Sarah Palin - Death Panels & Crazy

One of the most revolting things about the current debate about health care reform is the claim by Sarah Palin and others that reimbursing doctors under Medicare for end-of-life counseling would somehow create federal "death panels" that would kill her baby with Down Syndrome and others. To almost any rational person, especially those with experience in the difficult choices associated with end-of-life and disability care decisions, such claims are both pathetic and dangerous...as Jon Stewart put it recently, "crazy".

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Healther Skelter
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

What's equally bizarre is that Sarah Palin as Alaska's Governor on April 16, 2008 issued a proclamation stressing the importance of end-of-life counseling on the Alaska declared "Health Care Decisions Day", which also included a call for government involvement because of "both a lack of knowledge and considerable confusion in the public about Advance Directives."

The complete text follows:

State of Alaska > Governor > Proclamations > Proclamations Archive

Healthcare Decisions Day

WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. WHEREAS, in Alaska, Alaska Statute 13.52 provides the specifics of the advance directives law and offers a model form for patient use.

WHEREAS, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of people in Alaska have executed an advance directive. Moreover, it is estimated that less than 50 percent of severely or terminally ill patients have an advance directive.

WHEREAS, it is likely that a significant reason for these low percentages is that there is both a lack of knowledge and considerable confusion in the public about Advance Directives.

WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.

WHEREAS, the Foundation for End of Life Care in Juneau, Alaska, and other organizations throughout the United States have endorsed this event and are committed to educating the public about the importance of discussing healthcare choices and executing advance directives.

WHEREAS, as a result of April 16, 2008, being recognized as Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, more citizens will have conversations about their healthcare decisions; more citizens will execute advance directives to make their wishes known; and fewer families and healthcare providers will have to struggle with making difficult healthcare decisions in the absence of guidance from the patient.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 16, 2008, as:

Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.

Dated: April 16, 2008

Healthcare Decisions Day, April 16, 2008 Official Proclamation from the Office of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin


Despite a huge state budget surplus, Palin's Alaska underfunded a state agency charged with providing assisted living services to seniors allowing them to stay in their homes, even though more than 60% of the cost of the program was paid for by federal dollars. The program was rife with mismanagement and incompetence, eventually creating the need for a federal intervention before Palin left office in 2009 after hundreds of Alaskan seniors had died while on waiting lists for assessments from state nurses, creating both major health care problems for seniors and an increasing number of lawsuits filed against the state. In 2008 the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the state had improperly cut off or reduced benefits to more than 1,000 Alaskan seniors. Alaska was the only state in which the federal government needed to intervene, requiring a moratorium on new applications to the program while a huge backlog of cases was resolved and management and operations drastically improved.

Anchorage Daily News - "Troubled Alaska health programs face federal restriction"


Sarah The Crazy even went so far as to completely mischaracterize Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson on her latest Facebook missive, "Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described "true believer" who "will almost certainly support" "whatever reform package finally emerges", agrees that "If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending." What Palin failed to include was Robinson's next sentence specifically pointing to her as a primary source of misinformation, which read "It's irresponsible for politicians, such as Sarah Palin, to claim -- outlandishly and falsely -- that there's going to be some kind of "death panel" to decide when to pull the plug on Aunt Sylvia.", as Robinson reiterated on MSNBC's "Countdown".

Daily Kos details Palin's Facebook lies and misinformation.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The only competition here is for which one is worst...the raging hypocrisy, outright lies, or the incompetence of the program under federal intervention in Alaska.

Ronald Reagan - Medicare & The Myth Of Socialist Dictatorship

In light of the current debate over health care/insurance reform, a reflection back to the fight over Medicare in the early 1960's is in order.

Ronald Reagan got his political start as a paid spokesperson for the American Medical Association trying to stop the socialized medicine Medicare would eventually be. He firmly stated that liberals in favor of it were nothing more than socialists in disguise.

He then went on to assert that if Medicare was passed, it would quickly serve as "a foot in the door" to force all Americans into a socialized medicine plan.

Reagan also asserted that if Medicare was enacted, it wouldn't be long before a full socialist dictatorship, and worse, would follow.

Sound familiar???

Linked below are an excellent essay detailing Reagan's history of opposition to Medicare and Social Security, along with audio from the AMA record titled "Ronald Reagan speaks out against SOCIALIZED MEDICINE".


Operation Coffeecup: Ronald Reagan’s Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare



Ronald Reagan - The Biggest Con Of All

I AM AN AMERICAN REAGAN CONSERVATIVE SHITHEEL

The following is an expanded and developed version of a post originally made on the Something Awful Forums on July 24, 2009 by "randomnoise". Since then the post has been picked up and reposted by hundreds of others worldwide. The original post can be found here.

This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department Of Energy and my state power board. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility from the reservoir regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the Federal Communications Commission regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the United States Postal Service. My garbage will be picked up today by my municipal trash collection agency and taken to the government-owned landfill, while items able to be recycled will be collected and reused.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards And Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built, maintained and lighted by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality and pollutant level determined by the EPA and my state Department of Agriculture, using legal tender issued by the United States Federal Reserve Bank. My congressionally mandated catalytic converter keeps my car exhaust more than 95% cleaner than my parent's first car and improves the fuel mileage of my Chevy Tahoe SUV while I drive on my U.S. Department Of Transportation approved and graded tires and remind myself that global warming is environmental nonsense.

