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Dan
Calabrese
Read Dan's bio and previous columns here
August 13, 2009
That
Crazy Sarah Palin and her 'Death Panels'! Wait. She's Right.
All the political world, along with the commentariat, is rushing to
distance itself from Sarah Palin’s recent Facebook note – the one in
 which she referred to “death panels” that would result from President
Obama’s health care plans.
The left can’t repeat the charge often enough, since it is widely
lambasted as ridiculous, and the latest evidence of how nutty Palin is.
Courageous Republicans like U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia denounce
the concern as “nuts,” – lest he or they be damned by association with
the half-cocked former Alaska governor. Alaska's own Republican senator,
Lisa Murkowski, pronounced herself oh so troubled by Palin's
statement.
Oh that crazy Sarah
Palin! Prattling on about “death panels”! There are no “death panels” in
the bill! What a silly person she is.
One problem. Palin is right.
Now, of course there are no “death panels in the bill”. Who would put
that in a bill? Palin never claimed there were. In her Facebook note,
Palin was expanding on a point made in a column by economist Thomas
Sowell, who pointed out that the only way the government can wring costs
out of health care is by refusing to pay them, and the only way you do
that is through denial of service.
Palin’s comment, therefore, consisted of a very reasonable extrapolation
of the methods the government might employ in order to bring about the
promised cost reductions.
You think it’s crazy to believe there would be government panels
imposing these decisions on individuals? In case you hadn’t noticed –
and you probably hadn’t – Palin backed up her comment a few days later
by posting a video from Obama’s recent free propaganda segment on ABC. A
woman asks if her 100-year-old mother, who had gotten a pacemaker at
that age, would be allowed to do so under Obama’s plan.
Obama hems and haws about the need to root out waste and inefficiencies,
then finally explains that maybe, in some situations, the government
would try to make an individual “understand” that pain medication would
be the better choice.
Now, I don’t care how much you dislike Sarah Palin. You’re not so dense
as to fail to understand this, are you? If you need a pacemaker, and
you’re told to take pain medication instead, what’s that? Apply whatever
politically correct moniker you want – “death with dignity,” a trip to
see Dr. Kevorkian . . . whatever. It’s still the government deciding
that you shouldn’t get what you need to live, because you’re probably
going to die soon anyway.
No
one will call this a “death panel,” of course. They’ll call it a
resource utilization review board or something like that. But if it’s
making decisions that some people shouldn’t get what they need to live,
the label is irrelevant.
Palin fired back again
this morning with
yet another detailed Facebook note about provisions in the bill that
any rational person can see will lead exactly where she suggests they
will lead.
None of this, by the way, should surprise anyone. The left is
reflexively hostile to sanctity-of-life arguments, if only because they
make it so difficult for them to defend their acceptance of abortion.
And the left has long disapproved of so-called “heroic” measures to save
people’s lives. As for the invoking of Trig Palin, the former governor’s
Down Syndrome-afflicted child, why would it surprise anyone that
left-wingers would be disinclined to pay for these children’s medical
care? Already, nine out of 10 couples who conceive Down Syndrome
children abort them. The attitude is already established that these
children are better shoved out of the way for the convenience of the
rest of us.
It
is only logical to believe that, if government controls health care,
government will make decisions that will deny certain people live-saving
care. Just because Palin used a term that is easy to lampoon doesn’t
mean she is wrong.
Besides, since when do we simply take on face value what the president or
members of Congress claim about their proposals? When liberals and
hysterical libertarians were shrieking about the Bush Administration
using the Patriot Act to spy on their reading lists, did media
“fact-checkers” admonish them with, “That’s not in the bill”?
Apparently it’s now beyond the pale to explore what might result from a
proposed piece of legislation. It’s irresponsible to discuss unintended
consequences. After all, you won’t find those “in the bill,” so it must
be impossible that they will actually happen.
There was a time when the news media would actually ask questions about
these things, rather than simply eating out of the president’s hand and
accepting that whatever he said. These days most reporters are glorified
propagandists for the president, and even many Republicans are afraid to
raise serious alarms for fear of being tarred a nut.
So
Sarah Palin does all their jobs for them. And you can lampoon her if you
want, but you do so at your peril. Because if you actually think for
yourself, even a little, you will realize that she’s right.
© 2009 North Star
Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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