You know the opponents of health-care reform -- which obviously includes nearly every talking head who appears on Fox News -- are getting desperate when they start trying to scare elderly people by suggesting that President Obama's health-care plans will mean euthanization for old folks when they get hurt.
That's what the crew at Fox & Friends this morning did, led by "Fox News legal analyst" Peter Johnson Jr., and aided and abetted by Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson. First they played a snippet of Obama at a town-hall meeting on health care:
But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know, and your mom know, that you know what, maybe this isn't going to help, maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.
This became the launching pad:
Kilmeade: Dying?!! Sucking it up?!! And not having surgery?
Johnson: Too sick, too expensive.
Kilmeade: Well, that's what this whole trend is!
Johnson: Absolutely. And some people are saying, 'Well, this isn't health care reform,' and other people are saying -- maybe me -- that this is a subtle form of euthanasia. And when you start looking at the proposals, you say, 'God, what's happening?'
Of course, all they had to do was watch the entire set of remarks on this by Obama in their context to realize what's happening: that effective reform means cutting the waste created by a medical establishment that thrives on unnecessary procedures -- he wasn't suggesting that people be denied life-saving operations.
Obama made this clear up front:
Well, first of all, Doctor, I think it's a terrific question, and it's something that touches us all personally, especially when you start talking about end-of-life care. Some of you know my grandmother recently passed away, which was a very painful thing for me. She's somebody who helped raise me. But she's somebody who contracted what was diagnosed as terminal cancer; there was unanimity about that. They expected that she'd have six to nine months to life. She fell and broke her hip. And then the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough that they weren't sure how long she would last, whether she could get through the surgery.
I think families all across America are going through decisions like that all the time. And you're absolutely right that if it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.
But here's the problem that we have in our current health care system, is that there is a whole bunch of care that's being provided that every study, every bit of evidence that we have, indicates may not be making us healthier.
What's happening? Right-wingers are getting desperate and throwing up anything to see if it sticks. Now Obama wants to kill old people. Oy.
a pox on you all.
are astounding.
if you put a plastic bag over all of
these miscreant's heads at fake news,
they would still find some way to broadcast
their bs.
ruppert would come and punch some holes
in the bag so they could continue their
nonstop lies.
i cant tell the difference between fox news and the onion news network...such a joke.
If it's silly and it gives you nausea, it's Fux. If it's silly and it makes you laugh (or believe it) it's The Onion.
If it's silly and it gives you nausea, it's Fux. If it's silly and it makes you laugh (or believe it) it's The Onion.
All I can say is, "damn these Faux News people."
no suprise here with the likes of the warm&cuddly fox and friends. pick out some key buzz words for the faithful and add some fearmongering and serve to get people to vote against their best interest(s). this healthcare cost crisis has potential to become more systemic. the current healthcare cost will double again in less than 10 years. instead news/entertainment for this demographic will continue to be fed that health care will be rationed(like it already is) if the government is involved. ask the senior demographic if they would rather take the money they paid into medicare or receive the benefit of medicare? they will pick the social program medicare more often than not. this is a FIGHT first ask questions later mentality.
Doctors already try to avoid surgery on the elderly unless it's absolutely necessary. Anesthesia is the most dangerous part. I work for an orthopedist. Surgery can often make a benign condition worse, especially if medication can control the symptoms.
. . after all was said and done that's the bottom line.
New Yorks "great health care system"
I know how you feel, and I know you know, you are not alone in this scenario. Still, please accept my heartfelt sympathy, no matter when your Dad passed.
As for these whores, sooner or later their going to have a mental back wash, and all they've said and done is going to overflow to their conscience...at the least the ones who have any conscience left.
I liked the Pox and the plastic bag comments above best.
Power to the Peaceful.......
And what we've got now is what? Procedures denied. Payments denied. Patients dropped. Treatments not covered. $20,000 deductibles.
Gimme a break! Many deaths among non-seniors as well as seniors are directly attributible to insurance company policies and greed.
Some people say that FOX blows.
And when it comes to their right wing masters, FuxNews talking heads also swallow and cradle the b*lls.
