a Constitution focused on MINIMIZING the size of government on a national level.

    And then he goes on into fallacy …

    “There is no evidence for that claim”

    Ezra, how you figure that given the history of our Government?

    And then he goes on to simply not address the ONE KEY POINT OF HIS ARTICLE BY …

    “which means that there is no answer for it, either.”

    So we are crazy because we are imagining things our common sense tell us are so.

    HeavenSent (01a566)

  4. The central question is not whether care will be rationed — all services in a capitalist system are rationed via the price mechanism.

    This is a false argument presented by the anti-legislation folks.

    The real question is should government ration based on some self regulated system which has no checks or balances for determining “if it works.”

    Government is accountable to no one and therein lies the problem and the reason why best choose FREEDOM and CHOICE and LIBERTY in this argument.

    Plus Private Markets tend to work themselves over time as customers pick the best and drop the rest. Which in turns gives us more for less.

    The DMV, err Post Office, Office of Health Care Management will never be anything but a looney bin.

    HeavenSent (01a566)

  5. ““When you have to explain why your bill won’t create death panels, and what will make sure that it doesn’t, you’ve pretty much lost the argument.”

    – Ezra Klein

    I’ll remember that: the next time someone I don’t like proposes a piece of legislation I don’t like, I’ll throw a hissy-fit and start pulling unfounding bullshit about Dr. Kevorkian and “death panels” out my ass.

    When you have to explain why a bill that says absolutely nothing about “death panels” won’t create “death panels”, and that the very idea of “death panels” is some piece of fabricated garbage meant to terrify the gullible, then you (and by you, I mean “your country”) has pretty much lost. Period.

    [Found in the filter and released. — DRJ]

    Leviticus (f565c1)

  6. “Government is accountable to no one…”

    – HeavenSent

    I thought about arguing for a second – something like “Really? What about the citizenry?” – but you’re right. Government is accountable to no one in this country. That’s the biggest problem we face right now, not health care.

    Leviticus (f565c1)

  7. The US government is capable of tremendous evil.

    Ezra can deny it because a lot of it is democrat evil and we don’t have to treat that as real. FDR was never a racist who put all the japanese in concentration camps to languish and die, or threaten to pack the Court, or whatever.

    It’s Watergate that defines US Government corruption to the left. They are so blinded by partisanship that they think the stakes are much lower than they really are.

    Juan (bd4b30)

  8. “Government is accountable to no one…”

    Which is why we have Amendment-II,
    it has nothing to do with deer hunting!

    AD - RtR/OS! (44112e)

  9. The bottom line on this health care bill is that none of the Democrats pushing this to the moon made it a point to say from the beginning that every government employee would be put on this plan. If Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest thought this was so great, they’d be pushing themselves out of the way trying to sign up for it. They aren’t doing so, which means their plan and proposals suck. Anyone who isn’t completely deluded should be able to recognize this.

    And when you point out that while UPS and FedEx are doing just fine while the Post Office is having problems, how on earth is that an argument for letting the government have MORE control of health care?

    Another Chris (a3bb8f)

  10. Ezra’s boundless faith in the munificence of liberal philosopher-kings is just so, so precious.

    BC (fe6289)

  11. Dear Ezra:

    Governmental adness impossible?

    Just in living memory:

    Japanese internment
    Palmer raids
    Jim effing Crow
    Roe v Wade
    Vietnam
    War on Drugs
    Prohibition

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  12. Government is accountable to no one in this country. That’s the biggest problem we face right now, not health care.

    Leviticus nails it right there. Ironically, this is a BIG reason why Obama was actually elected–promising transparency and accountability, and a more open White House. His poll numbers and support are dropping because people are starting to figure out that he’s no better than any of the other clowns and crooks that inhabit the political sphere.

    This is the reason there is so much “rage” at these townhalls. A lot of citizens don’t trust that the government is accountable to them anymore, and it’s now manifesting itself. But this isn’t actual rage, it’s people telling their elected officials to start representing them instead of ruling them, at long last. If it had hit the level of rage, these congressmen and women wouldn’t be making it out of these townhalls alive or uninjured. For all the anger, Americans are showing a remarkable amount of restraint.

    Another Chris (a3bb8f)

  13. California doesn’t have the monies to fund a tenth of their gayness but is still too gay to drill new oils.

    The dirty socialists and their pansy governor are capable of madness but also of ferocious gay.

