Sarah Palin Responds to Winning 'Lie of the Year'

Newsbusters ^

[Sub-Driver]

Sarah Palin Responds to Winning 'Lie of the Year' By Noel Sheppard Created 2009-12-23 10:40

Sarah Palin has responded to claims that her "death panel" comment concerning healthcare reform legislation is the "Lie of the Year."

As NewsBusters previously reported [0], the Palin-hating press have been having a field day since she won this dubious honor from the website PolitiFact last week.

On Tuesday, the former Alaska Governor responded [1] at her Facebook page, and did so with skill and aplomb (emphasis hers):

Last weekend while you were preparing for the holidays with your family, Harry Reid’s Senate was making shady backroom deals to ram through the Democrat health care take-over. The Senate ended debate on this bill without even reading it. That and midnight weekend votes seem to be standard operating procedures in D.C. No one is certain of what’s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation [2] regarding the section in the bill describing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (now called the Independent Payment Advisory Board), which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs on the backs of patients – also known as rationing. Apparently Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can’t be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote. Senator DeMint said:

“This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses.”

In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing “death panel” from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they’re so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to “bend the cost curve” and keep health care spending down?

The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that such rationing has something to do with cost. In a letter to Harry Reid last week [3], CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill’s calculations call for a reduction in Medicare’s spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker [4]:

“It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”

Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call “death panels” the “lie of the year,” this type of rationing – what the CBO calls “reduc[ed] access to care” and “diminish[ed] quality of care” – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor.

The clock is now ticking as we await the inevitably dishonest fact-checking of Palin's response.

Isn't the tension delicious?

[La Lydia]

Of course you are right, looking at the big picture, although I'm not selling off my holdings in Pfizer just yet, because I understand the drug companies have covered their own butts. And nice try at derailing my comment, by the way, although I can't imagine why you would want to do that.

I was discussing and identifying, not medical research, but the DEATH PANELS, by title, in the bills. I understand some people have a hard time focusing and staying focused, but try anyway. These provisions are not targeted at medical research specifically, or in any way. The "research" as it appears in the title is "research" by sociologists and bean-counters to determine if a particular treatment, say, insulin for diabetics, is worth paying for depending on the age, health, etc. of a patient or group of patients.

[Psalm 144]

I wish you are wrong, but you are absolutely corrrect.

The task before is nothing short of electoral revolution, and to force the governemnt to live small. Basically, to repeal every federal gain in the last 100 years.

I am confident though. If we can’t do it, bankruptcy will.

Just ask the Soviets.

[piytar]

True, but new medical treatments are almost always expensive, in Newspeak “doubleplus unhealthful due to cost.” So who is going to research treatments that a government “health panel” (more Newspeak) will stop from ever reaching the market?

[SCalGal]

I wasn’t trying to derail your comment; there is no reason to get snarky about it.

[Pegita]

I’ve printed out Isaiah 54:17 in large letters, Psalm ... and to counter my weak moments, I either read it or turn it face up so God can see :) The Promise is that His Word will not return void but will accomplish all that He sends it out to do. Long after our words are forgotten, His Word stands, Amen?

no weapon forged against you will prevail,
and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.
This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,
and this is their vindication from me,”
declares the LORD.

[Psalm 144]

Amen and amen, Pegita.

Thank you.

[cornelis]

Thanks to DeMint. Watch and learn.

[SCalGal]

It doesn’t have anything to do with medical research. It deals with treatments, and whether particular treatments and medicines (that have already been through the research and testing process) will be paid for.

On the face of it, you're right. But if you go a bit further:

But medical research is very expensive. When care is going to be rationed - and we agree that it is, per the "death panels" - why would anyone want to pay for research that is likely not to be used? New treatments, experimental treatments are expensive and their results aren't documented. The "death panels" want to use only treatments with documented results, and only the less costly of them.

[MrB]

Bottom line -

there will be a committee that will determine who gets healthcare and who does not.

If you need that healthcare to live and the committee decides that you don’t merit it,

then you die by the decision of the committee.

How is that NOT a “death panel”?

[roses of sharon]

http://www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/ManagersAmend.html

Each year, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must implement the Board’s directives unless Congress, within a given deadline, legislates an alternative set of restrictions to accomplish the same result. However, Congress could not reduce the net of the targeted cuts unless three-fifths of both chambers voted to do so. The bill goes so far as to forbid a future Congress from repealing these provisions, except for a one-time opportunity in 2017! Section 3403, adding Social Security Act Section 1899A(d)(3)( C), p. 1020.

[La Lydia]

And what does that have to do with Sarah Palin lying? Focus, focus, focus.

[itsahoot]

It is highly dubious that a current congress can pass a law that restricts the powers of any future congress, as it concerns the passing of or revocation of any law.

It is not highly dubious, they can pass anything they want, and there is nothing dubious about the Constitutionality of the aforementioned. It is unconstitutional period.

Why do we have all these pantywaist Republicans saying it "Might" be unconstitutional? I have contended for years, the the Republican Elite have hid their true agenda behind court decisions, over which they had authority to force changes.

All the current griping is just a diversion, remember the fence? Yes GW promised to build it, to shut us up, then promptly had fellow traitor Hutchinson effectively kill it, and Big Hair did nothing either.

We now have an Imperial Presidency, and "Moderate Republicans" have had their hands in this, up to their elbows.

[SCalGal]

And what does that have to do with Sarah Palin lying?

What exactly is it you think she lied about? That they're going to have to ration care?

Or does it bother you that she called them "death panels" when the bill calls them something else?

[itsahoot]

Just wait until mid 2010 when the polls show how bad it is going to be

Don't gorget who will be counting the votes, as well as the population.

[tophat9000]

The real “Lie of the Year.” is that “death panel” is Lie of the Year ...death panels are about to be all to real

[La Lydia]

I did not know I needed to provide pictures and drawings. The POINT OF MY POST IS THAT SHE DID NOT LIE. The headline of this thread says she did. Are we looking at the same thread?

There are "death panels" in both versions of the bill. I have identified them, and where they appear in the bill, because I have an attention span that allows me to read lengthy amounts of written material without losing track of what its subject and purpose is.

It doesn't matter what label these panels go by in the language of the bill.

Those "death panels" will be used to deny treatment and medicine to certain people. They do not DIRECTLY affect medical research.

There. Is that clear enough for you now?

[nitzy]

Calm down Lydia. SCal read what you wrote and made a true statement regarding the consequences of the death panels. She didn't contradict you. She added to and amplified your statement. You derailed her comment not the other way around.

Which is the bigger travesty? The millions who will live a lower quality of life due to this bill OR the billions who will suffer and die over the next 100 years as the innovations that could have been made to save lives and promote health never materialize.

Your stance would be like a Russian arguing in 1917 that they thought the new system was unfair because those who are related to government officals get first dibs on the free government bread. SCal would also point out the long term negative consequences of the Bolsheviks handing out free government bread. Both arguments are valid and do not contradict each other.

[SCalGal]

So what's the problem? We agree that the death panels exist.

You don't like me pointing out other consequences of them?

[La Lydia]

And thank YOU for patronizing me.

[nitzy]

Your welcome.