The always-reliable NY Times probes deeply into the question of why these death panel rumors swirl around Obama, helpfully likening them to the rumors about Obama being a Muslim or not an American:
WASHINGTON — The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.
And in the course of talking about runaway costs and ways to reduce them, Obama actually advocated end-of-life panels issuing voluntary guidelines with Timesman David Leonhardt, as reported in the Times; by way of introduction, Obama had been discussing the story of his grandmother, who was terminally ill with cancer when she had an expensive hip replacement procedure so that she would not be bed-ridden for the last three to nine months of her life:
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?
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?
So as of April 2009 Obama himself expected the final legislation to include some sort of group (but NOT a "death panel"!) that would produce voluntary guidelines for end of life care with an eye towards saving money.
And now Obama is plagued by scurrilous rumors that his legislation will include groups that issue guidelines for end of life care with the goal of saving money. Fortunately, the Times has looked everywhere but their own candidate and their own website and firmly concluded that the rumors are false.
That is a characteristically great effort by the Times. We look forward to their hard-hitting coverage of the latest installment of the John Edwards debacle.
[BELATED PILING ON: In their own coverage of the Obama interview Peter Baker of the Times wrote this on May 1:
Some conservatives have cited Mr. Obama’s story to make the case that his plan to expand access to health care and reduce costs ultimately will result in rationing, of the kind that might have denied his grandmother the surgery unless she paid the bill on her own.
Evidently, once Sarah Palin spoke the Times forgot their own interview and their own reporting].
HOW VOLUNTARY? And how voluntary will these imagined guidelines be? Doctors that are currently free to prescribe painkillers volunteer not to, to avoid hassles from the DEA. Mightn't doctors prefer to follow the "voluntary" end-of-life guidelines rather than risk Federal examination of their taxes, expenses, hiring decisions, and payroll? That would depend in large part on how aggressively the government chose to push the "voluntary" guidelines.
Based on the current public reaction to these "rumors" I would imagine that the Feds will steer clear of this, for now anyway.
BY WAY OF CONTRAST: The Wall Street Journal editors think the death panel talk is "over the top" but opines that seniors have a point:
Elderly Americans are turning out in droves to fight ObamaCare, and President Obama is arguing back that they have nothing to worry about. Allow us to referee. While claims about euthanasia and "death panels" are over the top, senior fears have exposed a fundamental truth about what Mr. Obama is proposing: Namely, once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, rationing care is inevitable, and those who have lived the longest will find their care the most restricted.
They do tackle Obama's gramdmother:
Before he got defensive, Mr. Obama was open about this political calculation. He often invokes the experience of his own grandmother, musing whether it was wise for her to receive a hip replacement after a terminal cancer diagnosis. In an April interview with the New York Times, he wondered whether this represented a "sustainable model" for society. He seems to believe these medical issues are all justifiably political questions that government or some panel of philosopher kings can and should decide. No wonder so many seniors rebel at such judgments that they know they could do little to influence, much less change.
Hmm, he "seems to believe these medical issues are all justifiably political questions that government or some panel of philosopher kings can and should decide"? He did believe some independent (and presumably wise) panel should provide guidance on end-of-life care.
Kim, my grandmother broke her hip in her eighties and was in a nursing home for two years while it healed. She lived another ten years after that. Surgery would have been a much cheaper, quicker fix for everyone.
Of course, that was a long time ago.
Posted by: bad | August 15, 2009 at 05:22 PM
He's not fit to be anyone's grandson, let alone anyone's President.
That's for damn sure. While he does seem quite human and fatherly toward his daughters, I wouldn't want him as a son or grandson or cousin or nephew. He has always seemed singularly uninterested in his the rest of his family's fate except as regards their usefulness as props in his grand narrative.
Posted by: Porchlight | August 15, 2009 at 06:21 PM
Here is an interview with an Aunt of Obama who has lived in the US for decades as an illegal.
