Democrats “Discover” Death Panels

By William L. Garvin

In the middle of the night, without any substantive discussion, Democrats in the House of Representatives unilaterally passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, generally known as ObamaCare. In a total absence of logical thought, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proclaimed that “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” No one in Congress had even read the two-thousand page Frankenstein monstrosity that Nancy, Harry and friends cobbled together behind closed doors.

Two of the early ObamaCare critics were Thomas Sowell and Sarah Palin. They had presciently written in August of 2009: “The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. 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.” Liberal outrage immediately went into existential overdrive to mock Palin and her concerns.

Typical and predictable attack dogs began their snarling propaganda on sites such as the Huffington Post, Think Progress, Daily Kos, and the AFL-CIO. “Sarah Palin Amps Up the Falsehood by Introducing the Death Panel Myth,” blared one headline. These internecine internet attacks were robotically reported by mainstream media such as the LA Times, ABC News, and small minded columnists in papers both large and small. Daily Kos’s projectile vomiting included the following: But no matter what happens to the legislation, you can expect the “death panel” lie to join all the other sound bite propaganda that now makes up the Republican manifesto.”The improperly named Politifact labeled her charge “Pants on Fire” and awarded it the “Lie of the Year.” Speaker Pelosi almost stripped her vocal gears rushing to the microphone to repeat the blatant slur.

Undaunted, Governor Palin penned another op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal a year ago: “Worst of all, the commission's proposals institutionalize the current administration's new big spending commitments, including ObamaCare. Not only does it leave ObamaCare intact, but its proposals would lead to a public option being introduced by the backdoor, with the chairmen's report suggesting a second look at a government-run health-care program if costs continue to soar.
It also implicitly endorses the use of "death panel"-like rationing by way of the new Independent Payments Advisory Board—making bureaucrats, not medical professionals, the ultimate arbiters of what types of treatment will (and especially will not) be reimbursed under Medicare.” Again, the Governor was mocked and ridiculed by liberals in lockstep.
In typical Alinsky, Chicago political pugilism, propagandists tried to equate “death panels” to “end of life counseling” and continue this transparent ruse even today. This childish straw subterfuge was never the cause for alarm. It was always the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This 15-member Board is appointed by the President and is not subject to Congressional approval. Its stated goal is to reduce per capita Medicare spending and will recommend levels at which Medicare recipients can be reimbursed for health care expenses. Thus, the Board would cap the total amount of money senior recipients could receive for care. You never have to pull the plug on granny (Obama’s words) if you never allow granny to be plugged in to begin with!

This week, Representative Barney Frank, that saint-like epitome of civil discourse (soon to be beatified by Democrat sycophants everywhere) was the latest Dem to sign on and cosponsor legislation to repeal the IPAB. HR 452 already has 214 cosponsors including a dozen Democrats. Today, the “false and pernicious” charges leveled against Governor Palin are the actual adornments of those who mocked too much! Although Democrats are finally starting to discover the truth, don’t ever expect any apologies to Palin or Sowell from the rad-libs!