I turn on my GPS which uses satellites developed and launched by the U.S. Department Of Defense to guide me to my destinations, fasten my congressionally mandated shoulder and lap belts, and buckle the kids in their NHTSA-approved child safety seats while they play with toys approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. On my way to the federal interstate highway I pass a group of homeless people, some of who are carrying signs that say "Will Work For Food". I tell my kids that despite unemployment rates approaching 15% in my local area, the only reason any American doesn't have a job is because they don't want to work, and that the millions of Americans not counted on unemployment rolls because they have given up after months or years of looking just didn't look hard enough or were unwilling to take jobs that were offered.

While I'm on the highway I pass a DOT station where large trucks are being weighed and inspected as I listen to Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage or Neal Boortz on the radio. I follow the government-mandated traffic signs and signals and drop the kids off at the public school. I call my Mom on my FCC approved and licensed cell phone to check to see if she's taken her Medicare paid for prescriptions as requested by the doctor from the Veterans Administration. Her Social Security check arrived today. She tells me a social worker from the local publicly-funded elderly care agency was by earlier to check on her which she appreciated very much, and she is on the way to walk her dog at the city owned park which features a historic amphitheater built by the Works Progress Administration under The New Deal, where she can hear an orchestra whose free performance is funded by a public music program. She also tells me her next door neighbor just lost his health insurance and cannot get new coverage because his oldest child has a pre-existing condition no insurer wants to accept, and he is devastated by the news.

I then drive to the local license bureau to have my state license tags updated and renew my state driver's license at the low-rent state offices which have minimal furniture and amenities. I have lunch at a restaurant which was graded by the local food safety inspector. While at lunch I talk to my friends about what I've heard on talk radio lately including the posters going around the Internet showing Obama as The Joker with Socialism or Facism as the label and how true they are. We also talk about Michele Obama's White House staff as her attendants, and how Obama has already created more debt than all the presidents before him combined. We discuss the health care reform bill that will create death panels like Sarah Palin says, keep anyone from signing up for a new private health care plan, force people to see government doctors instead of their own, and make everyone have to qualify before a government board to get care that's going to be rationed. Even though the country has more then $10 trillion dollars in debt, we all agree our taxes are far too high. We all agree that a UAW worker making $65,000 a year with benefits after twenty years on the job is the only real reason Detroit is in trouble. I end the lunch with a joke whose punch line is that when a person on disability payments gets an offer from an angel to heal him, he turns them down. We all laugh.

On my way back to work I get a call from my broker telling me my high grade real estate fund investments have fallen more than 50% in value in the last quarter, while my investments in municipal bonds continue to generate 5% tax-free income. He also tells me that despite my investment's huge loss in value, his firm's fee structure will be increased next month in order to increase executive and sales bonuses needed to retain top talent, and that I should ignore any stories about his firm in the liberal news media about insider trading or investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission. I call to make a plane ticket reservation on an airplane whose safety is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration and which will fly under the guidance of the federal air traffic control system. I'll check onto my flight after a search by the Transportation Safety Administration. While I'm away on business I plan to stay an extra weekend to visit the nearby national park.

When I return to my job I find a meeting has been scheduled to announce a 30% increase in health care insurance premiums with increased deductibles and less coverage, followed by a notice that jobs may be consolidated with those from another office across the country, and that some employees will be required to re-apply for their old jobs at a much lower salary. As a manager, I am told the need for the changes is driven by the companies' failure to meet Wall Street analyst expectations, even though corporate profits have actually increased. My company paid no federal corporate earnings taxes last year.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department Of Labor and the Occupational Safety And Health Administration, I drive my NTHSA-approved Tahoe back home on the DOT roads to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

When I get home I find a letter from my best friend from high school telling me he's been laid off along with thousands of other people at his company after being on the job for twenty years. At the same time of the layoff announcements, his companies' board of directors approved tens of millions of dollars in executive pay bonuses at their week-long annual meeting in the Cayman Islands attended with spouses and company executives who charged more than $150,000 in spa treatments, golf, tennis, scuba and surfing lessons and deep-sea fishing charters which they will deduct from their federal corporate tax liability as business expenses. The board has also voted to ship most of the companies' remaining jobs to Malaysia where workers average $30 a week working six twelve-hour days with no benefits in order to maintain global competitiveness and enhance shareholder value, after the company only a few years ago demanded and received a multi-year tax abatement worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the local and state governments to keep his plant in the local area. As a now unemployed worker with two kids ready to enter college, he has no idea how he will support his family.

I flush my toilet which connects to the local sewage treatment plant which feeds me back discounted recycled water I use for my lawn and shrubs. Most of my friends in my neighborhood of $300,000+ homes use lawn services employing illegal aliens because they tell me they work harder and are much cheaper than legal Americans who require a minimum wage.

I turn on Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, and then log on to the Internet which was developed by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because I KNOW the government can't do anything right and the private sector is ALWAYS better, and kiss my portrait of Ronald Reagan before I go to bed.