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
have no merits to talk about, so fear is all they've got.
What a surprise
And their audience believes this stuff.
Which goes to show you America has a bigger Mental Health Care problem than ordinary Health Care.
a not-so-subtle form of the murder of critical thinking. And Gretchen Whosis is as dumb as a sack of hammers. Her stupidity is stunning in its total perfection. A role model for Sheer Stupidity and Idiocy.
me-oww!
sharp as a bowling ball.
As smart as a box of hair.
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
George W Bush.
Only if you put a wig on 'em.
Is a trust fund baby, her Daddy was a savings stamp magnate that we used to get in the grocery stores back in the 50s & 60s and you could turn them in
for trinkets and junk
You mean S&H green stamps??? I remember my parents used to have stacks of those booklets - I swiped some once and mailed them away for a shitty little magic set... oh, and Gretchen is a filthy corporate whore.
Yep, and she's a former Miss America....I think she is ugly, inside and out.
She often seems quite angry. I wonder if Rush Limpballs thinks she is an "angry white woman" as he thinks Michelle Obama is an "angry black woman?"
You said Rush Limpballs and "thinks" in the same sentence!
Yeah, I guess you're right....a "thinking Limpballs" is an oxymoron, to be sure!
Heh, heh, heh!
can't afford letting people know the truth. If people actually knew what Obama intends, they wouldn't oppose it.
youth in Asia, but they should get their own damn health care...
Totally nice play on words. You made me laugh out loud.
Dear Dave,
I have no confidence in this healthcare plan myself and I am no right winger, or, fan of FOX "News."
No public option and no single payer in this "healthcare bill," and yes that could indeed lead to some forms of rationing, as well as tampering, or severely altering Medicaid for poor people and the disabled as well as Medicare. Disabled Americans should be very, very concerned with what these proposals look like....
The Congress should be fixing the present problems and lack of funding in Medicaid and Medicare rather than complete overhaul and "reform" of the entire healthcare system. They could also be looking to add more dollars so people could get healthcare services at teaching hospitals as well.
Thus, I must end by saying that one has the right to be scared with this "healthcare bill" and that it's a legtimate concern to ask if the remedy being offered now in Congress is worse than the present situation....
Rationing is going to come up sooner or later. It doesn't matter whether we keep the current system or not. Health dollars currently take 1 in 6 dollars. By the end of 2010, or into 2011, it's going to be 1 in 5 dollars. If the trend continues, it's going to be 1 in 4, and on and on.
We're not going to reach euthanasia. But, the issue of whether we should be spending 10s of thousands to extend the lives of already diagnosed terminally ill people by a couple of weeks is going to come up.
And make no mistake. We have rationing now. If you have no insurance, then, in some states, that means no treatment. 60 minutes had that episode on a few months ago, with cancer patients getting no chemotherapy, due to no insurance and no medicaid funding. I think the state in the clip was Nevada.
It was right after my uninsured sister passed away.
Well, the situation should be a national embarrassment and disgrace. Instead, I hear some GOP senators touting the current approach as "best medical system in the world".
Only after selling her home and moving in with my brother.
Most of her bills had to be paid out of pocket.
It's sickening.
regarding freedom, education or health coverage, it usually results in laughter and ridicule...
Yes we are seeing rationing now. I was told by two different Orthopedic surgeons that were I a little old (I am 50) and less symptomatic (I was able to lift my arm 30 degrees) they would not have operated on my shoulder last year. I was left with a largely immoble Right Arm after a bicycle accident caused me to completely sever my Rotator Cuff.
Now let's be a little logical. Who has teh better chance of rationing care someone beholden to a Wall Street profit motive or some Civil Servant who's boss has to listen to Senator Whosewhatzit when he short changes people in the Senator's state.
You know this will happen starting in Red States once the bill is signed.
"We're not going to reach euthanasia. But, the issue of whether we should be spending 10s of thousands to extend the lives of already diagnosed terminally ill people by a couple of weeks is going to come up. "
The issue of euthanasia is a red herring to this particular discussion. The important issue for today is that THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THIS BILL (HR 3200) ABOUT EUTHANASIA, and this is a ridiculous scare tactic that cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged.
