Texas Republican Pete Olson's Health Care Propaganda Fail
Texas Republican Pete Olson probably figured he could get away with using a young child as a propaganda tool at a recent town hall meeting -- but he was in for a big surprise.
Republican Congressman Olson (R-TX) tells the townhall about a mother who was turned away by the free market doctors for her unborn child's heart defect. She was denied by the free market doctors but persisted and was able to find a specialized doctor and got a very delicate operation and a heart transplant 17 days after he was born. Olson then claims that the public option would have denied him the needed health care and he would have died! After being challenged he abruptly ended the discussion. Watch as he is challenged, and clueless as to what to say.
As Olson spews out his talking points, people in the crowd repeatedly point out to him that it wasn't the government who turned this poor child away, it was the insurance companies. Olson was absolutely gobsmacked when people started calling him out on his obvious gaffe as he stood there looking like a deer caught in the headlights. It’s so encouraging to see some town hall video from health care reform supporters giving these GOP shills a taste of their own medicine!
I am constantly amazed at how many morons have managed to con their way into elected offices. I am glad that this man was put on the spot by a keen attendee.
http://blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com
You have to consider that the TX 22nd District is the district that brought you Tom "the hammer" Delay, a pest control specialist. This district was a Dem district for 2 years until the Repubs recaptured it during the 2008 elections.
Delay was known as, "The Bug", besides a thief, liar and typical GOP cheat?
[GOP: The Party of "Snow", if you know what I mean, wink, wink.]
Did the Republicans 'recapture' this district, or did they ram through legislation to redistrict Texas so that they could add Republican positions to the ballot? Ask the forty democrats who fled to Oklahoma about Delay's role in that debacle.
Its their beloved private health insurance (for profit) corporations that deny and kill customers/patients. And guess who owns the stock in these for profit health insurance companies, could it be Republicans !?
get through the day, presumably have a well-paying job, feed yourself, clothe yourself, raise kids, drive a car, etc etc.
Seriously, someone explain to me how you can survive being this fucking dumb, because I sure can't understand it.
Sure they survive, but what a great life. Just be glad you weren't born with their genes and/or environment to make you like this. It's sad really. What I love is the anti-intellectual, anti-elitism-elitism that will say 'I'm just a lowly janitor and may not know a lot but...' then they'll go onto to argue with a nobel laureate. If you have struggled with everything remotely intellectual your whole life, please recognize that your opinion actually probably does count for less in a discussion.
Fricking nailed it.
If I want my toilet lines cleaned of accumulated shit, I'll call the guy who can crawl under my house and take care of it and GLADLY pay him for his expertise.
But please...just stay under the house when things that require complex thought come up.
I want the smart people working when intellect is necessary to get a job done.
Not everybody can fix plumbing. Not everybody can fix health care.
Time to get the Republicans a nice tool belt, a set of coveralls and a house to crawl under.
It's the American Way, damn it!
Yeah, why do repugs hate themselves? Kind of like yapping that a black guy born in Kenya whupped their best candidates last November, !!!
!SNICKER!
It'd be a smart idea since they'd never go looking for it on their own. You know, finally getting some kicks in for the side of public health care even if we have to do their jobs for them.
Maybe it's me, but it appeared like there may have been a few people (including the guy behind the camera) challenging Olson, but the rest were eagerly eating up the deather bullshit. Maybe I should watch the video again; I could be wrong. Still, good to see one of these freaks actually getting called out by SOMEBODY
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
That's exactly what I heard too, and I've watched it twice. Even with the film guy's voice being close enough to overwhelm anyone else's, the room still resounds with applause for the Repubs flourishes, and then "hush" and "be quiet" directed at the dissenter. Not to mention the guy who said "the government's setting up a board to deny her care." To my ear, it sounded like there were maybe three dissenters in the room. Wish I could be more encouraged, but I can't.
What I was encouraged about was that everyone against it was older and white. Not a single minority or young person to be seen. That seems to imply to me that the Republicans are screwed.
It seems the repugs propaganda didn't fail at all seing the number of people that asked the protester to shut up and "go back where you've come"...
shushing the dude who had the gall to point out the horseshit flowing throw this congressman's teeth.