    I don’t know how to help them, except to helpfully point and laugh.

    happyfeet (42470c)

  14. Another Chris, you’re so right. All Congress needs to do to change the entire face of the debate – and to their great advantage – would be to make a public pledge to be the first in line to sign up for the plan.

    They are too clueless to figure that out – and too smart to hold their neck out for their personal albatross.

    Dana (57e332)

  15. AC is right. More actual rage, please. Too many people are sleeping entirely too well at night.

    happyfeet (42470c)

  16. Let me count the ways that the Obama administration is fostering the ability for people to seriously be concerned about this:

    – Obama appoints as his senior science adviser a man with a lifelong published penchant for the effectiveness of eugenics, who dedicated a publicly presented talk to one of the “godfather’s” of the American eugenics movement; who wrote in 1979 a book positing how the government could implement eugenics type policies.
    – Obama appoints Ezekiel Emanuel, MD (brother of Rahm Emanuel his chief of staff) to his senior healthcare advisory group. Dr. Emanuel as recently as January, 2009 published a paper going into detail about how a healthcare system with limited resources should decide who is eligible to receive medical intervention. Essentially your odds of receiving government permission to be treated are pretty good if you are between 15 and 54, but woe to you if you are younger or older. You see your designated full life value score drops off precipitously at the ends of the curve and thus you are no longer worthy enough to society to merit medical treatment.
    – the HR 3200 has provisions to establish a medical advisory service that would issue voluntary standards for acceptable medical treatments until 2014 when they would become enforceable against medical providers. A chief consideration is allocation of scarce resources to the most worthy recipients.

    Yeah, just nutcases are concerned about the possibility of “death panels”. The left will play up on the euphemism used by Palin to obscure and distract attention from the truth about the plans.

    My mother was treated 3 years ago for leukemia at age 82; she would certainly not warrant such care under Obamacare. Next spring she will see her granddaughter graduate from college. What is that worth to her and her granddaughter? (And Mr. President, a pill wouldn’t have put her leukemia into remission…)

    My wife also has leukemia and was just diagnosed and treated at age 56 for breast cancer. Would the Obamacare life valuation calculation approve her treatment for the breast cancer since her leukemia may limit her lifespan? I doubt it.

    Since the propensity for breast cancer and leukemia is to have some genetic component to them that is passed down, what does this portend for my 21 year daughter’s access to care in her lifetime under Obamacare?

    Obama has a death watch on three generations of my family and I don’t like it – not one little bit.

    in_awe (930ef4)

  17. Hang in there, in_awe, and I hope everyone has long, happy lives with the health care of your family’s choice.

    DRJ (8d138b)

  18. The left, over at Wash Monthly, is clueless. I have tried to post over there, as others here know. Now they are posting all sorts of silly comments using my screen name as if this discredits anything I say. The moderators, who blocked me for posting yesterday and banned daleyrocks, won’t do anything. I’m reading a history of the French Revolution right now. The parallels are interesting. I don’t think we’ll have tumbrels or guillotines, but there is a lot of anger right now. :let them eat cake” may be apocryphal but a lot I hear lately sounds like it.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  19. 10. You could add Waco to the list!
    4. Why hasn’t anyone pointed out that it is impossible to sue or reason with a bureacrat, whereas it is possible to sue and argue with a private insurance company. Not saying that you will win the argument, but…

    Hrothgar (8b4b25)

  20. People are making excellent points about this travesty, but the most simple point to be made is that even the CBO says that it will create unsustainable deficits, that will only get worse over time (see Medicare). And given the ability of government to anticipate future costs, it is safe to assume that the costs are underestimated by an order of magnitude or two.

    JD (d3d21b)

  21. Mike K said

    reading a history of the French Revolution

    Back in my college days I read “Anatomy of a Revolution” about four of the most historically important revolutions. What stuck with me from that exercise was that governments should be very afraid of riling the middle class. They have worked the hardest to gain what they have, and have the most to lose from government action. And ultimately they will rise up and take action.

    in_awe (930ef4)

  22. Death panels, eh?
    Would someone here please quote the pertinent part of any legislation laying out such a plan, and show the source (as in sponsors, by party affiliation.)
    Some of your wagging tongues show bright colored residue from the Kool-Aid spiked with deliberate lies to throw off the real debate. And, giving you the benefit of doubt, you don’t even know it.
    But know this: some of us on the progressive side wish there would be death panels. They could go after those with the lamest of brains, like the do-do above trying to tie Obama to the leukemia and god knows what else visited upon his family members. He probably could not comprehend the reality of Palin cutting back funding in such a way that it selected some Alaskans out from the ranks of the living, and very directly and predictably so.
    Death panels, indeed.

