Unhealthy Lies
I'm going to start with the (relatively) good news on the topic of this absurd non-dialogue on health care reform. We finally had a vociferous voice of reason out there today, as reported by Joan Walsh at Salon:
A reassuring but occasionally feisty President Obama took his healthcare reform pitch to Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday afternoon, in a town hall that featured several tough questions but no hecklers or disruption. Despite hundreds of protesters -- from Birthers to Glenn Beckers to aides to disgraced GOP Rep. Bob Ney, and even one man with a gun strapped to his leg (legal in New Hampshire) -- Obama made his pitch with reason and humor, and got respect even from those who said they differed with him on the issue. Obama's getting better at pitching this -- he was much more effective than in his July press conference -- though he missed some opportunities to rally support and calm fears. Still, it was a relief to see civility and reason prevail.
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First, what Obama did well. He spoke directly to the organized scare campaign against his plan, mocking false claims about "death panels" and telling the crowd, "People who want to keep things the way they are will scare the heck out of folks, and they'll create bogeymen that aren't real." He sharpened his message to take aim at the inefficiencies and inequities of private insurance companies, promising "a healthcare system that works for us, not the insurance industry." And he got off his best line early: "I don't think anyone should be in charge of your healthcare decisions but you and your doctor -- I don't think government bureaucrats should be meddling, but I also don't think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling."
Obama talked even more fiercely than usual about his mother's battle with her insurance company, which denied her coverage because "she should have known she had cancer before she took her new job -- even though she hadn't been diagnosed yet." He took a page from our Mike Madden, running down a list of insured Americans unfairly denied coverage for their illnesses by private insurers, promising his plan would ensure "your health insurance should be there for you when it counts -- not just when you're paying premiums, but when you need it: when you get sick."
Finally: Obama suggested, once again, that he was prepared to push through healthcare without Republican votes. "I hope we can do it in a bipartisan fashion, but the most important thing is getting it done for the American people," he told the crowd.
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There's more to Joan's post than that, and I recommend a full read for those really making proper effort to be informed, i.e., versus those in thrall to the becks, limbaughs, palins, and other channelers of the dark underbelly of Homo sapiens. These folks have been inciting violence, lying continuously, and encouraging others to suppress communications on the topic of why our country should continue to have some of the worst health care of any developed country while our pharma/insurance/medical establishment is appallingly obese with profits.
And there is even the occasional conservative who has not entirely taken leave of his senses to the point of wanting to fearmonger or incite the ignorant and uninformed (okay, yes, it is quite possible the motivation might be less admirable than I would prefer):
What's a poor rich lobbyist and astro-turf specialist to do? I guess Tim Phillips can just spend all his time at Fox News-- where they swallow it whole. Normal folks-- if not the frightened seniors who watch Hannity, Beck, Dobbs and O'Reilly-- are starting to wise up to the Republican tactics of disrupting the rational discussion of health care issues and fear-mongering. An unserious and credibility-deficient Sarah Palin may be trying to get some attention by jumping up and down and yelling "death panels," but, aside from Glenn Beck and a small handful of right-wing misanthropes, no one believes her. Even reactionary Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson, who has to face the voters in 2010, wishes she would just pipe down or go away. Ezra Klein asked Isakson, co-sponsor of the Medicare End-of-Life Act of 2007, about the Insurance Industry shills' and Republican partisan euthanasia distortions:
Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?
In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.
How did this become a question of euthanasia?
I have no idea. I understand-- and you have to check this out-- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.
You're saying that this is not a question of government. It's for individuals.
It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.
The policy here as I understand it is that Medicare would cover a counseling session with your doctor on end-of-life options.
Correct. And it's a voluntary deal.
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PoltiFact's Truth-O-Meter rates Palin's bullshit it's highest form of lie-- "Pants on Fire." They say they've "looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn't. There's certainly no 'death board' that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care. Conservatives might make a case that Palin is justified in fearing that the current reform could one day morph into such a board.
But that's not what Palin said. She said that the Democratic plan will ration care and '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.' Palin's statement sounds more like a science fiction movie (Soylent Green, anyone?) than part of an actual bill before Congress. We rate her statement Pants on Fire!
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Another equally vicious bigot, just as destructive to the tenor of American politics, is Glenn Beck, about whose advertiser boycott we have been keeping track. Good news today-- really good news. GEICO has pulled its ads off Beck's hateful program, joining Procter & Gamble and several other companies.