Anyone know any other high placed political figures in the US with an illegal aunt? A aunt who has been illegal all the time he has been in politics.
Posted by: pagar | August 15, 2009 at 07:37 PM
Obama Goes After Politicians Spreading "Death Panels" Lie At Colorado Town Hall:
"What you can't do, or you can, but you shouldn't do -- is start saying things like we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma." President Obama paused and grew emotional, "First of all, when you make a comment like that, I just lost my grandmother last year... I know what its like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate... When you start making arguments like that, that's simply dishonest. Especially when I hear the arguments coming from members of congress in the other party, who, it turns out, sponsored similar provisions!"
According to Huffington Post, Barack said this today.
Posted by: Jack | August 15, 2009 at 08:23 PM
Ibama is right. They don't want to set up death panels because it was already done in the porkulous bill:
LUN
Posted by: bad to the bone | August 15, 2009 at 08:29 PM
Posted by: Neo | August 15, 2009 at 10:56 PM
--First of all, when you make a comment like that, I just lost my grandmother last year...I know what its like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate....--
Can this creep never stop using people, even dead members of his own family, to his own ends?
Does he think no one who disagrees with him lost a loved one in the last year or never watched someone they love age and deteriorate?
Posted by: Ignatz | August 15, 2009 at 11:11 PM
Yeah he watched, for a couple of weekends.
Posted by: JM Hanes | August 16, 2009 at 12:01 AM
I know what its like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate
And by "watch" I mean "once a month between sets of curls, listen to the report from the staffer I had call the home, unless CNN or MSNBC is running something good about how compelling my campaign is".
Posted by: bgates | August 16, 2009 at 12:13 AM
So, she deteriorated and he watched? No comforting her, no reading to her, no feeding her ice chips, no interaction at all...
speaks volumes...
Posted by: Stephanie "the Ice Pick" | August 16, 2009 at 12:23 AM
Here's the AP news headline that greeted me when I went to Yahoo:
Nice to see they've mastered the art of condensing an entire editorial into a sinle headline.Posted by: MJW | August 16, 2009 at 01:48 AM
bad, perhaps your grandmother was not considered safe for surgery or anesthesia, a supposition partially put to the lie by her long life afterwards. It illustrates the principle that the decisions must be made by the individuals involved, correctly informed, by themselves or others, and therein, of course, lies the rub.
Porch, I'd like to emphasize that I certainly don't mean that Obama isn't fit to be anyone's anything. I've got an appropriate role for him. He can be the player on the bench who impulsively leaps onto the field to tackle an opposing team's runner making an otherwise inevitable touchdown run. Now that's ignorant.
Variations on this theme could have him in the role of coach rather than player, or he could even tackle his own teammate. I like this last scenario best.
Posted by: Through a glass, cloudly. | August 16, 2009 at 04:41 AM
One merely needs to read 'Prairie Fire' to understand BHO and Michelle's game plan. Like Ragu, it's in there.
~~~~~~~~~~
Exclusive: Bill Ayers' 'Prairie Fire' in PDF Form
the PDF version of Barack Obama associates “Billy” Ayers’ and Bernardine Dohrn’s 1974 communist declaration of war against the United States.
Includes the dedication to Sirhan Sirhan, assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, on page 5.
You may have read about this book, or seen it mentioned on Hannity and Colmes, but you cannot appreciate how radically insane and violent it is until you read it for yourself.
http://tinyurl.com/678gg8
Posted by: cbinflux | August 16, 2009 at 02:49 PM
As Obama has said:
The "country" shouldn't make these decisions. Families should. I have, and I'll bet many of you have as well. I didn't need the government sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong.
That Obama cannot imagine people being capable of managing their affairs is very telling. I guess these end of life decisions, like when life begins, are above his pay grade. Makes you wonder what he *is* qualified to make a decision about.
Posted by: PD | August 17, 2009 at 01:22 AM