What a precious set of intellects these people have.
ssshhh...quit saying stuff i don't like...shhhh....hey that kinda sounds like the ocean....shhhhh...what was i shushing again?
The sheeple of the right tried to "shhhhoooosssh" the guy telling the truth that, it was the insurance company and not the government.
That's like the clueless repug that said that if Stephen Hawkings, the scientist, had health care like they have in England he would be dead now. Never mind that Hawkings is a Brit and has been under British health care all during his fight with Lou Gehrigs disese.
it's called aggressively ignorant
.
Hawking's actually SAID that he'd be dead without the British health care system.
Has it simply become fashionable to not only be uninformed and ignorant but to declare that fact proudly from the highest rooftop? Sometimes it's just embarrasing to be a part of the human race.
sometimes life is too ridiculous to live - john mellencamp
Europeans, Canadians, and Australians are just as stunned by the revolting healthcare ignorance on display in the US recently too, so don't be embarrassed to be human. It's only one nationality currently acting this way.
LOL..yea I almost wrote "American" rather than "human" originally. Guess I should have stuck with my initial instinct there.
just the American human race.
I would like to think we're not the ones cornering the market on stupid.
"When are we going to stop trying to tell elected officials what to do. Our job is to spend the taxpayers' money the best way we can." -- Tommy Watkins, Justice of the Peace, Crawford County, Arkansas
You would think wrong then.
looking out.
I live in Texas. I am struggling to become a certified teacher in a state where my intellect is perceived as arrogance and a threat.
I daren't reveal my progressive activism for fear I'll be disallowed from teaching ever again!
I'm living in Texas because of family issues. Born and raised here. I have considered teaching here but suspected that exactly what you've experienced would transpire. Texans are as bad as everyone says they are.
...Austin and never wanted to return. Went to graduate school here and, with the exception of my classmates, I found Austin to be an oasis. Much more liberal and friendly than Boston (think Gates...yeah it was Cambridge but Boston's no better). Now if I had to move anywhere else in Texas, I think I'll leave the state altogether. But after living here for 20 years as someone with some liberal views and some moderate views, I gues I can call myself a Texan and I don't think I'm as bad as everyone says Texans are.
that's the thing that always gets me.
Everybody is dumb every once in a while but to be so obviously stupid, in front of such a huge audience - and then NOT GET THAT YOU'RE BEING DUMB on top of it all?
"Aggressively ignorant" indeed
Republican asshat tool got busted.
See the redhead teabagger in the front row try to shush the truth teller? she wants to swallow Olson's lies and drink his Kool-Aid uninterrupted!
I think much of what we see is from narcissism. Bill Maher made this point. The fact that people wanted, in Bush, a president just like them supposes they are qualified to be president. You should want a president that greatly exceeds.
anything you want to be--even president.
http://z.about.com/d/animatedtv/1/0/4/E/simp1...)O(
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
At the end of the conversation the informed man say, " Death Panel Death Panel ". It is time to turn the insurance industries propaganda against them. The term Death Panel should apply to a room full of insurance claim adjusters deciding who lives and who dies.
surgery on infants...public option or not...they wouldnt suggest it
what this congressman did was evil
the people who supported his statements are evil
i will gladly be on their death panels
I think you have to provide women with choice to get on these guys death panels.
damn I want to post this on FB but the goddamn link function isn't working!!!!!!
The guy is a grifter - its been going on for a long time.
The guy behind the camera is right. Go to any doctor for something and its always the insurance companies who decide what you will or will not have done.
Isn't it ironic also that by extension those that oppose the government public option are also condemning "granny" to death by not allowing full coverage for everyone.
olson is an outright piece of sh*t
he blames the public option not yet
available as the future reason for this
child being turned down by the current
health insurances' decision to refuse
the operation that was needed NOW.
he ended the meeting because he got out
his lies and did not want any opposition
to his flagrant deception.
years old, so his problem arose under GW Bush.
republicanism is a mental illness!
The public option will cure them of that mental disease which is probably why they dislike the public option. lol
...this week of meeting an actual "birther" and it was a trip to bizarrolandia.
He insisted that "Obamacare" will kill "more people than George W. Bush imagined possible."
But he lost me when he stated that he has proof that Obama is, in fact, a cloned human.
