Sarah Palin Wins

The Senate Finance Committee has stripped a provision to reimburse Medicare doctors who provide end-of-life counseling to dying patients from its version of health care reform. Take that, Hitler.

Hitler, like I have to tell you, supports Medicare reimbursement for end-of-life counseling because he wants the Federal government to talk America's old people into killing themselves. We don't know why he wants this. Maybe he's still bitter about the Battle of the Bulge.

And he would have gotten away with it, too, if not for Sarah Palin's Facebook page.

Sarah Palin Facebook status was: "... is fearing Death Panels." (Thumbs down. Doesn't like this.) And that was good enough for Chuck Grassley.

As Grassley explains:

We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.

If you were really, really bone ignorant, for example, you could think they meant, "death panels."

Fair enough. You don't want to confuse people into getting Hitlered. But was this idea that complicated? You get the very real impression that if our standard for legislation was "understandable to Palins" we'd have to retire the "Yield" sign.

Does Chuck Grassley mean we can only write laws that make sense to people who can't name a newspaper?

Are we really stripping counseling from health care because of what doctors might say? (We all know, given the chance, a doctor will always talk you into suicide. That's where the money is.) Why not forbid doctors from talking to patients at all, just to be safe? Call it the Palin-Grassley Freedom from Information Act.

Of course that's not what we're really talking about. We know that end-of-life counseling doesn't mean euthanizing the gullible. (Soylent Green is Palins! Soylent Green is Palins!) Getting this bill rewritten -- or getting it killed altogether -- is about something more primal than that.

It's about how good it feels to bully someone.

(That's what the town hall protests are about, too. What could be a more basic human pleasure than to scream at someone until they give you what you want?)

(And what's the most satisfying thing to demand? Silence.)

There are thousands of words in the health care bill that Sarah Palin and the Tea Baggers could have chosen to misconstrue. They chose the counseling provision because if they could defeat that, it would mean they had to power to tell a doctor to shut up.

Doctors think they're so smart? Well, they ain't gonna tell me about medicine. Or any of their other patients, either, without they gets my say so.

Same as congressmen tellin' me about gummint. I'm a gunna hollar 'atil they shuts up too.

Just like James Madison would.

--

So Sarah Palin wins.

I keep thinking about what Robert Stone wrote about Lee Harvey Oswald.

This was a man whose only gift was the wit to compound his mistakes exponentially. A man to turn a personal fuck-up into a national disaster and make his problems everybody's.

Comments

[wayoutleft]

you still have to savor the delicious irony of supposedly backward and stupid sarah using facebook to off the health plan while supposedly tech-savvy, facebook hero barack flails in the backwash. this also seems to answer questions about what she will do now that she quit the governorship. i'm a pro-obama lefty - butr it's just small not to appreciate that.

[notajesusgigolo]

Hey, folks. Don't be so quick to set aside the common wisdom that , "It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." The only person making screechy noises is the Fairbanks Fisherwife, aka Caribou Barbie. There seems to be no end to the ways she voluntarily exploits her toddler and his disability to distort facts and manufacture unfounded fear.
Methinks somebody is pulling her strings and that she has never read pages 301-311 of the proposed Senate Health Care Bill. That's where she would find extensive details of the SHARED decision-making procedures that are merely OPTIONAL for families to use when a loved one has a terminal illness. These consultation sessions would merely help the capable patient and/or survivors make informed decisions about respectful end-of-life care. Things like knowing what local resources - beyond expensive hospitals - such as hospices, nursing homes, or even home care would be the best and most affordable and workable for everyone. It's about having at least a rudimentary plan for the entire family as they otherwise helplessly watch their family member's gradual decline.
Congress needs to hear from the "silent majority," who understand that this legislation is intended to benefit Americans rather than just fill the coffers of insurers. They're the ones who "pull the plug on grandma" when they refuse to adequately reimburse for reasonable care.

[1lauralei]

Okay. Now it is time for us to stop stating the obvious and come up with a catchy counter-buzzphrase to fight fire with fire. Sorry to be dull,but the best I can up with is 'insurance company tool.' Sorry.

[canadiansoccermom]

Way to go Palin. No end of life counselling that was available before and no rape kits for victims of rape. Now that's a fiscal conservative. What a visionary.

[grandma58]

Glad I took the time to read this.