    Larry Reilly (45c8f2)

  23. Idiots seem to be popping up all over. Larry, where do you hide out when you’re not annoying us ?

    Mike K (2cf494)

  24. But know this: some of us on the progressive side wish there would be death panels.

    This is already known, Larry. That’s why so many non-progressives own firearms.

    Another Chris (a3bb8f)

  25. Good on you, Mawy, for admitting in public that you wish death on people that do not share your dirty little socialist fascist totalitarian tendencies. Kindly take your dirty little socialisms and shove them up your choclate starfish.

    JD (6dacf4)

  26. Larry, let me esplane …

    1. If the Government decides who gets care based on their “opinion” of will be productive in the future versus who will not be productive — ergo they are playing God.

    2. Given how Politics work we all know things like racial preferences will be introduced. Certain sexual preferences will be deemed OK to provide for whereas others won’t. Whites getting less care than blacks because “historically blacks have worse health so they deserve more now ..”

    C the point of the “market” is that price determines allocation of services when GOVERNMENT decides who knows how the rule apply because the Bureaucracy adjusts rules daily which can effect our lives.

    This is KEVORKIAN CARE — just is.

    But yes, I predict it. Racial and Gender Set Asides for Health Care will happen under this plan no doubt about it.

    This monster needs to die now.

    HeavenSent (01a566)

  27. Certainly we are already seeing the issue in the UK’s NHS and Dutch medical systems.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  28. Larry … did you not learn to read for comprehension in school. in_awe did not blame Obama for his family’s medical problems. Read it again and see if you get it right the second time.

    PatAZ (9d1bb3)

  29. capable of madness? CAPABLE?!? If history tells us anything, it’s that governments are constantly on the verge of madness and need to be watched like a hawk to be prevented from going over the edge.

    ShelbyC (8546d8)

  30. I am jerking off the libs on HuffPo calling for Health Care Affirmative Action.

    Funny enuff, not one lib has even blinked. I think they are digesting it as a talking point.

    I want credit for being the first to mention it. As a goof to prove the lunacy of this bill.

    HeavenSent (01a566)

  31. Now I see reports that Obama is going to abandon his dishonest claims that the reform is going to reduce costs and change over to claims that the reform would prevent pre-existing condition denials, and loss of coverage issues.

    If so, there is no reason for a 1000 page bill.

    This is the bottom line: the reason we think we are being lied to by Democrats is because we keep catching them lying to us.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  32. Mawy would kill kill kill you for disagreeing with him. Actually, he is too big of a coward to do so, but he would gladly hide behind a nameless faceless government bureaucrat to do it for him all while taking your tax dollars and then again with the estate tax afterwards. Mawy is a cowardly dirty little socialist totalitarian, the worst kind, not that there are really good ones.

    JD (d9176e)

  33. SPQR – If this was such a great and popular idea, the Dems would lay out their plans for all to see, and they would not have to lie about the policies.

    JD (d9176e)

  34. What we’re seeing here is not merely distrust in the House health-care reform bill. It’s distrust in the political system.

    No, what you are seeing is mistrust in the perfectability of human nature. One human being, or even a bunch of them, should not control the well being of another. That’s the basis of our system of limited government. Look to the French Revolution for what happens when the Ezras of the world try to legislate their version of uptopia. Yes, Ezra, madness results. Madness always results.

    Patricia (32d0f4)

  35. When government health care is inevitably rationed, and when someone who doesn’t get timely care dies, and when the decision to deny that care is made by two or more bureaucrats, that’s a death panel. Neither one of you would be so upset at the specific locution of “death panel” had the phrase not originated with former Governor Sarah Palin.

    Official Internet Data Office (7fd5ee)

  36. Waco? Add Ruby Ridge. The government has the power to do harm to people who might simply be an inconvenience.

    But hey, if you want to trust the government with your health care, go ahead. Maybe you can mail a letter to the government when things go wrong. Maybe the post office might even be able to deliver it within a few months.

