Great band name, huh? It should probably be Newt and the Lying Hypocrites, but that is beside the point.
On a serious note, the latest health care lie pushed by the republicans is “Obama is going to kill your grandma.” Classic shock and awe, baby. It has ignited outrage, protests, and many viral forwarded emails. (Has anyone received a mass forwarded political email that’s actually true? I haven’t.)
Too bad it’s not true. (Despite being continuously pushed, to this day, by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, the teabaggers, and various repub congresspeople.) And too bad the republican leadership (read Newt Gingrich) were for it, before they were against it.
In comes a great post from Matt Taibbi on True/Slant titled, Newt Gingrich Changes What’s Left of his Mind on End-of-life Care.
So, a few months ago someone wrote this in the Washington Post:
More than 20 percent of all Medicare spending occurs in the last two months of life. Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin has developed a successful end-of-life, best practice that combines: 1) community-wide advance care planning, where 90 percent of patients have advance directives; 2) hospice and palliative care; and 3) coordination of services through an electronic medical record. The Gundersen approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care. The Dartmouth Health Atlas has documented that Gundersen delivers care at a 30 percent lower rate than the national average ($18,359 versus $25,860). If Gundersen’s approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.
via Health Care Rx: Across the Country, Some Systems Are Getting It Right – Newt Gingrich.
Yup, Newt Gingrich. So Newt loves him some advanced care directives! Would save Medicare more than $33 billion per year. Sounds good, right? So good, we should include it in the health care reform bill.
Except that is the portion of the health care bill the baggers are flipping out about. Kill Grandma! Obama loves Euthanasia! Government Death Panels! So, Newt must be trying to set them straight, right? Nope. He’s against it, now.
Newt defending Palin’s crusade against Death Panels:
STEPHANOPOLOUS: The only thing that’s in the bill is that Medicare would pay for what they say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.
GINGRICH: I think people are very concerned when you start talking about cost-controls… you’re asking us to trust the government. Now I’m not talking about the Obama administration, I’m talking about the government. You’re asking us to believe that the government is to be trusted. We know people who’ve said routinely, well, you’re going to have to make decisions. You’re going to have to decide. Communal stadards, historically, is a very dangerous concept.
STEPHANOPOLOUS: It’s not in the bill.
GINGRICH: (stammering) B-but, the bill’s… a thousand pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You’re asking us to trust the government when there clearly are people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.
Yeah, you go Newt. Say it like you really mean it! Matt nails it at the end of his post:
Amazing. I mean, talk about being full of shit. This is as clear a case as you will ever find of a politician just getting up on television and just flat-out dogging it, saying something without even the faintest shred of belief, just as a means to an end. What an asshole!
The sad thing is, while health care is obviously in need of reform, the teabaggers/birthers/fringe lunatics that are out at town halls screaming their heads off (and getting all of that news coverage) don’t want ANY bill to pass. Their goal is to make sure no bill passes — anything else and they fail.
It’s ridiculous really, that anything the neocons are against they cue up the script: distort/lie about the issue (the more dramatic and shocking the better), scream until they are heard, the media feels like they need to provide a soapbox to this fringe group (all sides need equal time, of course!), and the story spreads. It always seems to work. They may have really bad ideas (when they do have ideas, other than ‘No! We don’t want that.’) and nutcases (Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Steele, Santorum, etc. etc.) for spokespeople, but they are good marketers. They know how to work the system.
