Is Michele Bachmann "nuts" for characterizing a living will or end of life directive as "a death panel?"

This item is from The Washington Independent. It's too short to excerpt, so here's the whole thing:

GOP Senator: Palin’s ‘Death Panel’ Fib is ‘Nuts’
By David Weigel 8/11/09 9:52 AM

Ezra Klein talks to Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), the senator who wants end-of-life planning in the health care bill, and who inadvertently inspired Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), then conservative blogger Sarah Palin, to allege that the bill would put old people to death.

I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts.

A Republican senator saying that his party’s last vice presidential nominee is “nuts” when talking about the health care bill? I’m surprised this isn’t getting more play.

Of course it's "nuts," and a lie: look who the "inspiration" was. (Her name's in the first paragraph.)

Who's this Senator Isakson, the guy who says that the "death panel" charge is "nuts?" Is he some wild-eyed liberal Senate pal of Obama's?

Nooooo! He's a Republican from Georgia--anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and has received an "A" rating on gun rights from the National Rifle Association. He received a "92" rating on a scale of 100 by the Christian Coalition of America--and he says that Palin and Bachmann are nuts to pretend that the House bill on health care reform sponsors euthanasia and death panels.

Well, I don't care if he *is* a conservative--the man's right, on this issue. They're nuts.

Michele Bachmann news links tonight

Tonight, it looks like journalists with real jobs are just recycling the same Politico article. They keep talking about a Bachmann staffer named "Michelle Martson", mentioned in the Politico article that these reporters seem to be re-typing. (Bachmann chief of staff gives out her name to the public as "Michelle MARSTON, so tonight we have a chance to see how quickly a Politico spelling and story get recycled by other reporters.)

Here is the original Politico article, which is actually pretty good. It claims that Michele is now "Public Enemy Number 1," with Dems--and explains why.

Then we have an article that seems to have been based on that article. According to the Examiner, she may be the new Sarah Palin. This one's kind of amusing, because the writer's tone indicates that she just heard of this person Bachmann. (The author reports that Bachmann has emerged as a "possible" target of the left's ire. And the author uses the mindless label "social conservative" to describe Bachmann's politics; always a bad sign.)

One of the "Godzillas" of news gathering, the United Press International, lobs in the report from Politico, noting that Michele's in for a fight next year. UPI reports on the Sixth District:

Bachmann's chief of staff, Michelle Martson (sic), said the congresswoman likely holds a high spot on Democrats' list of possible political targets given her open stances on key issues such as global warming, the Politico reported Saturday.

"She's definitely somewhere up there," Martson said.

That's right, she is, "Martson." In the same article, Minnesota Republican political mastermind Michael Brodkorb opines on *why* Democrats don't like Bachmann:

"I think she probably frustrates them because she's able to win every time," he told the Politico.

That's one reason she frustrates Dems, Michael--the other reason is that she's a notorious nut, bigot and liar serving in the U.S. Congress. That, too, pissed Dems off.

The UPI article also identifies Mr. Brodkorb as "Minnesota Republican Party of Democratic deputy chairman." I have never heard of such an office, and I don't understand this title they have given to him. But they spelled his name right, I think.

Finally: Harold Pollack, a New Republic's special correspondent on health care issues writes a thoughtful piece called "Have You No Decency?" (The title of the article compares the integrity of Bachmann and Palin to that of McCarthy.) Pollack takes Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann to task for spreading disinformation about what's in the health care reform bill. It's a good article that tries to refute the lies. Excerpts:

...To be clear, it is downright evil to establish a “death panel” that decides who is allowed to live based on their “level of productivity in society” (as Sarah Palin claims the health care plan does.) Less clear is what the heck Palin or Bachmann are talking about. I can’t find the words “death panel” in any administration position paper, the stimulus package, or the House and Senate draft health reform bills. Don’t take my word for it. Read the bills...

Another excerpt:

...Palin and Bachmann remind no one of Hillary Clinton in their success in grasping complex policy issues, or in their desire to do so. It may be too much to expect them to trace the origin and veracity of these talking points. These originate in a New York Post op-ed by Betsy McCaughey, which Bachmann essentially recites on the House floor...

...and the article has a link to Bachmann's speech on the House floor. Finally:

...publicity-seeking politicians subtract a lot from these conversations. Palin, Bachmann, and others score cheap points by scaring people and by spreading falsehoods. Their disrespect goes beyond their own political base to those whose views they so recklessly misconstrue...

Sarah Palin: "Like, dudes--Obama wants to kill us all--listen to Michele Bachmann, if you cats wanna know what's really goin' down..."

Commenter Anna sent us this one:

Sarah Palin: Hey, Pay Attention to Michele Bachmann
By David Weigel 8/7/09 5:16 PM

It was bound to happen some day. From Sarah Palin’s Facebook account, her newest epistle:

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

Palin tells her friends to see Bachmann’s speech, which quotes health care misinformer-for-hire Betsey McCaughey, here.

The item's so short I was forced to clip the whole thing. Read it with the links included, here.

