Palin Facebook post: Administration health care plan is ‘evil’
August 7th, 2009From Jake Tapper on ABC’s ‘Political Punch’ blog, AP:
A statement posted on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page today labeled the administration’s health care plan as “evil,” and said it is designed to save money by withholding care from people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. An excerpt from the post, titled “Statement on the Current Health Care Debate”:
… who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Tapper calls the claim “pants-on-fire untrue,” and offers refutations from Factcheck.org and Politifact.com.
Palin’s spokeswoman did not immediately confirm her authorship of the statement.
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August 19th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Oh this is about Sarah Palins’ ” death panel” statement like other writers on here I have personally seen insurance companies override living wills and medical directives so there are and have been so called “death panels” around for some time, this is just one more scare tactic the republicans are using and have used in the past because, without insurance companies who would fund their campaigns? Just a thought….
August 19th, 2009 at 8:49 am
As a parent of two grown children with challenges, I find Sarah Palins’ “use” of her sons DS appalling to gain political kudos, she would have better served children with challenges by working with them. As governor of Alaska I was dismayed she would not allow special olympics participitation there I actually cried when I read the article.
I don’t believe she ever went and watched the children and young people participate in an special olympic event and seen the joy of accomplishment on their faces even if they finished last, they were praised and given ribbons and trophies or how like all the parents(including myself) cheered them on.
During the campaign Ms. Palin sounded as though she deserved brownie points for herself like she had the corner on having a challenged child, there are millions of parents who have these wonderful gifts from God who work tirelessly with their children so they can have as much advantage as the average child, I never wanted applause or public aknowledgement most parents don’t. I never paraded my children around like it was all about me.
P.S. I was deeply saddened by the loss of Eunice Shriver a wonderful advocate for people who are challenged she will be missed by all whose lives she touched.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:17 am
What are we currently calling the insurance company panels that deny a father coverage for his family after switching jobs because his 8 year-old daughter has a pre-existing heart condition? Life Squads?
Please. This woman is a clown, at some point those of us who feel like we can relate with her because we both know the struggles that accompany raising a child with Down syndrome (the S isn’t capitalized Mrs. Palin, at least get that right before we start nominating you as protector of our children) will realize that it doesn’t necessarily translate to good political decision and knowledge.
August 9th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
There are numerous clinics and research centers in the U.S. dedicated to improving the medical outcomes and quality of life for people with Down syndrome from birth to old age. They obviously don’t get the press that the med research corporations developing new prenatal tests do, but it is an exaggeration to say the “medical profession” invests nothing in improving people with Down syndrome’s lives.
Our experience with the “medical profession” in terms of how a multitude of doctors and nurses have treated our child has been overwhelmingly positive. Not once has someone in the medical profession even remotely suggested they felt pity for us or would have done things differently themselves, and we’ve seen a pretty diverse group of individuals in seeking treatment.
For info on clinics that specialize in assisting individuals with Down syndrome see :
http://www.ds-health.com/clinics.htm
August 9th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Mandy
I don’t disagree that there are many docs who give short shrift to a pregnancy with an expected “less than perfect” outcome. There are also, however, defects which can be treated prenatally, and I’m not for stopping the ability of science to deal with that. In fact, I’m all for it. I’m hoping for a day when early detection, for example, of spina bifida comes with hope that it can be treated before the child emerges from the womb with severe disabilities. It would have been great if my daughter’s heart and UT anomalies could have been helped much much earlier. (Indeed, my own mother was sent home from the hospital empty handed when it was believed that I had suffered anoxia at birth and would never develop normally – but that was nearly sixty years ago, and an ultrasound would have shown my transverse presentation, the position of the umbilicus, etc. and called for a C-section before the thirty some hours she lay in excruciating but pointless labor, and the 96-stitch episiotomy that left her cervix bisected.)
Sen. Kennedy’s efforts (with Brownback) to encourage a more honest and complete discussions about the prospect for children with DS gives me hope.
But Palin’s characterization of this bill is just more talking point hysteria. Here’s what one writer said this morning about “death panels” which certainly rang true in my own experience with end of life care:
“You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. “Living will” or no, it doesn’t matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.
If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is. ”
http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2009/08/dont-talk-to-me-about-death-panels.html
August 9th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Mary, the campaign to abort fetuses with Down Syndrome is wholly approved by the medical profession which invests vast financial resources in the development of “improved” methods for detecting Down’s prior to birth but invests nothing (do I exaggerate?? parents?) in research into how to medically improve the lives and the prospects of people with Down Syndrome.
If your experience is different, I’d love to hear about it.
August 8th, 2009 at 9:24 am
I’m rarely this blunt, but this calls for it. Sarah Palin is a liar. Period. End of discussion.
August 8th, 2009 at 8:24 am
You know, if you don’t trust this admin, it’s not an unreasonable leap. What was the prelude to the bill – comments by our President about how the elderly and the terminally ill take up a disproportionate percentage of healthcare resource dollars. Even if the intention is not nefarious, why in the world would anyone in a position to determine policy make a statment like that?