OOOO-EEEEE-OOOO!
Not fun.
Just how many people did Bush imagine killing?
COOL! How many are there? We need as many as we can get!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNTcufUBntg
(Not synched well).
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
and heard was that there were 5 doctors that could maybe do it and the one said he could. There were none in her area and the one doctor was successful. What this had to do with public option or private, I didn't see a connection but the congressman said tthat a public option wouldn't have covered it. What's really amazing is how he would know that since there is no public option.
Is it possible that there's something missing from the video since it seems to start right in the middle of the story? It's the description of the event that says she was "turned away" by the "free market doctors."
You're right in that it doesn't say it was the insurance companies that denied her coverage, it's the guy in the audience who says that. That's why I'm wondering if maybe we didn't miss something crucial in the story earlier on, something he heard that we didn't.
You're also right in saying that Olson and the mother have no basis on which to make the claim that the public option wouldn't have covered the operation. Good catch on your part though.
If the child was 17 days old at the time of the surgery, what could we have missed on the video that referred to any kind of insurance besides private coverage or Medicaid? This obviously happened during the Bush travesty.
What I'm saying is that it isn't clear from the video that the doctors wouldn't perform the surgery because the insurance company wouldn't cover it or because only 5 doctors in the country can or are willing to perform the operation (perhaps it's too risky, perhaps it's too delicate, perhaps they're not trained in it, etc.).
Where the mother and Olson err is in then assuming for no apparent reason that public insurance wouldn't have covered the operation once she found a doctor willing or able to perform it.
willing to take Medicaid patients. I see your point. I think we both see some large leaps over logic.
Using such an instance is slimy. Note he doesn't include the life-long health risks from anti-rejection meds that likely aren't covered by insurance either. Just the self-serving bits for the red meat crowd.
Some of the right wing 'sheeple' in that audience dripped with ignorance...
It is a prerequisite to be as dumb as a post in Texas. What I also find remarkable is the knowledge that insurance companies cheat their customers as regular policy and the people know this but ignore it because of their extreme bigotry and republican memories. These idiots will screw their neighbor out of universal health care because of FOX, Rush, O'Reilly lies.
Whose post, yours?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
if you talk to just about anyone whose home suffered serious damage or total destruction during Ike, you'll find that they had to fight tooth and nail to get their insurance company to reimburse them so they could simply repair or replace their home. A friend of mine had to hire an attorney after her insurance agent (she'd been his client for over twenty years and had considered him a friend) offered her $8,000 to 'repair' her destroyed home in Galveston worth over $150,000.
Her agent may have relayed the offer, but agents are NOT claims adjusters and have absolutely no say in settlement offers.
Can we vote on paying for the health insurance for members of the legislative branch?
... the kind of voting that gets the turn-coat Democrats out of office.
But since the members of the House and the Senate get to vote on legislation that effects all of us, it'd be nice to return the favor every once and a while.
First I get Tom DeLay, then a Blue Dog, now this guy. I am so tempted to run for this congressional seat myself. What an idiot.
Texas is Bush country, don't you know? We Texas Progressives are a tiny minority among the rabid Republicans who truly believe that Tom Delay is being persecuted simply because he is a powerful Republican.
there is nothing more stupid in the world than stupid americans.
He just proved President Obama's case for him.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Look how many people in the crowd shooshed this guy and told him to be quiet. How dare he point out the glaring inaccuracies of their leader’s corporate stated rhetoric. I believe many republican voters suffer from "ATOBI" disease (Against Their Own Best Interest) unfortunately the only known cure is a good dose of rational thought, and most of them seem immune to that. Too bad.
That's what happens when you live on a diet of funnel cakes and Krispy Kremes.
.
And I'm a proud Massachusetts liberal
Yea, but do you order one with a Super Sized extra value Happy Meal?
It kills me when those lard asses drive up to the drive thru at the KFC, because they are too lazy to get their fat asses out of their SUVs to walk in even if there is no line, then order a bucket of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, extra biscuits......and a diet coke!
I realize of course that rhetoric is sometimes defined as wild and empty, and over ornamented form of speaking, but I think the word you're looking for is oratory.
