David Kurtzman, a political humorist put together a Top 10 ACTUAL quotes of the "Hell bent for hysteria" right. These are funny as they are head shakin' shameful. These quotes are more stupid than a birther that...well, that actually doesn't need finishing.
As of the past few days I (unfortunately) am watching Faux News. I do this because I think it's a good idea to keep an eye on watching the douchebaggery of fear, hypocritical and backward thinking on this sham of a network. "Know Thy Enemy" is a tactic going back to Sun Tzu and that is what I intend to do.
Anyway, on to the Top 10:
1. "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." —Sarah Palin, in a message posted on Facebook about Obama's health care reform plan
2. "Obama's got a health care logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook … Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate." —Rush Limbaugh, Aug. 6, 2009
3. "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless." —a July 31 editorial in Investor's Business Daily warning about end-of-life counseling in health care reform. Hawking, in fact, lives in England and has been treated by their National Health Service, which, by his own account, saved his life
4. "What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes." –Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), on what is needed to defeat health care reform, Aug. 31, 2009
5. "You have three people in the White House that are in love with eugenics or whatever it is you would call it today. … Please dear God, read history. Please dear God read the truth of what these people have said in their own words, and ask yourself this one question: Do you trust these people enough to give them control over who lives and who dies? Because that's what health care is when you have no other choice but to go to the state." —Glenn Beck, comparing health care reform to Nazi eugenics
6. "Congress would make it mandatory — absolutely require — that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner." —Betsy McCaughey, former New York lieutenant governor and originator of the "death panel" lie, July 16, 2009
7. There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. ... We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." —Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Aug. 12, 1009
8. "We're gonna have a government rationing body that tells women with breast cancer, 'You're dead.' It's a death sentence." —FOX News Channel's Sean Hannity, June 19, 2009
9. "That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions." —Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a pro-lifer who completely missed the irony of using the same slogan as the pro-choice movement
10. "Exercise freaks ... are the ones putting stress on the health care system." —Rush Limbaugh, June 12, 2009
EDIT: Honorable mention, per B.J. From an IBD(Investors Business Daily)poll: 45 % of doctors will leave their practices under a government run plan. Uh...yeah...investors have NOTHING at stake here, no bias here.
P.S. I HATE POLLS!!! I don't care which side uses them. Until you can measure the entire population to be studied...just say NO.
Healthcare WITHOUT a public option is NO option at all. Conservatives, recognize.
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40 comments:
You have never lived under state healthcare. Sorry, but you are talking crap. In Britain people with Down's syndrome do get lower priority for healthcare.
Stephen Hawking is an old leftie who was talking crap.
Under state healthcare there are panels that decide who lives and who dies. It is not put like that, but there is no difference from the point of view of the patient. In the UK one of these is even called NICE. National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Orwell might have been a socialist, but he was right about some things (sorry that went over your head, but if you thought about healthcare rather than just accepted socialist propaganda you'd understand it).
Sorry, but you are deluded and naive.
CDM:
Thanks for this post. The previous commenter can talk about delusion and naivete and things going over our heads, but all of these quotes aim at nothing more than creating hysteria in the fertile ground of ignorance.
Does this commenter really think we buy into his red herring argument?
He can throw out George Orwell, but Shakespeare sums up his remarks:
"False face must hide what the false heart doth know."
Enjoying your posts!
BJ
great job C!! the top 10 list of quotes are priceless and show front and center what we are dealing with in our country today from the rightwingnuts. Hows that faux news workin for ya? LOL.
Hi BJ, thanks for you input too!
sorry doubting Richard, I DOUBT you have a clue what we are trying to achieve in OUR country.
A few days ago there was a back page report about Agri-businessmen claiming that if the Feds do what they are saying and step up the deportation of illegals this fall; then their harvest will not get harvested and fruit will rot in the fields. Yet these same big-farm-co-ops have come out against health reform that could help their faithful and ir-replaceable, often injured, migrant workers. Then to rub the salt; the Right-wing capitalists, who are all about a "free market" want to eliminate the "free market's" ability to offer and sell illegals a health care plan. It makes no sense. What do they want? Illegals to work for nothing and ask for nothing and risk everything? sounds like slavery to me.
OI! I say old boy, why your knickers in such a bloddy twist, ay? So sod off you bleedin' pilick.