If we stuck to the facts at the beginning of this health debate, we would see that if we copied a system from one of the other industrial countries, we would save around $600B. We wouldn't be talking about how we need to PAY more for health care, we would be talking about the money we would SAVE through health reform. This would of course come out of corporate profits.
So, Fox is over the top, but no one in the corporate media is really talking about the money, because the number one objective from the start is to protect corporate profits. There's been no comparison between our system and, say, Japan's. I hope we can help out the uninsured, but the whole reform debate has been a bit of a farce to me, because it doesn't look like we're going to save a dime.
I know it seems impossible but the impossible has happened. If this was my blog I would break the video down by lie. That would take way to long. They started off with a lie. "News"? Opinion. You know the old saying. Opinions are like assholes, Brian Kilmeade is an asshole.
is intended to be a factual statement
It's not Fox News, it's Fox Agenda. They try to fit everything around the agenda, which is essentially to be an infomercial for the GOP.
No doubt about that. Almost every show I have ever seen on Faux Opinion is just that....an opinion. Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly host the so-called "America's Newsroom" in the morning, purportedly a "news" show. However, almost every time I have seen them (which isn't too often), they invariably offer their own opinion about stories.
Oh, yes....and Brian Kilmeade is an asshole, and that other guy....he's a dimwit.
If he were a rational being, even if not quite human, he'd have learned from the reaction to his comments about Swedes and Finns having "pure genes" and Americans marrying "other species".
Thinking what this Faux 'News' service has done for/to that industry and journalism in particular.
(euthanasia by bludgeoning)
Fret little.
Less than 70% of their viewers know what "euthanasia" is.
They just know if it's on their news channel, it can't be good.
gawd, my head hurts.
I personally know two elderly ladies (86 and 89 years old) who recently had successful surgeries (tracheal stenosis and hernia repairs). They are doing great!
The Fox crowd are neo con fear mongers, just like Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and all that crowd. Their active support enabled George W. Bush to launch disastrous wars based on lies and misinformation. Rupert Murdoch is a racist and a bigot, he is a right wing nut with an agenda. Why he is allowed to control, Fox and Wall Street Journal at the same time is beyond comprehension.
Good or bad, Obama will be blamed for whatever mess of crap Congress slaps together and calls reform. This is NOT Obama's healthcare reform unless he says, this is what I had in mind. This is Congress playin' around with their health industry pals. If this bill is a piece of crap, and Obama signs it into law, then people in the media can spew at him. This isn't his.
I didn't watch the clip, I don't watch anything fox.
Fox is an embarasment to America just like the republican party is an embarasment!
republicanism is a mental illness!
the rationing of care will be THE #1 talking point issue to keep the public from leaning into reform.
bottom line: 1% of the population uses 30% of the health-care dollars.
5% of the population uses 50% of the $$$.
spending $50k - $100k+ on elderly and chronically ill patients for one drug cycle or a surgery is not sustainable.
in the event of a pandemic, every metropolitan has a plan in place to save the citizens that can be saved. infants, the elderly and the chronically ill will not get access to the ventilators and the meds required to save their lives.
this is a tough question, but it has got to be asked:
what is the difference between rationing during a short-term crisis (flu pandemic) and the current long-term crisis of diminishing resources of dollars vs. chronically ill patients that won't live more than another year?
???
"the rationing of care will be THE #1 talking point issue to keep the public from leaning into reform."
Not from what I've been seeing around the interwebs lately. They hammered on the "Canadian healthcare is bad, and Obama wants to turn the U.S. into Canada" false syllogism for about two months, and everybody is getting tired of it. Especially since it caused a few people (even some in the media) to go out and LOOK at the Canadian healthcare system, and see that it's actually pretty good.
That dog doesn't hunt anymore, and in the last week or so they've switched to the EUTHANASIA lie. "VOTE AGAINST HR 3200 OR OBAMA WILL SHOOT YOUR GRANDMOTHER." This has become the new number one talking point.
