The Limits of Free Speech

[Admiral Yi]

I call bullshit.  The NYT interview was about paying for a hip replacement for a terminally ill patient, not pulling the plug.  And even then it was clear that the option would be open to pay out-of-pocket.

this is scaremongering pure and simple, and the people peddling it make the "Bush lied, people died" folks look like Aristotle in comparison.

I can't find the article right now but I'm pretty sure Obama's comments weren't prompted by a question regarding his thoughts on hip replacements for terminally ill patients.

[PDH]

Found it!

Obama: And I feel that, given the nature of the costs and the mass of regulations and red tape that patients must go through, the basic solution is that ALL ELDERLY WHITE REPUBLICANS WILL BE ORDERED TO DEATH CAMPS BY PANELS OF LEFT-WING UNIVERSITY TYPES WITH SANDALS AND TIE-DYED TSHIRTS, and I can't settle for anything less.

[DGuller]

If true, that sounds pretty damning.

[Berkut]

If "this conspiracy" is that Obama's April interview with the New York Times contained a whiff of death panels, then yes.

I call bullshit.  The NYT interview was about paying for a hip replacement for a terminally ill patient, not pulling the plug.  And even then it was clear that the option would be open to pay out-of-pocket.

this is scaremongering pure and simple, and the people peddling it make the "Bush lied, people died" folks look like Aristotle in comparison.

Agree with everything but the idea that this is somehow more reprehensible than the left doing precisely the same thing about a different subject.

[Admiral Yi]

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

LEONHARDT: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

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 that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think it has to be able to give you some guidance.

OK, here it is.

JR: it's very possible Square Head stripped out some very important context, but by the same token hip replacements don't equal 80% of health care.

[Razgovory]

If "this conspiracy" is that Obama's April interview with the New York Times contained a whiff of death panels, then yes.

I call bullshit.  The NYT interview was about paying for a hip replacement for a terminally ill patient, not pulling the plug.  And even then it was clear that the option would be open to pay out-of-pocket.

this is scaremongering pure and simple, and the people peddling it make the "Bush lied, people died" folks look like Aristotle in comparison.

Agree with everything but the idea that this is somehow more reprehensible than the left doing precisely the same thing about a different subject.

But they do it too!!!!  Somewhere sometime.

[Eddie Teach]

If "this conspiracy" is that Obama's April interview with the New York Times contained a whiff of death panels, then yes.

I call bullshit.  The NYT interview was about paying for a hip replacement for a terminally ill patient, not pulling the plug.  And even then it was clear that the option would be open to pay out-of-pocket.

this is scaremongering pure and simple, and the people peddling it make the "Bush lied, people died" folks look like Aristotle in comparison.

Agree with everything but the idea that this is somehow more reprehensible than the left doing precisely the same thing about a different subject.

But they do it too!!!!  Somewhere sometime.

See bold for context.

[Neil]

um no there was CNN footage of both incidents. The anti Bush thing was in NH. Back when people got arrested for wearing protest tees in malls. late Kapland/early migration to Languish from KAPland era.

They were arrested by law enforcement and charged with the crime of wearing protest tees?

they were detained by police then let go iirc... but simply for wearing protest t-shirts... back in the hardcore with us or against us days. there were a lot of those stories on the news then.


fuck i hate this new quoting system.

They should have been executed.

[The Minsky Moment]

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

LEONHARDT: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

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 that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think it has to be able to give you some guidance.

OK, here it is.

JR: it's very possible Square Head stripped out some very important context, but by the same token hip replacements don't equal 80% of health care.

yes he stripped out the context.  Like the comment that immediately preceded the question and answer:

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.

LEONHARDT: And it's going to be hard for people who don't have the option of paying for it

THE PRESIDENT: So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right?

Your quoted portion immediately follows.

So the context is discussing the extent of *public* funding for palliative end-of-life care (not pulling plugs), as exemplified by Obama's description of his terminal grandmother's hip replacement.

What really adds on to the sheer level of insanity and rank stupidity is that so many of the nutcases running around screaming about death panels also claim they want to get the government out of health care altogether.  So they would avoid having the "conversation" about exactly how much care the public fisc should provide for grandma's health care by providing none at all . . .

[Warspite]

I support Obama in his struggle to find a final solution to the health care question that will last for a thousand years, and promise its users the extermination of dues.

[The Brain]

I support Obama in his struggle to find a final solution to the health care question that will last for a thousand years, and promise its users the extermination of dues.

LOL you do not realize it, but you have inadvertently made Obama remind us of Hitler.

[jimmy olsen]

I support Obama in his struggle to find a final solution to the health care question that will last for a thousand years, and promise its users the extermination of dues.

Genius.

[Admiral Yi]

Joan: the extra context doesn't change much.  Obama tried to raise the issue of reducing spending on terminally ill patients.  He did it in a very opaque manner, and he proposed that other people initiate the discussion instead of himself, but the fact remains that he raised it.

The original death panel lady (Betsy Something) was on Jon Stewart the other night.  She claims that everybody is looking at the wrong section of the House bill, the part that talks about physician consultations, whereas the part they should be looking at is about some Medicare doctor rating (which determines their Medicare reimbursement rate) and which under the House bill would be determined in (admitedly minor) part by how many of their patients sign living wills and how many of those who do "adhere to their living wills."

Also read an article by Joe Klein the Democratic Whore in which he says the effect of all the town hall ranting will probably be to kill the living will consultation provision.  Not kill the whole process, just kill the provision.  Which is unfortunate, since I'd be perfectly happy if we threw grandpa and grandma under the bus.

So in short:

Health reform will pass.
The death panelists are nutty, but not as nutty as they're being made out to be.
Republican politicians have not covered themselves in glory, but they're mostly hemming and hawing (except Caribou Barbie) as opposed to screaming and dancing about death panels.

[The Minsky Moment]

Joan: the extra context doesn't change much.  Obama tried to raise the issue of reducing spending on terminally ill patients.  He did it in a very opaque manner, and he proposed that other people initiate the discussion instead of himself, but the fact remains that he raised it.

I have to disagree.  There is nothing opaque about it, other than it is an interview format so it isn't in the form of short bullet points.  But it is perfectly clear he is not talking about removing the right of private persons to pay for whatever care they want.  And it is also clear in context that he wasn't talking about controlling spending by pulling the plug on unwilling patients.

The original death panel lady (Betsy Something) was on Jon Stewart the other night.  She claims that everybody is looking at the wrong section of the House bill, the part that talks about physician consultations, whereas the part they should be looking at is about some Medicare doctor rating (which determines their Medicare reimbursement rate) and which under the House bill would be determined in (admitedly minor) part by how many of their patients sign living wills and how many of those who do "adhere to their living wills."

If so, that is even more stupid than the other position.
First, because one of the options in a living will is to insist on all possible treatment.
Second, because my understanding of the provision in question is that it relates to collecting and reporting data; not to achievement of specific outcomes.

Republican politicians have not covered themselves in glory, but they're mostly hemming and hawing (except Caribou Barbie) as opposed to screaming and dancing about death panels.

They certainly haven't made any case why they are more fit to lead than the Congressional democrats, which you wouldn't think would be that tough a standard.

[Admiral Yi]

I have to disagree.  There is nothing opaque about it, other than it is an interview format so it isn't in the form of short bullet points.  But it is perfectly clear he is not talking about removing the right of private persons to pay for whatever care they want.  And it is also clear in context that he wasn't talking about controlling spending by pulling the plug on unwilling patients.

Agreed.  He's talking about cutting off government spending on patients.  Their willingness is not alluded to.