Adding to a growing list of advertisers distancing themselves from controversial Fox News personality Glenn Beck, GEICO has pledged to re-direct their advertisements away from Beck's program on the Fox News Channel. The decision by GEICO comes on the heels of announcements made last week that LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson were distancing themselves from Beck after the news host called President Obama a "racist" who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people."
"On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program," said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."
And I'm sure I am not alone in hoping that some seriously direct calling out of this egregiously dishonest anti-reform campaign is long overdue. Obama did a bit of this, but it is imperative that actual recoginzed authorities and adherents to factual discourse speak up here. Where is the medical profession, with their oaths regarding patient care?
And, as a practical matter, when did that annoying little bit that involved calling it the Democrat party over-and-over actually turn the dog into a spineless puppy? I am appalled at what an absurdly lazy, ineffective, back-sniping, asleep-at-the-wheel bunch now is supposedly in the majority in Congress. What is it going to take to get these jag-offs to actually do some democracy??
I'm not alone, though this particular poster is a lot more polite than is my wont:
It really is amazing to watch a fringe right-wing movement completely dominate the narrative surrounding the health care debate. The Democratic Party has the strongest governing coalition we have seen in years, and yet, they are being run over by misinformation campaign that includes lies so bold and outrageous that one actually grows to gain begrudging respect for the Machiavellian mindset that allows otherwise seemingly rational people to perpetuate this stuff on a public whose gullibility should never again be underestimated.
So, what should the Dems do? For one thing, isn't it time to just once call a lie a lie? Although I support a rational-deliberative approach to politics as a principle, there are some contexts where it just doesn't work. There are some conversations, we have all had them, that start with premises that are so outrageous that in the process of stumbling about about looking for a way to respond that we actually, and quite unintentionally, end up giving credibility to the craziness of the initial premise. It seems to me that our Democratic representatives are becoming caught up in these types of conversations time-after-time at the so-called town meetings. Wouldn't a much more effective approach at this point in the game be simply be to look at one of these tea baggers in the eye and say "sir, you are misinformed, you are listening to lies." Simple, quick clean and strong. We need to change the optics of this debate and it is getting painful to watch our representatives stumble around responding to the lunacy of the fringe right-wing. We should start treating their lies with the clarity it deserves..."you are being mislead sir. You are being lied to."
A reassuring but occasionally feisty President Obama took his healthcare reform pitch to Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday afternoon, in a town hall that featured several tough questions but no hecklers or disruption. Despite hundreds of protesters -- from Birthers to Glenn Beckers to aides to disgraced GOP Rep. Bob Ney, and even one man with a gun strapped to his leg (legal in New Hampshire) -- Obama made his pitch with reason and humor, and got respect even from those who said they differed with him on the issue. Obama's getting better at pitching this -- he was much more effective than in his July press conference -- though he missed some opportunities to rally support and calm fears. Still, it was a relief to see civility and reason prevail.
-clip-
First, what Obama did well. He spoke directly to the organized scare campaign against his plan, mocking false claims about "death panels" and telling the crowd, "People who want to keep things the way they are will scare the heck out of folks, and they'll create bogeymen that aren't real." He sharpened his message to take aim at the inefficiencies and inequities of private insurance companies, promising "a healthcare system that works for us, not the insurance industry." And he got off his best line early: "I don't think anyone should be in charge of your healthcare decisions but you and your doctor -- I don't think government bureaucrats should be meddling, but I also don't think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling."
Obama talked even more fiercely than usual about his mother's battle with her insurance company, which denied her coverage because "she should have known she had cancer before she took her new job -- even though she hadn't been diagnosed yet." He took a page from our Mike Madden, running down a list of insured Americans unfairly denied coverage for their illnesses by private insurers, promising his plan would ensure "your health insurance should be there for you when it counts -- not just when you're paying premiums, but when you need it: when you get sick."
Finally: Obama suggested, once again, that he was prepared to push through healthcare without Republican votes. "I hope we can do it in a bipartisan fashion, but the most important thing is getting it done for the American people," he told the crowd.
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There's more to Joan's post than that, and I recommend a full read for those really making proper effort to be informed, i.e., versus those in thrall to the becks, limbaughs, palins, and other channelers of the dark underbelly of Homo sapiens. These folks have been inciting violence, lying continuously, and encouraging others to suppress communications on the topic of why our country should continue to have some of the worst health care of any developed country while our pharma/insurance/medical establishment is appallingly obese with profits.
