John Amato: When did a living will become a bad thing and one that marks you for death? This is insanity. I've had a living will for over ten years already and I had one drawn up for legal reasons as well as medical. I remember when people were running around trying to be able to sell living wills to make a few extra bucks and they were thought of as a very smart document to have.
(cross posted on VideoCafe.Crooksandliars.com)On one hand Tweety can debunk Glenn Beck and the birthers, and on the other hand he can sound just as nutty.
C&Ler Jolynn emailed me this: If Terri Schiavo had an End of Life Consultation and a Living Will, she could have saved everyone a lot of money and heartache. Matthews is an idiot.
More from Heather:
Why is Chris Matthews carrying water for the "deathers" -- as Rachel Maddow aptly called them on her show -- and conflating end of life counseling with abortion, and something to fear, while his network has allowed Maddow to do a thorough debunking of both those talking points and where they came from?
Matthews went so far as to conflate end-of-life counseling with the government paying for abortions, and called them both "social policy". So Chris, are you now trying to find a nice way to call the President a "socialist" without coming right out and saying so? And why is it something to be afraid of if someone under the age of 65 is allowed to get some help with making a living will?
Matthews: It's a provision that allows you to get counseling every five years or so. I wonder what the hell this provision's doing in a bill that's aimed at people who are younger. It's not Medicare recipients, people over sixty five. Why do we want to be visited every five years by somebody to talk about how you want to die? I think it's crazy this in in there, but your thoughts.
Romano: But it's not in there. I mean basically...
Matthews: It is in there!! (crosstalk) It's in the bill, in the Dingel bill..
Romano: Chris, first of all, it's an extension of a 1999 bill that was enacted during the Bush administration and it's a self determination and a patients' rights bill, and all it really says is that Medicare will pay if somebody wants to go and have a consultation. It doesn't sa you have to have a consultation...
Matthews: It's not about Medicare, Lois. You already have that in Medicare. This is about people under sixty five, younger people. This is not about Medicare, we've got it in Medicare coverage. I'm not saying that. This is about a health care bill to help people in their middle years and their younger years. Why would you have this conversation with them?
Uhhhh..Chris, because maybe people under age 65 who are ill might want access to this sort of counseling? Matthews goes on to fear monger about the counseling and compare it to something that goes on in...gasp..Europe.
Matthews: I just have a sense this is put in by a lobbyist who wanted this in for hospice care. Somebody pushed this in there. It's the kind of social policy dynamite that sounds like Denmark or Scandanavia, and it's that kind of mind set that drives a lot of moderates and conservatives crazy.
Politico's Jonathan Martin does his best to continue Matthews fear mongering. Nice job with helping out the likes of Virginia Foxx there Martin. Matthews gets in a shot at the "lefties" and then does this bit of mental acrobatics:
Matthews: I think it's like the abortion issue that's been jammed into this thing, there shouldn't, we have the Hyde amendment Lois that says the government will not pay for abortion. People were talking about putting that into the bill here. Pro-choice that want the government to pay for abortions. There's a lot of social policy being jammed at us on what is essentially a financing issue.
I've got news for you, Chris. This doesn't drive moderates crazy. It drives crazy people to be even more crazy, and you're not helping the situation with this kind of talk.
Thankfully Rachel Maddow added some sanity to the network's coverage for the day, and reminded everyone just where this "deathers" rhetoric came from.
Check out Maddow's evidence that debunks the deathers and video here.