Posted on 12/23/2009 8:08:19 AM PST by 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Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can’t be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote.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?
Darn it, there Sarah goes again, using words Olbermouth is going to have to look up.
I worry for her safety. She stands effectively alone while the bulk of GOP filler material shuffles around trying to hide behind one another.
Hardly. DeMint has been fighting like a junkyard dog as well. But Kudos to Palin. A very fine slap at the socialist dirtbags.
It's not dubious at all. They can't. SCOTUS has spoken on this issue. What can be done by one Congress can be undone by any future Congress.
Sarah towers above the midgets in the worthless GOP.
The stimulus bill, HR 1, already law, provides funding for the Comparative Effectiveness Research program in Title VIII, but it has not been authorized. In other words, there is a plan here: we will fund it, and worry about authorizing the spending later.
The House bill, HR 3200, authorizes the Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission and describes at great length in Title IV. The stimulus bill is an appropriations bill, HR 3200 is an authorization bill. In order for it to have the weight of law, it has to be both authorized and funded by both the House and Senate. In the vast majority of cases, the authorization occurs and then a measure is funded. In this instance, our Overlords have reversed that sequence.
The "Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission" will determine what medicine and treatments are effective enough to be worth their expense, and, therefore, which the government will allow patients to receive and will allow to be paid for by "private" insurance. These determinations are to be based on the treatment or prescription being economically "effective," depending on whether the patient (or a category of patients) is deemed worth the expense because of age, potential productivity, health, and other factors. It mandates the creation of a commission like the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, which assigns a value to a year of life based on age, existing conditions, etc. If a procedure or treatment exceeds that value, you don't get the medicine, treatment or procedure.
Under this system, you won't even get a personal visit to the "death panel." The commission will determine what treatment you may receive without ever looking at your individual case. Instead, you will be assigned to a cohort or a category, and the applicable limits -- rationing -- applied to your care. In the Senate bill, the same death panel concept is located and spelled out in section 3403, from pages 1,000 to 1,0007, of the Reid substitute. There is established an independent board to be known as the ‘Independent Medicare Advisory Board:
"PURPOSE.—It is the purpose of this section to, in accordance with the following provisions of this section, reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending. by requiring the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to determine in each year to which this section applies the projected per capita growth rate under Medicare for the second year following the determination year. If the projection for the implementation year exceeds the target growth rate for that year, by requiring the Board to develop and submit during the first year following the determination year this a proposal containing recommendations to reduce the Medicare per capita growth rate to the extent required by this section by requiring the Secretary to implement such proposals unless Congress enacts legislation pursuant to this section."
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.
..”blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.” Psalm 144:15 :)
This is going to kill research.
If that is the case, this provision is even better for the conservatives. The fact that the Dems tried to protect their “death panel” with unconstitutional provisions will make great campaign ad fodder. And every Dem is the 60th vote that put this in place.
If the political bloodbath is sufficient, the Dems will join the GOP in repealing this mess with a veto proof majority. The Dems who are not up for reelection in 2010 will know that this will continue to be an issue in every election until it is repealed.
Just wait until mid 2010 when the polls show how bad it is going to be and no one wants to donate money to a Dem candidate because it would be a waste.
That will teach Palin refer to the end-of-life panel and the council on medical effectiveness as “death panels”.
How anti-Orwellian! Sarah is so stupid that she doesn’t understand Newspeak. I’ll bet she doesn’t love Big Brother.
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.
If the entire bill is deemed unconstitutional, which it is, then the bill is null and void and nothing in it is lawful.
Where’s 0bama’s Birth Certificate and College Transcripts?
With a simple majority, any future congress can re-write the clause eliminating the limiting text.
Reid knows that. He’s just being a bully.
Let's say you were contemplating investing millions of $$ into medical research. Would you be more inclined or less inclined to do so when facing the prospect that the final success or failure of your product would be determined by politics and some faceless board who decides what treatment is cost effective and therefor best for society. Would you be more inclined or less inclined if the ultimate success or failure of the product was determined by the free market and the merits of the product itself?
You are right, and I do. But you know how the struggle goes back and forth.
Thank you for the reminder though. It was welcome.
Rarely is it ever possible to have a complex legislative grab bag like this ruled unconstitutional overall. Instead a provision or two is ruled in violation. Tyranical majorities know how to draft language to protect the overall legislation. They include language adding severability. This makes a provision in the law stating that if any clause or clauses are found to be unconstitutional the rest of the legislation shall remain severable and not dependent on the offending clause or provision to stay in effect.
This clause is meant to protect the legislative agenda against the judicial branch check and balance run amok. It is in this bill I”ll bet a million.
I agree. But you can count them on one hand just about.
They forced Joe Wilson to apologize for speaking truth.
There may be more good ones, but Steele and McCain and Graham keep hogging the spotlight it seems.
Nevertheless, these curs are the pack we have to hunt with in the immediate future, and we have to make the best of it.
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