[Articulator]

Republicans are all about fear and disinformation and that somehow is their plan to get back into power.

[Binckeslaw]

Sen. Frist was able to make a diagnosis of Teri Schiavo by watching her on a TV screen in only fifteen seconds. This proves that doctors who conduct hands-on examinations are defrauding the insurance companies that are protecting us. Doctors should be precluded from meeting with or talking to their patients. They should be able to ascertain all the information they need to make a rock solid diagnosis from a polaroid still-life picture. Anything more is just defensive medicine triggered by fear of frivilous law suits.

[Kevin Tierney]

How sad for Obama, Sarah Palin's Facebook page is more effective then the entire administration and the Democratic majority in Congress. I am not a fan of Palins, but if anyone 15 minutes are up, its Obamas.

[Mikimiki]

Palin's basic problem is that she doesn't realize she has used up her allotted 15 minutes of fame. And being so insubstantial in intellect and performance, she keeps twisting in the wind, while nibbling away at her superheated ego thanks to the recent Republican blunder which put her on the national scene. If the Party wishes to become totally irrelevant, sign up Bush and Palin for the next presidential election. If the country hasn't reached rock bottom by that time, it certainly will with this duo in the Oval Office.

[Cybesq]

Chris Kelly is the best thing on Huffington Post!!!

[serena1313]

What I find so infuriating is the democrats did not step-out ahead of this to discredit the "death panels" meme. It would have been real simple -- since the majority of Americans understand the importance of having a living will -- just a short explanation would have sufficed. Who could forget the Terri Schaivo case. Talk about government intervention! Mentioning that would put notion of "death panels" to rest.

The "death panels" originally began when Clinton tried to pass healthcare reform. The democrats should have looked through those arguments to prepare for the same falsehoods, crazy talk and ridiculous arguments coming from the right. The more things change, the more they stay the same -- the same GOP rhetoric, the same arguments, the same tactics which makes them predictable thus easy to challenge.

Insofar as the angry protesters, most have been angry a long time, but not necessarily about healthcare. However senior citizens are frightened by the prospect of "death panels." A living will is a legally binding document whereby all medical decisions are made in advance by the person before his or her death, not the government.

Ironically it was the Republicans who attempted to intervene in Terri Schaivo's case because she did not have a living will. In a nutshell that should put the argument to rest.

So while the Republicans are stuck in the past resisting what persists, the Democrats would be wise to get ahead of the game.

[gwix]

I hear what you're saying, but can any thinking person really anticipate total ignorant, irrational fear each and every time? I mean, maybe one thing, or two, or three you might be able to effectively anticipate and counter. But the GOP propaganda machine can probably generate infinite permutations of whacked out ideas so fast and furious, that a few will definitely get through the bizarre filter.

Hindsight is 20/20, and you can see the patterns that might have formed the piece of nuttiness. I just have my doubts it can be caught ahead of time.

[ywcachieve]

Palin didn't win. If the media and the people had just ignored that ignorant comment by Palin, that's all it would have took for it to go away.

[lynettema]

But that is not the reality. Media is behind big business and therefore the RW agenda. All we have is us and our sheer numbers. The numbers that showed up at President Obama's rallies and contributed to him in $25 increments. It what we have to do now - today because the media is not going to be bipartisan or fair. Expecting them to be is naive. So get out there, write those letters. Show our Congresspeople that we are behind a strong public option or our health care system is going to increasingly be health care for the wealthy and the insurance companies will be making money and not give a d*mn.

[santafesam]

Excellent post!

[den1953]

There isn't enough kool aide in the country to make people drink to vote for another Bush let alone Palin that is comical.

[KatieHW]

No, but there's apparently enough to make Congress withdraw bill provisions that would be helpful to terminal patients and their families in serious distress as they face decisions about what their end-of-life options are. (There's absolutely nothing comical about that.) Thanks, Palin and Grassley. What fine patriots you are for protecting Americans' rights and preserving our options.

[FoShizle]

so glad you got it. I like the Kool aide ref. speaking of which, did you know that Walmart can't keep ammo on it selfs in the south? its true.

[den1953]

You know for the past few days i have read about Betty Boop Palin's dislike of the health care reform what i haven't heard was her solution to any of the problems i would be enlighten to say the least! Of course i am going to need a tin foil hat and a voodoo priest to translate.

[hrholmes]

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