    Your trust in the government to do good is touching.

    steve miller (c5e78c)

  37. Actually, the term “death panel” was brilliant, because it coalesces the rage of the left when everyone discovers what the left is up to, and it’s no good.

    steve miller (c5e78c)

  38. #9 – Bravo, great point

    And while we are listing insane and sometimes evil government actions, let us not forget the CIA dosing public figures with LSD – Frank Olson, a United States Army biochemist and biological weapons researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment, and died under suspicious circumstances (initially labeled suicide) a week later following a severe psychotic episode. A CIA doctor assigned to monitor Olson’s recovery claimed to be asleep in another bed in a New York City hotel room when Olson jumped through the window to fall ten stories to his death.

    Olson’s son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to the belief that he was going to divulge his knowledge of the top-secret interrogation program code-named Project ARTICHOKE. Frank Olson’s body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries indicated Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window.

    The CIA’s own internal investigation, by contrast, claimed Gottlieb had conducted the experiment with Olson’s prior knowledge, although neither Olson nor the other men taking part in the experiment were informed as to the exact nature of the drug until some 20 minutes after its ingestion. The report further suggested that Gottlieb was nonetheless due a reprimand, as he had failed to take into account Olsen’s already-diagnosed suicidal tendencies, which might well have been exacerbated by the LSD. His funding was increased the next year.

    -Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence Marks 1979: chapter 5.

    -Olson, E (2002-08-22). “Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson”. http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Statements/FamilyStatement2002.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-16.

    -Ronson, Jon (2004). The Men Who Stare at Goats. Picador. ISBN 0-330-37548-2.

    They also had prostitutes dose johns without their knowledge to see what they would say to the prostitutes that someone would normally not share during such an encounter, and then, remarkably, let these johns, who were tripping their @sses off, go out into the night without a care of what might happen to them.

    Sound crazy? Google MKULTRA and see what pops up – even the Supreme Court ruled on this case. Although renamed in 1964, it didn’t end until 1973.

    It’s bedtime here on the East Coast, so my apologies for cutting and pasting rapidly, but I think you get the point,…

    the Virginian (0635b6)

  39. BTW, since there is a Law concerning the mentioning of Nazis online, can we come up with one that involves Koolaid? Seems to be a parallel Law…

    the Virginian (0635b6)

  40. “The moderators, who blocked me for posting yesterday and banned daleyrocks, won’t do anything.”

    Mike K – The dissent unnerved them. They didn’t know how to respond to actual facts so the easiest thing was to ban me.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  41. When government health care is inevitably rationed, and when someone who doesn’t get timely care dies, and when the decision to deny that care is made by two or more bureaucrats, that’s a death panel. Neither one of you would be so upset at the specific locution of “death panel” had the phrase not originated with former Governor Sarah Palin.

    Comment by Official Internet Data Office — 8/11/2009 @ 9:36 pm

    Thank you; am stealing this very concise explanation for the mockers who think that because the actual words “death panel” don’t appear in the bill, people won’t die because of it.

    I too am delighted to see liberals’ rage at the expression. They know that if they don’t shout it down quickly enough and people scratch it, truths they don’t want known will be exposed.

    At least Larry Reilly is honest about wanting to kill people who get in the way of some stated goal, whether that’s “progressive” ideals, or cost savings on a balance sheet.

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  42. The phrase “death committee” or “death panel” shows why Sarah Palin is brilliant as a politician as well as a lightning rod for the left — she puts into words the inchoate dissembling of the left in a way that makes it crystal clear and emotionally focused.

    The government will intrude into your lives and the way you choose to live as much as it can; if Obamacare is “cost efficient” then it will be more rational to give you a cyanide pill than a $4k/month medical treatment. Don’t believe me? Look at Oregon, which recently offered such an option to an old, useless lady dying of cancer.

    But hey, they aren’t evil; they’re just saving money!

    steve miller (c5e78c)

  43. #42 noyk:

    The Left is cataclysmic over “death panels” not being in the “bill.” “Abortion” is not in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, either, yet they sure found that, didn’t they?

    Palin’s phrase was brilliant as a lightning rod. I knew it as soon as I saw it.

    Peg C. (48175e)

  44. The mendacity of the lefties knows no bounds.

    PCD (02f8c1)

  45. Would someone here please quote the pertinent part of any legislation laying out such a plan, and show the source (as in sponsors, by party affiliation.)

    SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION.
    Pg.427-428
    ‘‘‘(iii)A program for orders for life sustaining treatment for a States described in this clause is a program that

    ‘‘(IV)is guided by a coalition of stake-holders includes representatives from emergency 6
    medical services,emergency department physi
    cians or nurses,state long-term care associa-
    tion,state medical association,state surveyors,
    agency responsible for senior services,state de-
    partment of health,state hospital association,
    home health association,state bar association,
    and state hospice association.

    STAKEHOLDER, contracts. A third person, chosen by two or more persons, to keep in deposit property, the right or possession of which is contested between them and to be delivered to the one who shall establish his right to it. Thus each of them is considered as depositing the whole thing. This distinguishes this contract from that which takes place when two or more tenants in common deposit a thing with a bailee. Domat, Lois Civ. liv. 1, t. 7, s. 4; 1 Vern. R. 44, n. 1.

    The Left is cataclysmic over “death panels” not being in the “bill.” “Abortion” is not in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, either, yet they sure found that, didn’t they?

    That’s Brilliant Peg!

    liontooth (c6d5a7)

  46. “Abortion” is not in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, either, yet they sure found that, didn’t they?
    Comment by Peg C. — 8/12/2009 @ 4:22 am

    Great point – in fact I’d love to see that as a talking point. The apoplexy on the left would be quite entertaining.


    Palin’s phrase was brilliant as a lightning rod. I knew it as soon as I saw it.

    IMO she knows exactly what she’s doing (in all her actions) and the left knows it; otherwise they’d have dropped her for more “interesting” targets almost as soon as Obama won the election.

    no one you know (7a9144)

  47. Stolen from Instapundit: April 29 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.

    tmac (f9e092)

  48. healingwell.com has this interesting statement… “Based on projected treatment costs and survival estimates, the researchers calculated the incremental cost of Gleevec at $43,100 per life-year saved. In the United States, $50,000 per life-year saved is a commonly accepted threshold for medical therapies.”

    Apparently, in some quarters at least, there’s some cost/benefit analysis going on already. But as it now stands it’s not the government, or even the insurance company, making the decision. If my wife had leukemia and I could buy three years of life for her, would I pay twice that price? In a heartbeat.

    But what will the government do? They will debate that threshold between $43,000 and $50,000 in committee after committee. They’ll devise new formulas. They’ll toss in a factor to make up for racial bias, to be sure that patients in one neighborhood have the same outcomes as patients in another neighborhood. Illnesses that get celebrity attention will get higher payment thresholds, but your mom’s illness will be ineligible for treatment. And there will be no alternative way to obtain the treatment you need – even if you have a house to mortgage – even assuming the pharmaceutical companies are still developing them.

    p.s. A quick survey of internet articles about Gleevec gave prices ranging from $36,000 per year to $100,000 per year or more. The number a congressional committee picks will depend on whether they want to make it look more expensive or less. Do you suppose that decision will be driven by their compassion for your family?

    Gesundheit (47b0b8)

  49. This article explains the argument although it may use words too big for Larry Reilly to understand.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  50. #50, 1223 is just a first step to Govt Sponsored Kevorkain Care. Just like this Bill is a first step to Single Payer.

    D

    HeavenSent (01a566)

  51. In one phrase Palin backed them up against the wall yet she is so stupid she can’t get in out of the snow. Just like Reagan, that amiable dunce, who kicked their asses repeatedly, and Bush, that smirking chimp, who kicked their asses repeatedly.

    Is “death panels” accurate? When the government has any voice in your care, that’s either a life panel or a death panel. Ezra has it right; I think the odds are that the gov’t care panel will descend into madness, no matter how it is designed now by the wonks. The administration knows the people don’t trust gov’t to be the doctor, which is why Obama is lying — lying — by describing the gov’t role as “education”.

    Tim (b700a6)

  52. Cost-benefit analysis is already part of health decision analysis. This goes to decision theory in which various choices lead to various outcomes and the problem is how to value the outcome, the utility. In business software, the outcome is always in money but in health care decision making, the utility is usually in QALY, or quality adjusted life years. How do you determine QALYs ? There are methods that involve establishing values, sometimes of very uncertain outcomes. One way to do this is to ask a person, or a series of people, to value a certain situation, such as paraplegia or blindness.