See what it's like to talk in a tounge that's not really yours? Or was that little joke over your head?
So your system doesn't work for you. What part of this post did you get me wanting a carbon copy of the U.K. plan? The best option is to take the best of public options from other countries that are having success, put them together and give our country what it so desperately needs. You would like us to have coverage right? OH wait, you don't live here, sorry I forgot.
Sorry, gotta go, I have to call some guy in India to have him help me with my english homework.
Good luck with your demand for retraction with Kurtzman. I'm sure he'll see the light after he reads where your tale is told.
AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE!!!
great analogy Susan. Just another stinkin armpit of bigoted whites in America holding on tight to their pocketbooks. But God-forbid they are accused of such disgraceful acts, they are the "givers of Charity" in this country, didn't you know?? I live in "the Garden State", I see how migrant workers live.
I don't know Richard but the point he is trying to make is when you have government run health care under the guise of "saving money" and "better quality" we are only kidding ourselves.
Too bad you didn't mention in your post how 45 % of doctors will leave their practices under a government run plan which would unintentionally ration care. And how can you tell someone who is from a government run heatlhcare system he is wrong?
Why is that what our country is trying to achieve is any different from any other country with socialized medicine.
Had it not been for the opposition by the American People(not just wing nuts)they would have rammed this thing through carelessly with no debate.
Sue, I teach their kids. At least public schools still accept all children with a vaccination record. If the right-conservative-free market yahoos had their way, we would be a country of private schools only. That would certainly not fit the American claim of holding the higher ground (and Christianity)....what is it that is written on the Statue of Liberty? something about bringing the tired,poor,and huddled masses who yearn to breathe free and the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
Yes, I am a real ultra, left,bleeding heart humanist, it's genetic,and i can't wash it out of my hair. My Father immigrated to this most wonderful place.
Lisa, I see your Faux News poll and raise you an MSNBC poll that says it's 75% FOR it. Look it up. Point is, I hate polls, they're unreliable as they run on a sample and not the entire population.
First, we are already socialized due to Medicare, Tricare, etc... How about we do away with ALL government involvement insurance? This way, all of our troops will have to find coverage themselves and foot the bill themselves. This is what insurance companies want.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
CDM:
Bump this to the top of the Top 10 list:
"45 % of doctors will leave their practices under a government run plan."
Brainwashed. Nothing short of brainwashed.
The right's debate here is moot. There is no "single payer" provision, and nothing about proposed reforms can be called "socialized medicine."
Were I a solon in Congress, I would introduce an amendment demanding this country devote its full resource to finding a cure for ignorance.
BJ
It is a good point. Let alone the poll came from IBD alone. Yeah, no bias there.
Did I mention that I hate polls?
Well all 4 of my doctors are against it. To me that's 100%.
I'm not touching that, too easy.
Anybody else?
The 4 doctors who dare not disagree with Lisa.
Doctor #1 Proctologist
Doctor #2 prescription pad doctor
Doctor #3 Tarot card reader doctor.
Doctor #4 Community Clinic doctor who treats STDs...no questions asked.
Yep.
Reminds me of a joke I made up many years ago. About a psychiatrist and a proctologist who decide to share a practice. They debated about their shingle:
Nuts and Butts?
Queers and Rears?
Odds and Ends?
Heads or Tails?
Freud and ‘Rhoids?
Minds and Hinds?
Somewhere I have a longer list, but you get the picture.
BJ
73% of US doctors favor a public option. Lisa was probably referring to this, which comes from Investors Business Daily, the same outfit that said Stephen Hawking would be dead by now if he lived in Britain.
Any health-care system has to ration treatment in some way, since resources are not infinite. In the US right now it's done by insurance companies denying treatment, finding technicalities to cut off people's insurance if they develop an expensive condition, and rejecting people with pre-existing conditions. This is why the US has only average overall health outcomes compared with other developed countries, while spending far more than they do.
Yes, in a future reformed system there would be some cases of treatments being refused by bureaucrats. There would just be a lot less of that happening than there is now.
Recall, too, that if the bureaucrats running a public-option program make outrageous decisions, they will be accountable to Congress, which in turn needs to worry about getting re-elected. That gives the public some influence over their decisions. The insurance-company bureaucrats who now stand between us and our doctors are not accountable to the public at all.
