Just when you think the Republicans and their love mates in big insurance and pharma have sunk to the lowest hole in a snake pit, they manage to creep into an even deeper one. Their latest stunt goes beyond the pale in much the same fashion as the GOP did in the Terri Schiavo case. But the Schiavo incident was child's play when compared to the cruel and sinister stuff Republicans and their love mates are up to today.
In a recent multi-million dollar PR campaign to kill off health care reform, insurance companies, special interest groups and Republicans are lying to and scaring the daylights out of senior citizens in the most appalling manner. The self-serving, unconscionable and greedy ghouls are telling older folks that health care reform will literally kill them. They will be euthanized, or they will be required to have five- year medical reviews that could result in death sentences.
I am not making this up or telling a really sick and inappropriate joke. This ruthless fear and smear campaign is happening while I type. And, as I mentioned in a diary posted below, Republicans in Congress are completely on board with this beyond the pale campaign of terror against senior citizens.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has revealed much about the despicable "deather" movement.
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A full report of Maddow's coverage with transcripts can be viewed here.
One of the deather's leaders is, as we learned, a blast from the past who led one of the charges that killed Clinton's attempts at health care reform.
In an editorial published in the Houston Chronicle, Froma Harrop discloses and debunks McCaughey's cruel lies.
Headlining the looney-tunes campaign is Betsy McCaughey, the Sarah Palin of health care. A Senate bill would "pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely," she wrote. Her contention, amazingly, has become a Republican talking point.
"Congress would make it mandatory, absolutely require, that every five years, people in Medicare would have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner," McCaughey said on Fred Thompson's talk radio show. If you were to fall ill during those five years, you would "have to go through that session again."
A pack of lies. The bill would have Medicare pay for counseling on end-of-life care with your doctor only if you wanted it. This is a new benefit. Should you wish that every last gadget and procedure in the arsenal be deployed, the counseling helps you make that preference clear to family and doctors.
McCaughey once served as a Republican Lt. Governor of New York. When the governor threw her off the re-election ballot, McCaughey switched parties and ran against him. She lost. According to Harrop, the self-serving McCaughey's misinformation campaigns are so distorted and cruel that AARP felt it had to publicly condemn her statements.
She now sits on the board of a medical devices company that feasts off Medicare.
The American Association of Retired Persons felt forced to jump into the fray and condemn McCaughey's misinformation campaign as "rife with gross - and even cruel - distortions."
The elder lobbying group has long pushed to have Medicare pay doctors for time spent talking to patients about "difficult end-of-life care decisions."
Why is it that Republicans always fall in love with a Betsy McCaughey and a Sarah Palin? I think we are quickly learning the answer to that question.
The real battle being fought here is between corporate interests and populist ones.
Republicans are obviously completely on board with the corporate interests. And they will stoop as low as they have to go to protect those interests. They will stop at nothing, absolutely nothing as we've witnessed by the deathers.
And they have solid allies in the media.
It is time for action folks. We have very, very hard work to do. Climb on board with boadicea and the ongoing efforts over at Fire Dog Lake.
We must put an end to the unspeakable campaign of terror targeted at our parents and grandparents.
