The House today passed the final reconciliation bill for the health care reform, and the whole thing is now law. The resulting system looks like a weird crossbreed between the Dutch system and the Swiss system with a little German thrown in, not the system I would have set up if I had my druthers, but one whose fundamental structure has proven workable internationally. As I've mentioned it's a profoundly mediocre bill and we'll spend the next twenty years patching up the problems in this bill, but it's a helluva lot easier to fix problems once they're real than it is to fix them while they're still hypothetical. Americans aren't too good at that whole hypotheticals thingy.
As for the death panels, and why they haven't showed up at your doorstep yet, patience! I got my invitation to be on an ObamaCare death panel yesterday, and our first meeting is next Monday, so clearly we haven't had time to dispatch MIB's in black helicopters to take the lucky duckies to the Soylent Green processing centers. What, you didn't get your invitation to be on an ObamaCare death panel yet? Uh-oh....
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Of course I believe that the death panels are in there someplace, I know that you and the entire Republican party can't be wrong. But I downloaded the health care document, and searched through it, and I just can't find death panel anywhere in it. They must be using some sort of code words, right? Perhaps "End of life enhancement management".
ReplyDeleteI did see a lot in it about preventing death, but of course that doesn't really matter for most people. The only deaths we're supposed to worry about is the pre-born and those at the end of their lives, right? Anyone in between is supposed to be able to fend for themselves.
But seriously: can you offer any explanation, other than insanity, for the ones who shouted 'baby killer' at someone voting for a bill that is going to help people get insurance to keep themselves and their children alive? That is going to outlaw the practice of not giving insurance to children because of pre-existing conditions?
Being a mere female, the logic is probably beyond my feeble brain skills.
Se, there are some people who are just gullible. Or stupid. Or both. That's the only thing I can figure.
ReplyDeleteThere was a feature in an early version of the Senate bill where Medicare would pay for you to set up a "living will", i.e., if you didn't want to be hooked up to machines when you were dying the bill set up a standard "living will" form (one problem right now is that there is no standard, and doctors feel free to ignore them) and would pay for the consultation with the doctor to fill out the form. That was not, however, a "death panel", albeit that's what Sarah Palin claimed. The Senate took that out of the final bill long before it reached the House because of the idiots who claimed it set up a "death panel" of, err, you and your family doctor.
Yet still, there's this notion of "death panels". Okay, just something for those of us who are sane to mock about the gullible morons who'll believe, like, anything that they're told by other morons like Sarah Palin. Alrighty, then!
- Badtux the Mocking Penguin
SeDress -
ReplyDeleteInsanity is probably it.
Other possibilities:
Listening to the insane (a la Palin) and believing them.
Flat-ass lying.
Listening to the lying ideologues (a la Limaugh) and believing them.
Rabid partisanship.
Deep, deep stupidity.
Abysmal ignorance.
Playing to the base.
Blinded by the light.
Fetal Derangement syndrome.
Having been molested by a real estate lady.
Just wantin' to fuck things up.
Did I mass any?
Cheers (or somethin')
jXb
Truth be told, the only 'death panels' I see are the ones hosted by wingnuts, calling for the death of all those oppose them, albeit sometimes in coded form:"water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants', or the sarahpac map of democrat officials with nice little gun crosshairs on them. Does make you wonder which group really does believe in the democratic process, doesn't it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right-wingers have always been enamored of death squads. They set up death squads by the score in El Salvador when they were running the place, and same deal with Guatemala. Right-wing death squads roam around in Columbia right now, and it pisses the right-wingers off that they can't run right-wing deaths quads in Venezuela any more now that Venezuela has a left-wing President, how else are they going to keep the indios in their place? And of course the KKK originated as death squads to keep the uppity Negros in their place.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, for the right wing, death squads are as American as apple pie. It's no wonder that they read death squads into any piece of legislation sufficiently complicated to misread, it's what they'd do if they were in power so of course they assume it's what their opponents are doing too.
Alrighty, then!
- Badtux the Squaddie Penguin
I still eagerly await the arrival of my Death Panel membership application. I loathe old people, especially sick ones, and am certain that their ground-up remains can be profitably used as some sort of food supplement, or perhaps as fertilizer. To the Soilent Green plant, fellow Communist America-haters!
ReplyDeleteI am awaiting the flood of geezer death-dodgers to come here to Canuckrainia, the way that draft-dodgers did during the Vietnam War. Haven't seen any yet, but how fast can they flee when they're using walkers? (Which were called "frames" in Australia, a shortened version of "walking frames" or the brand-name "Zimmer frames." It was fun for me down there to learn the parallel lingo Aussies had for so many common objects.)
ReplyDeletelove this:
ReplyDeletehttp://politicalirony.com/2009/11/30/the-history-of-just-say-no/