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Palin still stands behind the death panel claim. AP Photo Al Grillo
Sarah Palin is not backing down in advocating her "death panel" myth and in fact is coming back with the force of footnotes. In her most recent facebook post Palin "backs up" her claims by actually quoting from the bill itself and also quoting a number of commentators.
First let me commend Palin for at the very least attempting to make this debate more academic. Her earlier assertion made no reference to the bill and provided no support for the "death panel" argument. Now at least we know where Palin is coming from and can argue based on facts. In all sincerity I give Palin credit for using more reason this time around.
Still, Palin is "dead" wrong on this issue for a number of reasons.
Palin cites section 1233 of the health care reform bill for support of her claim. Nowhere does section 1233 mention death panels or anything resembling death panels. The entire provision defines voluntary end-of-life consultations which would be covered by the government. If someone does not want to go to any of these meetings they do not have to go.
Palin responds by arguing that people will feel pressured by the consultations to end their lives rather than seek life sustaining treatments even if they are voluntary. First, if people chose to go to these meetings are they really be pressured to seek end-of-life treatments? Is it not conceivable that some people would chose to not be stuck on respirator the last months of their life and that they would want to control the way they die through a living will? The provision gives people more control not less control over the way they end their lives. Those who want to keep going at all costs will simply not go to the consultations because, once again as even Palin conceded in her post, the consultations are not mandatory.
The next argument Palin makes basically rules out ever trying to reduce costs in health care. Her argument goes something like this: (1) Most health care costs are spent at the end of someone's life (2) the health care bill tries to reduce costs and (3) therefore the bill will kill people off rather than paying for them. The argument seems to make sense but in reality the health care bill reduces costs through number of other measures such as the preventive care. Nowhere does the bill advocate or even hint to cutting benefits at the end of life to reduce costs. Furthermore, under Palin's logic if any bill reduce costs this means it will also kill people off to save money. This is not a logical assumption and even it it was the argument condemns America to spending most of our income on health care in the future.
Finally, Palin ends her argument by referring to Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel one of the health care advisers to the Presidents. Palin essentially argues that Emanuel advocates death panels and therefore death panels will be enacted in the bill. First, as I have written before, Dr. Emanuel has never advocating euthanasia and in fact has explicitly opposed assisted-suicides and euthanasia. Why did Palin not footnote that article written by Dr. Emanuel? Secondly, does Palin really want to go down the road of guilt by association again? Palin argues that if Dr. Emanuel said something the President and Democrats must believe it. By that logic Sarah Palin must advocate secession from the United States since her own husband at one point was a member of the secessionist party. At least President Obama is not married to Dr. Emanuel. In reality, the guilt by association argument should be put in the trash along with the death panel argument itself.
Comments
Sarah Palin never said anything about "euthanasia." The issue is whether the government will allow PAYMENT for doctor recommended treatments that the bureaucracy deems not cost effective.
"Death Panels" were called Triage since 1925
TRIAGE:
–noun
1. the process of sorting victims, as of a battle or disaster, to determine medical priority in order to increase the number of survivors.
2. the determination of priorities for action in an emergency.
–adjective
3. of, pertaining to, or performing the task of triage: a triage officer.
–verb (used with object)
4. to act on or in by triage: to triage a crisis.
Origin:
1925–30; < F: sorting, equiv. to tri(er) to sort (see try ) + -age -age
Battlefield Triage:
1: Those who can't be saved, make comfortable while dying.
2. Those in least danger of dying, set aside for treatment after the urgent needs patients.
3. Those who will live if given immediate care, but will die if care is postponed -- treat first.
DEATH PANELS of govt agent doctors have been doing this on battlefields since time began, but began using the word TRIAGE for three categories since 1925, about 84 years.
I will bet the farm that this article has not been written by Palin herself. Same as the op-ed written in the Washington Post. She has hired a good ghost writer. However the difference between her speeches/own writings and these 2 articles are too great to be credible and I am sure most of the readers will see through it. I am sure that she can not repeat or understand half of what has been written here. I challenge her to try to prove differently in a life interview !!
Palin is a hypocrite about end of life just like Gingrich. there are related posts about the two at iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
une jam doni
There is no way Palin wrote that entry herself. She is not capable of that level of articulation in written or verbal format. This is an attempt to elevate her standing in the political community as a viable contender. I wish this would be questioned by the written and visual media.
If Palin's comments describe a "myth," why has the offending language been deleted from the House bill? Hmmm?
Mike: Because sometimes in the interest of getting a bill passed it is best to take out a small provision that the other side has been able to successfully misconstrue. I congratulate Palin on ridding millions of Americans the OPTION of having an end-of-life consultation covered by Medicare.
Mr. Witt quoted himself with “backs up.” His weak argument falls apart after that. Ms. Palin did not suggest that some government panel would sit in judgment on each case and deny medical aid to the defective and the elderly. Her well-reasoned article supported her image.
"Her argument goes something like this," he wrote. "Most health care costs are spent at the end of someone's life." That error is part of a straw man argument. She never stated or implied that point. Dr. Emanuel, an oncologist, co-authored a 1998 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, with this sentence: “Although the care given in the last four weeks of life accounts for a considerable proportion of health care costs, it still represents only 33 percent of all medical expenditures during the last year of life and an even smaller fraction of lifetime health care expenditures.”
Sarah Palin majored in journalism. J people usually can write well. The claims against her are ignorant, bigoted, and stupid.
AT: Sarah Palin's argument is much better spelled out then your own, which is more a statement on the weakness of your argument than the strength of yours. How exactly does she get to "death panels" without saying such a board would exist? In addition, read her original post. She said that her son would be sent before a government board of doctors who would decide her fate. It seems that I, a Palin opponent, actually know her argument much better than you do as a Palin supporter.
Finally, in my analysis of her argument at least I don't engage in name calling. Really, are we still in third grade? Ignorant? Bigoted? Stupid? Why don't you just resort to "I'm rubber you're glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you." We can argue without calling each other names can't we?
In trying to stay within the character restriction, I wound up omitting a key word, "so." Adding it, part of the second paragraph would read: "sit in judgment on each case and so deny medical aid. . . ." Any denial would not be the result of any individual determination, but be part of regulations intended to deny medical support to certain classes of people.
One can indeed support end-of-life counseling while warning against its entry in the Democrats' health care schemes. The fools who trust the secular leftists in this Administration remind one of the Europeans who dismissed what a Central European author asserted about a book on his fight, or struggle. He meant what he wrote. Some Democrats, who now hold positions of power in this most leftist of American governments, mean what they have written, too. And they will interpret any law's language to suit their aims.
From Sarah Palin’s 1st comment: “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.” That refers to only one panel, which could not rule individually on Trig. It was a vivid image.
She began her 2nd statement by clarifying, “Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.” Rational, that, given what one knows of key Administration players.
I regret name-calling, but have recorded too many leftist insults of conservatives; more Yahoo flings at Ms. Palin tested my patience and it lost
AT: Wow, so Palin can take the text of health care reform bill and torture it to say something that never exist in the bill. But when I refer to something Palin said EXPLICITLY she is just using "vivid imagery." She said her son would stand before a death panel and she has never, in two posts since then, said that her comment was mere imagery. If you assume that Obama will ration because of the "people he surrounds himself with" then you also must say Palin believes in secession given she is married to a former secessionist. You can't have it both ways. If you condemn Obama based on his company you must condemn Palin for her company as well.
Robert Moon is spamming The Activity Pit again: twi.cc/lAlq
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