I think rhetoric got a bad reputation because of the popularity of Aristotle with church leaders in the Medieval/Renaissance period. He believed in what he called Dialectics, which was about the search for Truth between opposing sides, whereas rhetorics was about presenting a logical and organized form of communication to effect convincing someone of your view.
To make such a glaring error that undercuts one's own argument shows that his underlying warrant wasn't logical, and is among other things, a long non-sequitur.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
No one here actually thought the ins. co.s would lose this fight did they???
Our current system of gov't is broken. Period.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
The Congressman and the redhead would make perfect candidates for John Stewart to ass-ream. Too bad hes on vacation and no one else in the media does their job.
She's trying to wash down the Happy Meal with Olson's Kool-Aid and that man in the back made her miss a chew. I see she did have time to stop by the Wal-Mart to pick up a tacky light blue striped $5.99 top before the town hall though, an 8 year old Chinese girl slaved through the night to make that for her and I'll bet she doesn't even appreciate it.
The redhead got her a front row seat so the congressman could give her a teabag personally.
Texas State Legislator's salary: $7,200 per year.
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/txp_media/html/le...
Amount Pete Olson spent on his own election campaign: $170,000.
http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?...
Why on Earth would anyone spend $170,000 to get a job that pays $7,200 per year? There must be some other benefits ...
write offs ? , carry a loss forward for 7 yrs , ah health ins , ah COL raise , ah per diem . ah 2 hour work week , ah piss off non-repugs ,
add to list if you care too .
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
He's a state representative to Congress, not a Texas state legislator.
The base salary for rank-and-file members of Congress is currently $170,000 per year, not including retirement or health benefits. And it's unlikely that he spent $170K, at least in one sense - he spent $170K of other people's money in the form of campaign contributions.
When his argument was exposed to be total crap (and in fact an argument IN FAVOR of a public option) at least Olson correctly chose to keep his mouth shut.
Dumber were the people in the crowd who tried to justify the story. In particular the moronic gentlemen who suggested the government was just itching to create a panel to deny the procedure.
This video shows exactly what we are up against - WILLFUL IGNORANCE.
It's a Texan with the bullshit let out!
Texas is the most fucked up
loonie binstate in the union. They voted FOR the death penalty even though a large majority said they would problably execute a few innocent ones every now and then. It's better we execute a few innocent then let one gulity man go free.We couldn't GIVE Texas back to the Mexican... I hear they're building a wall to keep the Texassholes from coming into Mexican illegally.
They also voted for GW Bush four times, twice for governor and twice for president. And they name schools, roads, and libraries after members of his family.
Ain't it Kansas we're all worried about, because that's where Dr. Tiller's killer's going on trial, and Dover Pennsylvania where we had our last
Creationist trial?
Even the Spaghetti Monster bit is a lame rip-off of the Church of the Sub-Genius initially created in Dallas.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
South Carolina is more messed up than Texas.
At least Texas has the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Austin.
"When are we going to stop trying to tell elected officials what to do. Our job is to spend the taxpayers' money the best way we can." -- Tommy Watkins, Justice of the Peace, Crawford County, Arkansas
The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders lose some of their luster when you live here and realize that Texas women are expected to look and act like them, complete with the requisite vacant personalities.
And Austin is pretty cool but it does have a lot of those Republican wannabes called Libertarians.
And had major heart issues as an infant. Not only did they solve the problems, they did so for at no cost, and she had post care her entire youth and her medical records where available to ever NHS doctor she ever went to...
since moving here to marry me, she had a routine gall bladder surgery go wrong ( probably not needed but covered by our insurance so why not order it for her) had a week long stay in hospital, at the cost of $80,000, a second surgery and a surgeon tell us that the scar would be "ugly" for two years, and the post op care???? he said to tell the ER she had a XYZ if it happens again.
really???
no advice on diet changes, no advice on lifestyle changes, no advice on how the second surgery would change her life and how to deal with it. just thrown back into the herd to deal with it...
we are not civilized.
with the current private insurance system her claim was denied and she had to go through personal means to get the operation; and in addition to this experience, she and olsen believe that the public option would have denied her just the same.
texas, sweet jesus, wtf?
Is everyone reading into this a "gotcha" that just ain't there?