    One way to do this is called The Standard Gamble. A way to do this, for example, is to ask a person to consider two outcomes, one being death. Let’s say you have cancer and you are offered a treatment that is risky. What risk are you willing to accept ? You could be asked what chance of death would you risk to be completely well ?

    I don’t want to get into a graduate course in decision theory here but this sort of thing is done in health service research all the time. The concern is that the government has another interest besides QALY as an outcome. It is interested in the cost while you as a patient are interested in risk.

    When Oregon tried to use decision theory to rank treatments for the medicaid program 20 years ago, they created a huge controversy.

    Although initial rankings were based in large part on mathematical values, controversies around the list forced administrators to make political concessions and move medical services “by hand” to satisfy constituency pressures and the federal government. Analyses of the original list have shown that subjective judgements, not the initial formula, are the primary influence on service rankings.3 Once the methodology of the list was compromised, the aspiration that the list could function as a self-regulating mechanism according to formula had to be abandoned. New services and revised rankings are determined according to the preferences of the Health Services Commission. In short, the OHP provides no evidence for the presumption that a working system of medical service prioritization can be implemented on the basis of available cost–benefit analyses and outcomes data.

    The first rank list had treatment of the common cold ranked first. That, of course, is absurd since it doesn’t require treatment aside from over the counter symptom relief.

    The other lesson is: The notion that rationing through the list would produce enough savings for Oregon to finance universal coverage has proven to be an illusion.

    That is a small forecast of the Obama future. Misusing theory to obtain ends that are totally subjective. The way to rank health care treatment is by the market mechanism.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  53. “36.When government health care is inevitably rationed, and when someone who doesn’t get timely care dies, and when the decision to deny that care is made by two or more bureaucrats, that’s a death panel. Neither one of you would be so upset at the specific locution of “death panel” had the phrase not originated with former Governor Sarah Palin”

    – Official Internet Data Office

    And what do you call it when someone is denied timely care under our current system, and dies, and the decision is made by two or more insurance company bureaucrats?

    I’ll tell you what you call it: free market capitalism.

    Because that’s different.

    I had forgotten that the phrase “death panels” originated with Sarah Palin, but that makes perfect sense – a disengenuous concept from a disengenuous mind. Lap it up, if you must.

    Leviticus (f565c1)

  54. The feds have passed all sorts of anit-discriminatory bills–ADA, Age Discrimination, etc. Now they want to do through this crazy health care plan what they forbid all others to do. No wonder people think the government is capable of madness, and death panels.

    rochf (ae9c58)

  55. It’s not in the bill…”

    Well, those who are experts at finding emanations in penumbra’s will be able to find most anything, anywhere.

    AD - RtR/OS! (6269f6)

  56. Comment by Leviticus — 8/12/2009 @ 9:22 am

    Leviticus,

    There is one very large difference between the bureaucrats at insurance companies and bureaucrats in government. It is: practical legal accountability for life-endangering decisions. I’d go into the details of the relative futility of trying to sue the government in a district where many of the judges are appointees of that same political party, etc. I’m not saying everyone in government is corrupt, or even lacking in good intentions. I’m just saying that people in the public sector feeling accountable seems, at least to the naked public eye, to be a much lower percentage than people in the private sector.

    no one you know (7a9144)

  57. Because that’s different.

    It is different because you have recourse against an insurance company in Civil Court (and possibly in Criminal Court if discovery leads to information that the insurance company’s actions were in reckless disregard), a course of action not available when the other party is the Government.

    AD - RtR/OS! (6269f6)

  58. And just think of the cost reduction twofer you get when you fail to provide care to someone over 62. You reduce real-time expenditures for medical care AND you reduce the number of years you’ll be forking over monthly social security checks to grannie.

    The truly scary part of all this is the shift away from assessing benefits and outcomes at the individual level to assessing benefits at the societal level. You will become a ward of the government which will make life and death determinations about you on behalf of society as a whole. Nearing retirement? Hmmm. Not so many paychecks left to “contribute” taxes to the government AND you’ll become a net drain on the government, so your worth starts to plummet.

    Look at the recent decisions by the NICE panel that makes decisions about healthcare in the UK. They felt that the government was spending too much on pain relief so they capped annual cortisone injections for back pain relief at 3,000, down from 60,000. Oh, and you don’t have a choice of seeking private treatment in the UK – you’ll need to head to Hungary or the US, if you can afford it.

