Posted on 08/12/2009 6:43:58 AM PDT by leftyontheright
ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: During a town hall meeting in New Hampshire Tuesday, President Obama made sure to point out one Republican proponent of end of life counseling to argue there are no "death panels" in health care reform bills in the House and the Senate.
"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," said the president in Portsmouth, N.H. Tuesday
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.abcnews.com ...
RINO
Oh yea, I’m going to believe the “research” of an ABC news reader.
(Paglia weighs in)
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. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palins shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorates 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.
(Paglia weighs in)
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. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palins shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorates 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.
Obama himself told a woman there would be criteria set and her elderly mother might be denied surgery and given a pain pill instead. He also said “you” currently receive care that “isn’t helping you”.
These comments can only mean a national panel rationing care and allowing some people to die.
Collectivism always comes at the cost of discarding soul.
Being a GA resident, I agree. Both he and his buddy Chambliss.
They never speak without the other.
here’s a little “breakthrough” news that is timely and will surely make possible and lead to cost vs benefit health care rationing well before the end-of-life issue:
As high as my regard is for the medical profession, the fact remains that we are talking about legal documents. I have no idea whether the medical profession wants to take on this role, nor what the ramifications might be of it doing so. I can imagine that the average doctor might might lack the necessary legal background to properly answer some questions that could come up in a counseling session.
Where are doctors on all this? Do they want this job?
We may live to see Paglia abandon her leftie friends altogether.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aGrKbfWkzTqc
Obama questioned the cost of Madelyn Dunham’s hip replacement, and the cost of care for the terminally ill...
We live 16 miles from Portsmouth, NH and I can tell you for a fact that the "Town Hall " event in Portsmouth, NH was a totally scripted phony "by invitation only ticketed event. Obamessiah and his minions determined WHO got the tickets and ONLY THOSE WITH TICKETS GOT IN!
The hall was packed with democrat operatives and real American public was not permitted to enter. The facts are it was a by invitation only The little girl who questioned Obama at his "Health Care Forum" was a Democratic plant! (PROOF enclosed) =
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=911911
Please research this and come to your OWN CONCLUSIONS.
We have lived in Southern NH for 30 years and I have one question:
"What is a democratic operative and early Obama supporter from MASSACHUSETTS doing in a NEW HAMPSHIRE town hall meeting, USING HER DAUGHTER AS A TOOL TO READ A CANNED QUESTION FROM A SCRIPT if this isnt anything more than a PHONY, STAGED, POTEMKIN, SHAM-WOW Obamessiah deathcare infomercial with Obama preaching to a canned audience that has been HAND PICKED and PROGRAMMED to applaud and cry "yes we can" on cue when their master Obamessiah speaks?"
They must think we are fools who do not know how to do BASIC research using the internet.
I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism.
You don’t, Camille? Wake up, dear. That is what the leftist “philosophy” IS! SOULLESS COLLECTIVISM!! Neither the existence nor the rights of the individual count for a thing—unless, of course, it happens to be an individual of IMPORTANCE. You know, like a Kennedy or a Clinton or a Pelosi! That’s where the collectivism ends, allowing Teddy to receive a million dollars worth of cancer treatment whereas a 75 year old John Doe will be issued a pill...if he’s lucky!
The only people missing are you and your doctor. Page 427.
THE PRESIDENT: Exactly. And I just recently went through this. I mean, I've told this story, maybe not publicly, but when my grandmother got very ill during the campaign, she got cancer; it was determined to be terminal. And about two or three weeks after her diagnosis she fell, broke her hip. It was determined that she might have had a mild stroke, which is what had precipitated the fall.
So now she's in the hospital, and the doctor says, Look, you've got about — maybe you have three months, maybe you have six months, maybe you have nine months to live. Because of the weakness of your heart, if you have an operation on your hip there are certain risks that — you know, your heart can't take it. On the other hand, if you just sit there with your hip like this, you're just going to waste away and your quality of life will be terrible.
And she elected to get the hip replacement and was fine for about two weeks after the hip replacement, and then suddenly just — you know, things fell apart.
I don't know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she's my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. 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.
(snip)
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 thats part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. Its not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And thats part of what I suspect youll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.
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