If there were a rational case to be made against reform, don't you think that the conservatives would be making it, instead of spouting delusional nonsense like what's in these quotes?
Stephen Hawking is an old leftie who was talking crap.
So the most brilliant physicist of our time is not smart enough to evaluate his own medical treatment?:-)
There's a good reason, by the way, why most scientists are liberals. It's hard for anyone with much actual scientific knowledge to take conservatism seriously when it's dominated by people who think the Earth is 6,000 years old.
I'm right there with ya Susan, bleeding heart progressive to the bone!! The right does not believe what is written on the Statue of Liberty, especially the Christian right, who want to see this country fall so they can rise up and be a majority. Makes me shudder!! AND I'm a SANE Christian, one who follows the words of Jesus.
Infidel I love how you pointed out insurance companies are already using death panels, rationing, with nobody to stop them! We don't hear enough about that. In fact the dems do a terrible job as usual of standing up for themselves and whats right!!! I was reading last night, someone at HuffPo, he said the repubs know how to get things done when thy have the power, they roll right past the dems giving them the finger and do whatever the fuck they want! Why can't we get a backbone???
lisa you can stay til you tell us why you have and NEED 4 doctors...
More on that fake IBD survey here.....
well being my dentist doesn't sport stirrups,I also need an OB and my GP doesn't do foot surgery,I need a podiatrist, that makes 4. It's really simple math.
I admit they don't come cheap and I have had some debilitating co-pays but I'd rather that be my choice and not some bureaucrats.
Actually the podiatrist I only see now every 6 months now.
As far as giving republicans the finger they would also be giving hard working Americans the finger as well. You know the ones who will be footing the bill for this massive takeover of our healthcare system,being half the population doesn't pay any income tax to begin with.
Actually my OB said he is more concerned about being a citizen rather than a doctor.
My GP said she will go back to her country. My dentist said he will retire and my podiatrist said you probably won't be able to see a podiatrist when you get old and the elderly are usually the ones who need them the most.He said other things but I don't want to incriminate him.
conservatives have to get another talking point. The 'democrats don't work' one is so fuckin lame.
Who said anything about not working? If you think the money alone will come from the rich to pay for it then you are not living in the real world.
It will just create a larger poor population.
I do not ordinarily address right-wing commenters directly, but Lisa this is for you.
I am legally blind from retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Last December I had pretty much lost all vision. I had cataract surgery and lens implants which made a marked difference in my vision. I had the best ophthalmologist anyone could have asked for. I could not have afforded the surgery at all without Medicare. My choice of physicians and my treatment didn't have a damn thing to do with bureaucrats.
You need to get a grip on reality.
BJ
I am sorry BJ but when they cut Medicare I hope you are not over 55years old. I'd hate for you to lose wat you hve now.
Because when they extend to all people young and old it will have to be left to bureaucrats in order to "save" money.
Okay before you gat all over me I realize that you are over 55 if you are getting Medicare. Everyone calm down.
Lisa, you still don't get it. With recission, denials for pre-existing conditions, and arbitrary refusals of treatment, we already have bureaucrats rationing health care. At least after reform those bureaucrats will be ultimately accountable to the voters, which they now are not, and we won't still be spending double what most developed countries do to get only average health outcomes.
so they say.
Doubting Richard, I think Infidel and others already debunked your arguments here.
But I actually lived under a socialized health care system (and everything else) for 22 years. We had no medical bankruptcies there, nobody died of treatable or preventable diseases, nobody was refused medical care and nobody waited to see specialists. Of course there were no imaginary death panels, but that goes without saying. If only more Americans had an opportunity to experience this kind of health care first hand, they would be fighting for it, not against it.
Infidel has already brought up the practice of rescission here, so I don't have to.
You are in UK, and, as much as you may complain about your health care system (and one can always find something to criticize and complain about, no matter where one is/goes), nobody dies there of treatable diseases and nobody goes bankrupt because of their obscene medical bills.
But I can give you a more personal example of how our "best health care in the world" is inferior to NHS. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor this year and needed an urgent surgery. (The tumor was missed by the first two docs whom I saw, BTW.) The first specialist I contacted after the tumor was finally noticed, could see me in a month. Since it was a potentially deadly tumor, I couldn't wait that long, so I kept looking for another doc. It took me two weeks to see a specialist and have the surgery.
