Caught Red Handed. Sen. Grassley Voted for "Death Panels" in 2003
Oh those lying liars and the lies they tell.
According to Amy Sullivan at Time many of the very same death panel liars voted in favor of end-of-life counseling in 2003.
You would think that if Republicans wanted to totally mischaracterize a health care provision and demagogue it like nobody's business, they would at least pick something that the vast majority of them hadn't already voted for just a few years earlier. Because that's not just shameless, it's stupid.
Yes, that's right. Remember the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, the one that passed with the votes of 204 GOP House members and 42 GOP Senators? Anyone want to guess what it provided funding for? Did you say counseling for end-of-life issues and care? Ding ding ding!!
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Senators Hutchison and Cornyn are among those who voted yea. This is what they voted for.
Coverage of certain physician's services for certain terminally ill individuals would be authorized. Persons entitled to these services would be individuals who have not elected the hospice benefit and have not previously received these physician's services.
Covered services would be those furnished by a physician who is the medical director or employee of a hospice program. Services would include evaluating the individual's need for pain and symptom management, counseling the individual with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the individual regarding advanced care planning.
Payment for such services would equal the amount established for similar services under the physician fee schedule, excluding the practice expense component. The provision would apply to consultation services provided by a hospice program on or after January 1, 2004.
So, end-of-life counseling in 2003 is now death panels? I swear, this happens all the time. Anytime a Republican rails against something, chances are they are or were for it, or they are going to do it. Where is Dr. Freud when we need him the most?
To see who the death panel liars and hypocrites are nearest you, click here.
In a front page story today, the New York Times gives an in-depth overview of who is driving the false death panel rhetoric. Readers won't be surprised to learn that the usual suspects have been rounded up. In addition to new arrivals like Sarah Palin who, now that she quit her jobs as governor because she couldn't deal with any more ethics charges, has nothing else to do but lie and scare people 24/7. St. Sarah the Martyr of Wasilla, by the way, was for death panels before she was against them, too.
This group of death panel liars, by the way, is comprised of the very same folks who said President Obama is a Muslim and terrorist. They are the same people also known as right wing "birthers" and "deathers." And the very ones who show up at town hall meetings with guns, "Abort Obama" signs, posters of swastikas and photoshopped displays of the President with a Hitler moustache.
Advanced even this week by Republican stalwarts including the party's last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator, the nature of the assertion nonetheless seemed reminiscent of the modern-day viral Internet campaigns that dogged Mr. Obama last year, falsely calling him a Muslim and questioning his nationality.
So, who is fomenting the death panel rhetoric among the birthers, deathers and other right wing extremists? It won't surprise anyone to learn that these are the very same people who destroyed healthcare reform during Bill Clinton's administration. All have come crawling out of the woodwork like a bunch of crazed, stinging fire ants. They are back to defend and uphold the interests of the insurance and pharma industries.
Rather, it has a far more mainstream provenance, openly emanating months ago from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton's health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, New York's lieutenant governor).
Ms. McCaughey, whose 1994 critique of Mr. Clinton's plan was hotly disputed after its publication in The New Republic, weighed in around the same time.
She warned that a provision in the stimulus bill would create a bureaucracy to "monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost-effective," was carried in a commentary she wrote for Bloomberg News that gained resonance throughout the conservative media, most notably with Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck.
Speaking of Glenn Beck, many of his sponsors including Proctor and Gamble, Travelocity, Progressive Insurance and Conagra have pulled their ads from his show. Beck's hate talk and racism are way too over-the-top for them. That and shareholders have threatened to sell their stock and consumers will discontinue using their products if the firms continue to run ads there.
But I digress, the New York Times article on politicians who were for death panels before they were against them continues.
The notion was picked up by various conservative groups, but still, as Mr. Obama and Congress remained focused on other matters, it did not gain wide attention. Former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, an advocate for the health care proposals, said he was occasionally confronted with the "forced euthanasia" accusation at forums on the plans, but came to see it as an advantage. "Almost automatically you have most of the audience on your side," Mr. Daschle said. "Any rational normal person isn't going to believe that assertion."
Yes, but seemingly rational and normal people are fanning the death panel flames that are stirring up the abnormal and irrational, some of whom carry guns. The normal and rational know what they are doing.
And we know they know it.
To David Brock, a former conservative journalist who once impugned the Clintons but now runs a group that monitors and defends against attacks on liberals, the uproar is a reminder of what has changed - the creation of groups like his - and what has not.
"In the 90s, every misrepresentation under the sun was made about the Clinton plan and there was no real capacity to push back," he said. "Now, there is that capacity."
You betcha there is, dude. There are now progressive radio and TV talk show hosts like MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz. There are also newspapers like the New York Times, McClatchy and Chicago Tribune who are not afraid of reporting the truth. And then there is the internets and tubes where bloggers like me are committed to keeping lying politicians accountable.
Rachel Maddow has done an outstanding job in reporting on those who are fighting healthcare reform with every piece of ammunition they have at their disposal.
One of Maddow's outed HCR destroyers, poor ol' Dick Armey could not take the heat and so he picked up his ball and went crying home to his mamma.
Armey is leaving his law firm to spend more time at FreedomWorks.
Armey told POLITICO he intends to counter misinformation about FreedomWorks' role in the health care protests and said there have been no disruptions of any town hall meetings where his group has helped organize participants.
"That's simply not true. We have always emphasized making a civil presentation. There's been nobody at a town hall meeting who has been bused in, at least not by FreedomWorks."
Rather, he said, opposition over the prospect of government-run health care is organic.
"I've rarely seen this much anger and frustration at town hall meetings. We're going to continue to raise questions about what is appropriate to public policy when liberties are threatened."
If Armey is leaving his day job to undo "misinformation" about FreedomWorks it means its sole intention is misinformation. Armey will be at it 24/7.
