The business about “death boards” is over-the-top nonsense and is indeed being presented in a dishonest, unhelpful manner. But nobody — not even Sarah Palin — is arguing that the Democrats actually put a measure into writing that requires offing granny when she gets too sick to be worth the cost of healing her. Rather — as Snow finally admits two minutes into the piece — the argument is that a natural consequence of having government involved in these decisions while trying to keep costs low is rationing of care and encouraging people away from expensive, extraordinary measures. The fact that the law, as written, puts the final decision in the hands of the patient doesn’t dispose of that fear.
ATTN James:
Scroll to the 2:35 part if you don’t want to watch the whole thing.
Now- nobody SANE is arguing that the health care reform proposals will include death panels, which is probably why James thinks it is so preposterous. He is sane.
On the other hand, the same crazy people who the right wing has whipped into a froth the past couple of decades sure as hell do believe there are going to be death panels. But then again, they also think a small increase in the top marginal rate is socialism, that Sarah Palin would make a great president, that you can make people ungay with therapy, that the earth is ten thousand years old, that Obama was born in Kenya and doesn’t say the pledge of allegiance and was sworn in on a Quran, that the Clinton death list is real and that Hillary murdered Vince Foster, and on and on and on. And operatives in the Republican party, to include elected officials, have spent decades making people believe this stuff. We didn’t imagine Dan Burton shooting pumpkins in his backyard and we aren’t imagining Richard Shelby and others pushing birther nonsense. There is an entire industry pushing this crap.
James may think it is just hyperbole and harmless, because he is SANE and not an IDIOT. The same can not be said for the rest of the remaining GOP. When Mike Sola says “What you are doing is sentencing our families to death… We are American citizens who want one thing, to be heard before you put us down,” he is pretty convinced that Rahm Emmanuel’s brother is going to be rounding up old people, putting them before death panels, and then “putting them down.”