The President is known to be an effective campaigner. Of course, he has never stopped campaigning. But I am sure there will come a time, sometime, when he will decide to actually be a president. But until he does, let’s take a look at one of his campaign techniques.
One thing is evident: he will use anyone or anything for political gain. Even grandmama. Let’s take a look on how he uses her, in defense against the accusation that his government takeover of healthcare – includes death panels.
“I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that,” an impassioned Obama told a crowd as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with “the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma.”
Of course, no one is accusing Obama that he ran for President in order to pull the plug on all the grandmamas out there. He ran for President to transform our nation into a socialist state and then afterwards, save the world. But that’s another thing. What Obama is doing here is using his grandmama for cover, and creating a straw man (straw woman?) to avoid the real issue of cutting costs in healthcare.
Earlier in the year, Obama brought up his grandmama, but his argument was quite different.
April 29 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.
The president’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had a hip replaced after she was diagnosed with cancer, Obama said in an interview with the New York Times magazine that was published today. Dunham, who lived in Honolulu, died at the age of 86 on Nov. 2, 2008, two days before her grandson’s election victory.
“I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost,” Obama said in the interview. “I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother.”
Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill.”
“That’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues,” he said in the April 14 interview. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”
Now we see quite a different story. The issue is controlling costs. Whether Obama would have paid for his grandmama’s hip replacement or not isn’t the question here, he is a millionaire and he has the resources. He has the choice. For those who don’t have the resources, the issue is whether a government takeover of our healthcare, will include panels that will make those difficult moral decisions for us.
What about this thing that Sarah Palin called “death panels?” Will there be such a thing in discussing end of life issues, making those difficult moral decisions for us? Here again, what Obama says as a campaigner is quite different from his statements previously made.
NYT – Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.
Whether you call it an independent group or a death panel, the president is proving that he is not being honest. And that means he cannot be trusted with his true intentions in his government takeover of our healthcare.
And it also means that we need to take note when Obama – talks about his grandmama.
UPDATE! 8/23/09
Obamacare: Evidence that “End of Life” Counseling Could Be Directed Toward Death – Wesley J. Smith
UPDATE! 8/21/09
I want to make a clarification here. When I used the term “death panels,” I mean a panel that discusses end of life issues. End of life, well, means death. I am not saying euthanasia is in any part of the Democrat’s healthcare bills.
As for Sarah Palin, she never said that “death panels” existed in the healthcare bills – but that it could lead to “death panels.”
Even Charles Krauthammer, who is a critic of Sarah Palin, supplies ammo for concerns about “death panels.”
We also have to tell the defenders of the notorious Section 1233 of H.R. 3200 that it is not quite as benign as they pretend. To offer government reimbursement to any doctor who gives end-of-life counseling — whether or not the patient asked for it — is to create an incentive for such a chat.
What do you think such a chat would be like? Do you think the doctor will go on and on about the fantastic new million-dollar high-tech gizmo that can prolong the patient’s otherwise hopeless condition for another six months? Or do you think he’s going to talk about — as the bill specifically spells out — hospice care and palliative care and other ways of letting go of life?
I hope that folks didn’t get all “wee-weed up.”
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Filed under: Obamacare | Tagged: Barack Obama, death panels, Madelyn Payne Dunham, Nationalized Health-care, Obamacare, Sarah Palin
I wouldn’t trust obama with a Rubber Duck!!!
He’s a liar and cheater and I don’t like him!!!
I agree that some campaign pledges from Obama seem to have vanished during his Presidency. However, calling end-of-life counseling a Death Panel cheapens the discussion, makes Palin look like an idiot, and serves no good purpose, IMO.
To cause such controversy that end-of-life counseling is removed from a Senate health reform bill is a shame, and makes Republicans look like a bunch of crazed screaming children that will pull a REAL tantrum if they don’t get their way.
End of life issues bring in religion, health, finance, and personal concerns. For an elderly parent with no DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order, it is crazy for a family to say “save Mom at all costs”, when mom is 82, had a heart attack, stroke and no brain activity. Being a vegetable on a vent is not my idea of a quality lifestyle.
These issues are complicated, and NEED public discourse to resolve them as well as possible, not juvenile responses that things are changing and resisting that much needed change for no good reason.
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
so – as a right winger are you for equality? or only equality for those that are “more equal”?
Hey Mark!
It’s important to get the facts straight. Sarah Palin never called end-of-life counseling a Death Panel. It makes Democrats and liberals look like a bunch of crazed screaming children that will pull a REAL tantrum if they don’t get their way. They will misconstrue the facts and demonize those who don’t agree with them.
It isn’t the responsibility of the State to come between the patient, family, doctor, clergy, etc, when it comes to end of life counseling.
Even Charles Krauthammer, who is a critic of Sarah Palin, supplies ammo for concerns about “death panels.”
Stumbled across this, and had to give you high fives. So many of our Presidents supporters forget his previous comments, leaving them quite blind. Posting his contradictory statements regarding his grandma help to open some eyes. Kudos! =-)
I always wondered why he did not go back to Hawaii to his Grandmother’s funeral. He had the time. She died on Nov.3,08. I also wondered when he went home a month before she died why he did not take his family.
Obama said he would have paid for his grandmama’s hip replacement. That means he did not pay for her hip replacement even though he did have the opportunity to do so.
SueG52
I wonder how long the Grandma was frozen before the planned thaw on Nov. 3rd 2008. Has any one ever checked? She was probably cremated so no one could check.