As for the provisions of the bill, there is nothing in HR 3200 about euthanasia. What section 1233 details is Medicare paying for an INFORMATION CONSULTATION between beneficiaries and their doctors every five years to inform them about what services are availabe to people in their situation. Including information about living wills and a power of attorney for people to make your decisions IF (and ONLY if) you become incapacitated and unable to express your own wishes. This makes perfect sense since, while some people may want to be kept alive indefinitely on a respirator even though they're brain dead, others may not want that. Living wills and power of attorney are simply designed to clear up ambiguity.
As for the fact that the bulk of healthcare dollars are spent on the elderly, and not on the young, I don't have any problem with that. It's to be expected. You don't see the elderly getting all bent out of shape over the fact that the bulk of EDUCATION dollars are spent on the YOUNG, even though they continue to pay for it with their tax dollars.
There's a lot of corruption on BOTH sides and many people are waking up to this silly , Left V Right distraction, while they worship the Democrat Party , leaving the coverage of Cynthia McKinney's Abduction to Libertarians, who seem to be the only voices defending Israel's crimes , in addition to Settlements .
Obama is allowing Colombian Troops into Afghanistan, continuing another BUSH program , increasing the violence there , allowing more to be slaughtered like sheep , and you people are so concerned with what some idiot Republican has to say , how pathetic .
This is also going around as a email. I was sent it over the weekend and I did sone research (including reading the bill - novel idea) and found that this is complete BS. The following is what I wrote
You do realize that the lady speaking in the YouTube on this subject has been cited as lying about the Stimulus Bill on factcheck.org. In particular she complained about a section of the stimulus for funding electronic health technologies that is based on efforts by Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich to press for the increased use of electronic records. She made hyperbolic assertions that were not scenario based and are supportable based on the text of the bill.
I think this is a case of massively exaggerating a relatively minor clarification based on some hypothetical scenarios that are not supported in the bill. The section this issue refers to only applies to paying for setting up advanced care directives for Medicare patients. It allows Medicare patients to get the same counseling Gary gave you guys about Advanced Care Directives so we don't have to fight/fret about how extreme the efforts to keep you alive once you can no longer speak for yourself should be.
I know it's tough to follow (it took a good bit of work on my part and I occasionally track this kinda stuff) but what she apparently is claiming as a eugenics program is in fact clarifications and payment for counseling from a Nurse Practioner or other suitable professional over the establishment and maintenance of Advance Care Directives including Living Wills and other such FOR MEDICARE PATIENTS.
This area that they claim leads to the forced death of the elderly is a change to existing language in the Social Security Act that included 2 short paragraphs about Advanced Care Directives. The concept of advising people to establish Advanced Care exists in the SS Act and all this appears to do is clarify the issue.
To See the Section See the attached.
Since the summary of the bill points out that age related increases in insurance costs are limited to 2:1 for life and that there are no annual or lifetime limits on expenditures, the argument that this bill is intended to limit care to elderly is completely and utterly false.
Unless we suddenly think that forceing relatives to decide your fate in a medical emergency without any idea of your wishes, is a nice trick to play on your family I think you'll agree Advanced Care Directives like not Age based Eugenics.
Just to be completely fair her is a link to the entire bill.
I know that some people have Billions of Dollars in profits at stake in this discussion but all the status quo is doing is making it harder for average Americans to make ends meet. I found a chart showing that since 1999 Employer covered Health Care expenses have risen 6 times as much as average wages have.
You beat me to it. I too was going to post the link to the bill and section 1233 just so everybody could read it. It's only 1500 words, and takes no time at all to read.
We've really got to get out ahead of this ridiculous talking point, because it's the worst example of demagoguery I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen some really dirty political tricks.
Since you've already posted the link to HR 3200 and Section 1233, all I can do is post the link to the Ways and Means Committee summary of the bill, which lists (in a nutshell) what each section is about.
Their premise is more applicable today with so many uninsured and under-insured and they are ignorantly attempting to keep it that way, due to an idiotic ideology.