I don't hear it stated that she was turned down by other doctors, or that an insurance company refused to pay.
What the Congressman says is that she sought out a Dr. who could perform, what I assume to be, a unique type of surgery. No proof at all that anyone turned her down, at least no proof in this video.
Did I miss something?
...the congressman told the story as if to illustrate that government-ran insurance would have done the same thing to this woman and her child.
There was no basis for that illustration and the story seems to be cut and pieced together to get the point he wanted across and the whole thing just blew up in his face.
Shitty story... even shittier logic leap (on his part).
"When are we going to stop trying to tell elected officials what to do. Our job is to spend the taxpayers' money the best way we can." -- Tommy Watkins, Justice of the Peace, Crawford County, Arkansas
The man was a voice of truth and reason in a room full of dumb white folk. Guess the Wal-Mart didn't have any parking up front close to the store so their fat lazy asses went to town hall instead.
Kool-Aid, tea bags and tin foil hats! It's a Republican town hall party! Olson says let em all eat cake!
... was the obese redhead in the front row. ( (Didn't her mommy ever tell her that when you're FAT, you shouldn't wear horizontal stripes??) When the man off-camera stated that the doctors who turned her away weren't "socialized medicine" but free-market doctors, Fatso tried to shush him by making the sign of Sssshhhh.
By this time, if ANY American can't see through this madness, they should be in a mental hospital.
Observing what passes for Public Debate in our great country, perhaps we should reconsider Public Education as well as the Public Option.
And this guy will probably get re elected in Texas.
That's why we have voting booths in barroom bathrooms.
Flush the left toilet for the liberals, the right toilet for the conservatives.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Interesting with all these town hall meetings all over the country, it was only a couple of people in Texas to tell the emperor he ain't got no dang britches on.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Unless the esteemed member has the consent of the patient, this could be a violation of the HIPAA privacy regulations that prohibit public disclosure of personal health information. I believe it's $2500 and 30 days per violation, and in this instance each person in the room, and each viewer on TV or the web, is a violation. Aren't we supposed to be the party of law and order?
I love how these people (the repugs) we're trying to wave the guy with the facts down, the motioned for him to sit down and they were shushing him. And you have to figure that he did have facts and reason in his argument so the repugs didn't want any part of it.
Now if he would have just yelled "Socialist" or "They wanna kill Grandma" then they would have been fine with it and allowed him to speak. except he wouldn't be speaking he would just have been yelling incoherent BS. in other words, he would have been talking their language.
These people don't like facts, they don't want to know the reality of the situation and if you try to bring reason to the argument you just might get hanged.
the GOP: I got mine, Screw You!
If you want to contact this bozo you will have to be in his district. He has on his contact form a place for your zip code and if it falls out his area he refuses your email.
this appears below the zip code box"
*
Regrettably, I am unable to reply to any email from constituents outside of my District.
*
Fields marked with a * are required.
. Unless you take the time( like I have ) to read the bill. Dont think that it is anywhere near something you want any part of. It is so full of bs , pork and govt. control it is not funny. People we need to join together and let the leaders know we want a bill that works for everyone, not just the chosen few they want it to work for.
Some would say ,Well you are retired Army, you get your care free. Well folks to let you know,yes I can get my care free, if I lived near an VA Hospital, I dont, so I pay for my care. I for one dont want the Govt. to run my health care. Every time they try to run something, they screw it up! Just look at the US debt! Oh yes look at it, the Repubs done it, will be some answers. If you truly open your eyes, you will see that both parties had a equal hand in it!
your blood tests and x rays would be done locally because we would all have the same coverage. No 12 hour round trips starting at 2-3 am for a blood test an xray and an EKG. While you pass several hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices with the very equipment that could do your routine medical work.
The government did not make the US debt. The policies followed by 30 years of Republican dominated governance and the removal of regulation of banks and big business by Republican controlled congress and WH put us where we are today. The worst of it happening under GWB, spending down a budget surplus left by Clinton into the hugest debt anyone has ever seen.
You really do want the US govt to run your healthcare; John McCain says the US VHA is the best in the world. We all know, that is when you can get it.
We deserve no less in coverage and ease of access than our elected officials have.
me-oww!
Comments are closed on this entry