But that's not all. The same post author's worked is cited here, but with this "National Enquirer" style headline:

Palin: Obama's "Death Panel" Could Kill My Down Syndrome Baby
By Eric Kleefeld - August 7, 2009, 5:36PM

In a new posting on her Facebook account, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) made a dire statement about health care reform -- that it could result in an Obama-created "death panel" killing her infant son with Down Syndrome:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

And she pointed Americans' attention to a recent speech by none other than Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)...

Could this be an early trial balloon for a Palin/Bachmann ticket in 2012?

Oh, let's hope so, right? The proto-fascist dream team swimsuit issue; a lying, conspiracy pimping, "rapidly aging babe"-ocracy ruling the United States and ending civil liberties in order to impose the conservative evangelical version of sha'ria law on us all. Just what the founding fathers had in mind as the cap to our centuries-old American experiment in freedom and democracy: a pair of pseudo-Christian talk radio Mussolinis with good legs and great hair.

Anyway: so that's a hat tip to DB commenters Anna and Alec for these items in this post, with hat tips to Eric Kleefeld at Talking Points memo, and hat tips to source David Weigel, and a hat tip to the Washington Independent. And now my hat is all tipped out, and my head's getting cold.

Bachmann: "Obamacare will cost 1 trillion." CBO: "No it won't."

Numbers don't lie, right?

But unfortunately, people lie about numbers. Michele Bachmann wrote that Obamacare would cost $1 trillion dollars. Where'd she get that number?

She didn't say. Maybe she got it from the Associated Press, who reported the following in an August 3rd story by Tom Raum:

...even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that none of the health plans pending on Capitol Hill would control long-term spending, and that ones with the elements Obama wants would add around $1 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

The problem is that "even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office" *didn't* say that at all:

"(The) CBO found that the House tri-committee bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $239 billion over 10 years -- not $1 trillion.

...that's from this article in MediaMatters, which goes on to explain that this particular falsehood is being spread like a wildfire. And the article names the people and new organizations that are spreading a phony story about the CBO estimate: "The Associated Press joins New York Times, Fox News Sunday, CNBC's Bartiromo, Fox News' Rove in advancing cost estimate falsehood." And Michele Bachmann joins those guys, spreading the cost estimate falsehood.

The same MediaMatters article links to the actual CBO cost estimate, released on July 17. If you want to read what the CBO actually said, not what Bachmann and company pretend that they said.

And the Pioneer Press, who printed Michele's trillion dollar falsehood? It looks as though they don't fact check this trillion dollar stuff; they just print it. Her word's good enough for them.

Human interest story, here.

Here's a story in the Strib that commenter Lady directed us to.

It's about this woman who runs a bakery with 65 employees, in St. Cloud (Bachmann's district.) She's a person of faith. She joined about five hundred other faith-based activists to go and push health care reform to Minnesota members of Congress, in D.C.

But guess what happens at the end of the story? The responses she gets from Minnesota legislators are "non-committal," including the response from the representative for her district--Michele Bachmann, who sells herself to the public as a "faith-based" legislator.

The part about Bachmann is at the very end of the story, and it's not much--because Bachmann apparently did not have much to say to these Catholics, Lutherans, etc. But the story is a very interesting read, anyway.

And another interesting thing *about* the story--is that this article about Christian efforts to get MN politicians to support real health care reform appeared in the "Faith and Values" section of the Star Tribune. And it was supplied to the Strib by a writer for "the Religion News Service," not a Strib staff reporter.

So a news reporting service that covers faith and values spotted a grassroots Christian attempt at supporting national health care reform as a "faith issue." The five hundred people of faith also believe that supporting national health care for all Americans is a "faith issue." Does Michele Bachmann think that making sure all Americans have affordable health care is a "faith issue?" All is it says in the article is that her response was "non-committal."

We do know that she supports the private sector health insurers, and takes quite a bit of dough from them, despite the fact that tens of millions of Americans have no health care plan when health care is left to these private sector insurers. And we do know that the private sector health insurers have spent over a half-billion dollars during the past decade, just for lobbying Congress. And it is likely that that half-billion of profit they spent on lobbying Congress, might have been put to better use subsidizing preventive health care for Americans who've lost their health care plans during the various economic downturns.

But if the private sector health care insurers had spent that half-billion on doing that, politicians like Bachmann would not have received the special interest money that makes their campaigns "go."

Question: how Jesus have spent the half-billion? On lobbying Congress to prevent health care reform, or on the preventive health care for American families that lost their health care plans during the economic downturn?

Strib: Bachmann among top recipients of $$$ from insurers against health care reform

From a Star Tribune report by Pat Doyle:

As the nation faces a political showdown over health insurance reform, insurers worried that an overhaul could hurt their bottom line are funneling a wave of cash to members of Congress.

That includes Minnesota, where Republicans are the biggest beneficiaries of the industry's largesse. Sixth District Rep. Michele Bachmann, an outspoken foe of a government insurance option, is among the top recipients this year in the entire U.S. House...

...Health and accident insurers and HMOs have spent more than $40 million on current members of Congress over the past 10 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzed Federal Election Commission data.

They've also spent an additional half-billion dollars lobbying during the decade.