    We are being turned into chattel to serve our government and its statist leadership.

    in_awe (930ef4)

  59. Yes, Mike K, it’s the French Revolution in slo-mo. Isn’t Obama proposing a Committee for Public Safety, in essence, with his massive takeover of American life?

    The killing may be more discreet than by guillotine, but there will be blood.

    Patricia (94c68d)

  60. “It is different because you have recourse against an insurance company in Civil Court (and possibly in Criminal Court if discovery leads to information that the insurance company’s actions were in reckless disregard), a course of action not available when the other party is the Government.”

    – AD-RtR/OS!

    … which in no way changes the nature of the panel itself. So if the one is a “death panel”, so is the other. Perhaps one is more accountable than the other -perhaps-but that doesn’t change the fact that bureaucrats will be deciding who does or does not get health care under either system. And if government is not accountable to the people, that’s a separate, larger problem (as I and several others said earlier).

    Beyond that, I thought conservatives were Tort Reform types… you know, taking away that Civil Court recourse that gives the system we have any advantage in accountability over a government-run alternative? What happened to that?

    For the sake of honest debate, let’s all admit that if a bunch of government bureaucrats deciding who gets health care is a “death panel”, then a bunch of insurance company bureaucrats deciding who gets health care is a “death panel” too.

    Leviticus (f565c1)

  61. Leviticus, I’ve never heard any “conservative” proposal for tort reform that eliminated all causes of action for medical malpractice. So what shall we term your phrase “taking away that Civil Court recourse that gives the system we have any advantage in accountability over a government-run alternative?”

    Honest debate? Hmmmm. Not working for me.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  62. Let’s make a deal, then: you guys admit that the phrase “death panel” is bullshit, and I’ll admit that there are reasonable arguments for reasonable tort reform. We can all act like adults.

    Leviticus (f565c1)

  63. I see no upside to ceasing use of the phrase “death panel”, tendentious though it may be, given that it’s driven tools like Leviticus to distraction.

    Act like an adult? Towards you? After all the despicable crap your side has pulled for the twenty years I’ve been politically aware? I’d rather just shit in your hat, if it’s all the same.

    BC (fe6289)

  64. Actually, Leviticus, there are conservatives criticizing Sarah Palin for the rhetoric.

    Meanwhile, you should acknowledge that Obama himself fed the rhetoric with his own comments questioning when treatment of the elderly is appropriate.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  65. Leviticus,

    ‘death panel’ refers to the writings of Obama’s Ezekiel Emanuel. His writings make clear that he indeed does support a death panel.

    Death panel also refers to Obama’s own words about denying hip surgery to old ladies because it’s a waste. It’s the idea that care should be denied to people, based on a panel.

    It’s not bullshit. Well, it is bullshit, but it’s not bullshit for Sarah Palin to bring it up. That’s why Paglia recognized the term as useful. It’s hyperbolic, but only very slightly. Certainly far less so than the democrats paying for cartoons of Bush pushing grandma down the stairs in her wheelchair.

    The discourse from the right has been far milder, more reasonable, and accurate than the discourse towards Bush has been… about ideas that were much more benign.

    If our political discourse is to be a bit hypberbolic and recognize the short attention spans and get to the heart of the issue, then yes, Death Panel accurately described the fear people have of a bureaucratic insolvent mess.

    What’s truly sick is that whenever this death panel comes into existence, when government workers deny care to people in order to save money, the democrats will blame republicans for it. They will use far harsher language to describe the horrors of things like tax cuts and balanced budgets.

    Juan (bd4b30)

  66. Absolutely, I acknowledge that.

    Leviticus (f565c1)

  67. Comment by Juan — 8/12/2009 @ 6:12 pm

    Well said; thanks.

    Leviticus,
    Am a bit short of time and don’t even know if you’ll see this but I would just add this link to what Juan said; it’s pretty interesting:

    There He Goes Again (Just Don’t Call Them “Death Panels”)

    The original NYT interview which the blog post above references

    no one you know (7a9144)

  68. How can any government determine who is entitled to medical treatment
    Umm, medicare/medicaid already do that, and ins co’s do it even more.

    actually defend the questions regarding the coming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid bankruptcies
    Yeah, SS is in trouble because it’s been borrowed against and the debt has never been paid. Our own Govt killed it. Is that what you’re looking for?

    Eric (0080ff)

  69. Mickey Kaus at Slate is now referencing that Tom Maguire post.

    no one you know (7a9144)


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