It stops waste... not care. Unless there is a bill attached that makes it illegal to obtain care, they're just a bunch of delusional ignoramuses' kooks. √
Choice is good... it's nice to have options. I'm sure the Pope would've attested to that fact.
"Was John Paul II Euthanized?"
[ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599... ]
Study the symptoms not the virus...
Why isn't Kilmeade wearing a skirt? He doesn't have any balls.
Ooooooooops!! That logic would also have Hannity, Rush and O'Reilly in skirts. I don't think I could handle that.
*
Watching Fox is a subtle form of euthanasia.
I want Dick Cheney's socialized heath care.
What a bunch of blathering shilling idiots.
I'll bet somebody paid for that bobble headed bleached blonde bimbo's plastic titties and my guess is it was FOX.
Does the GOP feel that vets should buy their own health insurance?
You really don't want to know the answer to that.
With this bill it's not the elderly that should be worried about getting euthanized, it's the un/derinsured that are still going to be left holding the bag.
Every time these clowns say the word “government” change it to “the insurance industry” and you then have what has been going on since Nixon said, “every body should have health care insurance”. Who do you think has more motive to cheat the public?
Terrorists love socialized medicine.
And it's worse than previously thought. Obama...is Canadian. And he wants to give YOUR guns to gay couples as wedding presents. And the "gayla" receptions....yeah, they will be paid exclusively by white men.
Horrors upon horrors layered upon more horrors.
I don't watch fox (not even the clips), immediately after they report the world is about to end, do they lead into a commercial in a really chipper tone? If so, I'd question the validity of the report. That's just me. I'm weird like that.
Watching this debate from afar (very afar I am in New Zealand) I cant help wanting to shout out to all my US friend WAKE THE F&^* UP! Even in a small country like NZ we are able to provide a level of basic medical care (along side private insurance for those who want it) that provides decent treatment no matter what your condition. I am a diabetic and I just totalled up the cost of my care to me $120.00NZD PER YEAR! that includes strips, insulin, needles/syringes and blood glucose tester. I just picked up 3 months insulin supply, my co-pay amount with the government $11.00NZD.
Yes as a high income earner I pay a little extra to visit my GP (doctor) about 50 dollars a time but I am ok with that as I go only twice a year.
My father dying from bone cancer and with breathing difficulties isn't paying a cent for drugs, breathing machine, hospital visits etc.
I guess the biggest difference is the worry, I don't have to. Even when I earn a six figure income I know my taxes (about 33-35 cents on the dollar) mean the government has me covered no matter what happens no matter the type, level and length of treatment I need. Ours is not the Rolls Royce of health care system's in NZ but it is efficient, cost effective and free to those who need it. Yes we have waiting lists for elective surgery, but in nearly all cases if you need it you get it and quickly
WAKE UP OVER THERE YOU ARE BEING FED A LINE BY FOX AND THE GOP AND THE INSURANCE COMPANIES. socialised medicine is not bad medicine.
Media whores, every single damn one of them.
these idiots don't what they are talking about.
Considering all those evil states with universal health care like Australia, Canada, UK and France have a higher average life expectancies...
(sorry, can't seem to get the link working)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countrie...
How can the Fox & Friend's claim possibly be true if all those countries with single payer or national health systems have HIGHER life expectancies. The claim is simply untrue.
Those countries also have infinitely better health outcomes overall - better survival rates of heart disease, cancer, etc. So the "rationing" argument falls flat. Every time these morons say that health care reform with a public option will result in more deaths I know for a fact that who ever said it is regurgitating b.s. in order to score a political win.
in Australia, my retired father also has his life expectancy revisited periodically. This is both from the retirement fund management (adjust payments to basically have a zero balance when he dies) and health insurance. It isn't being cruel, it is being informative.
These Faux people are children.
... and went over to Yahoo to find the link.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_go_...
"These officials said participants were on track to exclude a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite President Barack Obama's support for such a plan."
"Individuals would have a mandate to buy affordable insurance."