And there is even the occasional
What's a poor rich lobbyist and astro-turf specialist to do? I guess Tim Phillips can just spend all his time at Fox News-- where they swallow it whole. Normal folks-- if not the frightened seniors who watch Hannity, Beck, Dobbs and O'Reilly-- are starting to wise up to the Republican tactics of disrupting the rational discussion of health care issues and fear-mongering. An unserious and credibility-deficient Sarah Palin may be trying to get some attention by jumping up and down and yelling "death panels," but, aside from Glenn Beck and a small handful of right-wing misanthropes, no one believes her. Even reactionary Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson, who has to face the voters in 2010, wishes she would just pipe down or go away. Ezra Klein asked Isakson, co-sponsor of the Medicare End-of-Life Act of 2007, about the Insurance Industry shills' and Republican partisan euthanasia distortions:
Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?
In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.
How did this become a question of euthanasia?
I have no idea. I understand-- and you have to check this out-- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.
You're saying that this is not a question of government. It's for individuals.
It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.
The policy here as I understand it is that Medicare would cover a counseling session with your doctor on end-of-life options.
Correct. And it's a voluntary deal.
-clip-
PoltiFact's Truth-O-Meter rates Palin's bullshit it's highest form of lie-- "Pants on Fire." They say they've "looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn't. There's certainly no 'death board' that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care. Conservatives might make a case that Palin is justified in fearing that the current reform could one day morph into such a board.
But that's not what Palin said. She said that the Democratic plan will ration care and '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.' Palin's statement sounds more like a science fiction movie (Soylent Green, anyone?) than part of an actual bill before Congress. We rate her statement Pants on Fire!
-clip-
Another equally vicious bigot, just as destructive to the tenor of American politics, is Glenn Beck, about whose advertiser boycott we have been keeping track. Good news today-- really good news. GEICO has pulled its ads off Beck's hateful program, joining Procter & Gamble and several other companies.
Adding to a growing list of advertisers distancing themselves from controversial Fox News personality Glenn Beck, GEICO has pledged to re-direct their advertisements away from Beck's program on the Fox News Channel. The decision by GEICO comes on the heels of announcements made last week that LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson were distancing themselves from Beck after the news host called President Obama a "racist" who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people."
"On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program," said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."
And I'm sure I am not alone in hoping that some seriously direct calling out of this egregiously dishonest anti-reform campaign is long overdue. Obama did a bit of this, but it is imperative that actual recoginzed authorities and adherents to factual discourse speak up here. Where is the medical profession, with their oaths regarding patient care?
And, as a practical matter, when did that annoying little bit that involved calling it the Democrat party over-and-over actually turn the dog into a spineless puppy? I am appalled at what an absurdly lazy, ineffective, back-sniping, asleep-at-the-wheel bunch now is supposedly in the majority in Congress. What is it going to take to get these jag-offs to actually do some democracy??
I'm not alone, though this particular poster is a lot more polite than is my wont:
It really is amazing to watch a fringe right-wing movement completely dominate the narrative surrounding the health care debate. The Democratic Party has the strongest governing coalition we have seen in years, and yet, they are being run over by misinformation campaign that includes lies so bold and outrageous that one actually grows to gain begrudging respect for the Machiavellian mindset that allows otherwise seemingly rational people to perpetuate this stuff on a public whose gullibility should never again be underestimated.
So, what should the Dems do? For one thing, isn't it time to just once call a lie a lie? Although I support a rational-deliberative approach to politics as a principle, there are some contexts where it just doesn't work. There are some conversations, we have all had them, that start with premises that are so outrageous that in the process of stumbling about about looking for a way to respond that we actually, and quite unintentionally, end up giving credibility to the craziness of the initial premise. It seems to me that our Democratic representatives are becoming caught up in these types of conversations time-after-time at the so-called town meetings. Wouldn't a much more effective approach at this point in the game be simply be to look at one of these tea baggers in the eye and say "sir, you are misinformed, you are listening to lies." Simple, quick clean and strong. We need to change the optics of this debate and it is getting painful to watch our representatives stumble around responding to the lunacy of the fringe right-wing. We should start treating their lies with the clarity it deserves..."you are being mislead sir. You are being lied to."
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:43 PM
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