A "half-billion" dollars on LOBBYING? Doyle points out that these private sector health insurers are scared that reforms proposed by President Obama and the Dems would place them in competition with the public option "and even drive some out of business."

That's undoubtedly true. Some would be driven out of business. And no one would ever miss the ones that provide less and worse health care than government reform would provide. But--despite all the GOP talking points to the contrary--others would continue in business, providing a private sector option to Americans who want to opt out of the "public option." The public option would not kill off private sector health care; it would remain available to those of you who are sitting on oodles of dough. Those of you who have that kind of wealth can afford to stick with private insurers who are currently making so much out of us that they have a half-billion in spare cash--just for LOBBYING.

Speaking of oodles of dough--look who's talking about "freedom" and "the virtues of the private sector" while she's raking in the big bucks from one of the biggest monied private sector interests in the country--in return for parroting their line. If she really believed that the private sector could out-perform a public health care option, she'd welcome "competition" from the federal government. The private sector health insurers who are paying her *don't* want that competition.

They've seen Medicare in action, and so has the public, and the public has decided that Medicare is better. So the private sector insurers know that an expanded federal health care program for all Americans will kick their asses, in terms of delivering better health care to more Americans.

Which is the point of health care policy--unless you happen to be one of the lucky few receiving oodles of dough from the private sector health insurers (for parroting their line.)

Bachmann grins as Fox Business panel dumps on private sector solutions

This is kind of funny because the Fox Business Panel seems to be composed of studs and babes debating the virtues and vices of public and private health care in some kind of singles bar.

Note Fox News political analyst Kirsten's stunned reaction as Bachmann butts in to answer a question that was actually directed to Kirsten.

And note Michele's immovable grin as the panel dumps all over her contention that private insurance is still the way to go, when it comes to providing health care for Americans.

Look at these tags...

Internet tags are what you put on posts to categorize them, so that people looking for information know what the posts are about.

Tonight I was looking through YouTube to see if there was any good recent Bachmann video to slap up here. I found footage of her railing against Obama's health care reforms--nothing new about that.

But the title that the person attached to the post was interesting ("Bachmann no health care for the disabled.") That's a lie, there will of course be health care for the disabled if Obama health care reforms go through. There's health care for the disabled now, and there will be health care for the disabled if the Obama health care reforms go through, and it's likely that more disabled people will received better health care if the Obama reforms go through.

But even more interesting than that, are the tags attached to this video by the person who put it on You Tube. The tags tell you something about the kind of person that Bachmann is attracting as a fan, now that she's got a national rep:

Congresswoman Bachmann No Health care for the disabled July 27, 2009 C-SPAN
Category: News & Politics
Tags:
Glenn Beck Ron Paul New World Order NWO constitution conspiracy republic revolution bill of rights slavery federal reserves army navy air force marines veterans police cops law enforcement military freedom liberty gun control obama bush Oath Keepers federal reserve irs Civil liberties marshal law March on Washington dont thread on me Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklyn Thomas Pane Semper Fidelis tenth amendment continental congress patriot act

I don't know what "army, navy, air force, Semper Fi" have to do with "Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, New World Order, NWO, constitution, republic, revolutions, etc." But apparently in this person's mind, they're aaallll connected to the misleading information Michele continues to present about the President's proposed health care reforms.

An American talks to a Canadian about Canada's health care system

From our comments thread. Chris (an American) speaks to C.M. (a Canadian) about the advantages and problems of the Canadian health care system. The national health care systems of Canada and other Western nations are currently being demonized by Bachmann and other conservatives as unworkable, wasteful socialism.


Chris say:

C. M.

It seemed to me that in the 1990s, when the Clintons were trying to reform US health care, the Canadian system was what the Republicans pointed to as a means of showing that no way did we want THAT sort of program in the US.

But, according to the research I did, what I found was that AS A SYSTEM, most Canadians are very happy with it, in regard to such things like ease of use, lack of paperwork, satisfaction with the quality of care, etc. Bot civilians and medical professionals were positive on this subject.

Where there was any unhappiness, it seems to me that it was in such things as "wait time" for non-emergency treatments, like MRIs, knee or hip replacement, etc. To me, this seems to be a funding level issue, not a design-of-the-system issue. In other words, the Canadian system could provide MRIs on demand within 48 hours, but realize that would mean doubling the number of MRI machines from, say 2 per 30,000 people to 4 or 5/30,000 pop. In order to make these changes, the budget would have to be considerably increased, and the current level of funding is based on the assumptions of wait time that are built in. A gold plated system (instead of the silver plated on they have) is possible, but the taxes required might be more than people want to pay.

Does this strike you as a fair understanding of what you see, as a user of the Canadian system? If so, it seems to me that the argument needed in the US is to argue that distinction, and go for a single payer plan, with funding levels to be an open and clear discussion topic. Frankly, I'd be real happy if every American got silver-plated care. We can argue with making it a gold-plated system later.

Pr Chris
Chris Miller Edit comment Delete comment | Homepage | 07.26.09 - 2:56 am | #

C.M. replies:

That's the best assesment of the Canadian system I've ever heard from an American.
C.M. Edit comment Delete comment | Homepage | 07.26.09 - 5:08 pm | #