I heard Obama will be deploying euthanasia squads specifically targeting white elderly conservative baby jesus lovers. After he raises their taxes and converts them to Islam. You didnt hear that from me though you betcha.
I tried to watch it all, but I got a tick in my brain.
Watching Faux is an unsubtle form of mental euthanasia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcm-J7lQT3w
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I thought that is what the insurance companies wanted. Don't they want to get rid of the sick, old and poor?
Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare also takes the disabled, after a waiting period of a year, I think.
.
I had assumed it was one year.
Why don't these assholes ever talk about the thousands of children across this nation that are insurance industry euthanasia's?
Half the restaurants and stores around us are always doing fudraisers for some poor kid with cancer. Man I hate these fuckers!
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
The assholes and assets never mention the 18000 a year that die in US from a lack of access to health care.
I'm so pissed at these democrats that do nothing but sabotage everything Obama is trying to do. We need to make it a mission to get them thrown out of office when they're up for re-election.
Well, of course F*cks News is frightening the elderly with lies about Obama's healthcare reform.
They're playing to the only audience they have left.
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
Only complete uneducated, ignorant fools, watch and believe these bedwetting morons on Faux Noise and lies.
Turn this meme on its head and you get closer to the truth... the immorality of America's health insurance industry leads to a form of euthanasia more commonly recognized as murder.
Republicans are not mature enough to talk about real health care reform and the serious questions of waste and actual aid. This whole time we're discussing what can remain and what we should take off the table in regards to health care reform. I think we should take Republicans off the table. In fact, keep them as far away from the table so they don't taint actual reform like they did to welfare reform in the 90s. CMON Dems!!
"...that effective reform means cutting the waste created by a medical establishment that thrives on unnecessary procedures..."
You're right about the excess of unnecessary procedures, so why not address tort reform? Obama has completely taken it off the table, when any doctor will tell you it is a major problem. I guess thats what happens when your president is a lawyer and so are a lot of our other representatives.
Tort Reformed is a joke
When our uncle (84) went into a nursing home (medicare) the first thing they asked him was if he wanted a heart transplant. He said yes because he liked to rip off they system. He hated the nursing home. He died three days after going there.
If you euthanize me I don't have to be unemployed two years and I will watch my whole life wasting away. Best of all I will not be in the same world with the Reagans, the Bushs, the Palins, and their ilk.
I bet it smells really bad in that studio... like rotting flesh and sulfur.
Never mind the fact that the elderly are covered by socialized medicine ALREADY! The Health Care debate is not about the elderly.
Fox is all about fear. The "people" on that network are all fearmongering, right-wing paranoid, anti-science hysterics. Kilmeade is so stupid he thinks that there are different species of human. Good to know that intelligent, informed people like him are spewing information to the unthinking illiterate masses that love Fox News.
"And then the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough that they weren't sure how long she would last, whether she could get through the surgery."
Oddly enough, we had exactly this circumstance. My mom decided after her cancer relapsed for the 3rd time that fighting it wasn't going to work and went into hospice care. Some months before her death she fell and broke her hip. Turns out that hip replacement is often quite straightforward, the recovery is remarkably fast, and having a broken hip is an excruciatingly painful thing to endure even if you're dying of cancer. Having the surgery made her final weeks a lot more bearable than they'd have been otherwise, not but what there was plenty of pain and distress at the end. Lung cancer's not a fun way to go.
In other words--and I say this as a major proponent of health care reform who wishes single-Payer was on the table--if this is the best example of wasteful or "unnecessary" medicine that he can come up with I'm in profound and rather angry disagreement with it.
Faux News is the most biased excuse for a news network, i am not American so i have no bias to either party but these cats on Fox news apart from being offbalanced, you can hear the hatred coming out in their intonations...but it also says something about Americans if they really believe the garbage that comes from there. it is so plain to see, i really dont think people could be so gullible!
They are even more biased than some in the GOP, even though they are advocating their party lines. I think they must get some performance based pay or even big Bonus payouts based on the level of crap they put out and their daily performance on their shows. I think two of the worst ones for me are that jerk Hannity and that Wacko Glenn Beck
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