In contrast, in the UK patients with a diagnosed brain tumor are assessed by a specialist within 24 hours in 99.9 percent of cases. And should they need surgery, they don't pay a dime for it. My surgery cost, as of now (and the bills are still coming), $120,000.00+.
You may also be interested in learning that as self-employed individuals, my husband and I pay almost $1,000.00 a month for our health insurance; our deductible -- what we have to pay out of pocket before the insurance kicks in -- is $10,000.00 (and then 20% up to $20,000.00). The insurance does not pay for medications at all.
So it's a crappy insurance, as you see; we can no longer afford it, but we cannot drop it or change it, because of my preexisting condition and a possibility of more expensive tests and treatments in the near future.
Give me a public option now, I'm ready to sign for it. Have been ready for 23 years.
BTW, Richard you may also see this and this to get a better idea how our health "care" system "works" (or doesn't, rather).
Elizabeth wow I cannot even debate that one so I won't.
I don't know where you lived but I have a serious question.
Do elderly people get treated equally as far as getting treated for serious diseases and also is the waiting period longer for them.
I know someone who was almost blind over 60 years old who had to wait 1 year for cataract surgery in Canada and also a man who is 58 from Canada who needed heart surgery because his cardiologist there told him he was fine even though he kept insisting he didn't feel well and he was told he could not see another doctor because it wasn't necessary. He and his wife relocated here and he went to a cardiologist here and was told he had to get in immediatley and when they went in he was so bad he wouldn't have lasted much longer. Also the 60 year old woman who is my neighbor in back of me's aunt came here for her surgery as well.
So yes there are horror stories everywhere I am just wondering if age plays any factor in the system you were under being that is the fear many elderly people are having.And when I say elderly I mean 55 and up.
I also have a customer who was cured of Pancreatic cancer,very unusual indeed in Sloan Kettering . She was 56 at the time and 4 years later still cancer free and still goes every 3 months for follow up. I just wonder under a socialized system would people that age be taken care the same as if they were alot younger?
I also met someone in the UK who says if you need specailized treatements for certain things you don't get great treatment under the NHS and he had to take out supplemental insurance to get better care for his digestive problems.
So basically over there if you can afford it you can get better treatment prety much like here now.
wow Elizabeth, what a compelling story! You should be telling this personal story before Congress and talking about our NEED for a public option. I am without insurance right now and God-forbid something terrible happens! LISA ARE YOU READING???
lisa I knew you would misunderstand... Elizabeths horror story and mounting debt are because of her insurance in this country!
Sue good God I asked her a serious question. Yes I understand her story the debt she has from it and I don't agree that someone should have to go through that and that we need reform.
I knew you would misunderstand my question too.
As I recall it was the Healthcare system everyone was bashing then it became the insurance companies.
I say leave the insurance companies but put more resriction on them and force them to compete with each other not the government.
But I know the ultimate goal is to rid the country of big business unless it's one that is owned by the government.
Thanks, Sue and Lisa. Yes, we do have those bills (the deductible) to pay off, but -- and it is a good thing, of course -- the insurance paid the bulk of the surgery bill. (They pay 100% of anything above $20,000.00.) I shudder to think where we would be without the insurance, as lousy and expensive as it is. Bear in mind, this is the situation millions of people in the US are in (Sue and her family included).
About the elderly: yes, they were treated just like everyone else (I'm originally from Poland, btw). It is hard to explain the peace of mind that this kind of health care gives people. Of course it was not perfect, I'm sure there were people who complained about it, and some even for good reasons perhaps. I did not experience any problems related to negligent or substandard health care in my 22 years of living there, nor knew of anyone who did. BTW, we had home doctors' visits, as if "free" (i.e., paid with our taxes) health care was not good enough. :) So if you were too sick to go to the doc's office, but not sick enough to go to the hospital, the doc would come to you -- the same day you called. Hard to imagine, no?
Our health care (and education) system is something I've missed the most after coming to the US.
Now keep in mind that what Obama is proposing is nowhere near the kind of single-payer government-run health care I've talked about above. Which is too bad, IMO, as you well know. :)
I didn't have healthcare for about 5 years myself once. I used a credit card a few times when I got sick and I had to pay a dental bill of that took about a year. I was there too but was lucky there was nothing catastrophic.
I hope we can come to something that works well for us.
Thanks Elizabeth for the explanation.
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