Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 68, Ed. 1 Sunday, August 23, 2009 Page: 4 of 50
fifty pages : ill. ; page 22 x 14 in. Digitized from 35 mm. microfilm.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
► ip Jj * * ■% <r-^« » '
«. <*» ♦* * ♦
T * - ^ &£1
“.if .♦ *• i 'ixi_:
* * 0 ^ W * •*■ * 4 * ♦ ■
• -V » 1 - | ti,.a-
jfiM* ♦ ♦ ■*■ y * -* j
• f »j ***-■*«»
PAGE 4 A
OPINIONS
THE POLK COUNTY ENTERPRISE
SUNDAY, AUGUST 21.1001
Taking us for a ride on health
care death panel nonsense
-I
“f you get a thrill from taking
a white-knuckle ride on a
Aloop-the-loop, you don’t
have to wait for the state fair
— just hop onto the right-wing
express, which is plunging into
ludicrous levels of loopiness in
an effort to kill Barack Obama’s
health care reform plan.
You’ll shriek with astonishment
as alarmist right-wing pundits and
politicos hurtle you past reality,
past credulity and past sanity.
Their wildest twist, so far, is that
the demonic Obama has included
“death panels” at the core of his
insidious rewrite of our health care
system. Yes, they cry, buried down
deep in the bill at page 425 is a
bone-chilling provision to create
federal review panels empowered
to decide whether the old, sick and
disabled are allowed to live.
Impossible, you scoff? Well,
none other than Sarah Palin says
it’s so, and we know she doesn’t
make stuff up. Citing her own
elderly parents and her baby with
Down syndrome, the ex-veep
contender recently wailed that
they “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 afe worthy of health care.”
In case you didn’t grasp the horror
of these governmental grim reapers,
Palin added this punctuation: “Such
a system is downright evil.”
Indeed, it is. Which is one reason
that Obama and the Congress have
not even contemplated such a
provision, much less included it in
the bill. Section 1233, which Palin
claims is the one containing the
evil, merely allows doctors to hold
voluntary consultations with their
patients on such matters as a living
will and other advance instructions
on the care the patients choose to
receive as their inevitable time of
death approaches.
The section provides Medicare
funding if you would like to have
your doctor to help you consider
such questions as whether you want
to be kept alive in a permanent
vegetative state.
Either Palin and her crack team of
speech writers never bothered to read
Section 1233, or they deliberately
perverted its meaning for political
puiposes. It would be one thing
if this were just another of her
goofy flights of fantasy, but the lie
about hooded bureaucrats of death
whacking grandpa has also been
gleefully perpetuated by the likes of
Newt Gingrich, Sen. Chuck Grassley,
Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and
a stampeding herd of anti-Obama
other tnith-stompers.
Rudy Giuliani even invented
a new lie to keep the flim-flam
going. Conceding that Section
1233 does not create death panels,
he insisted that forced euthanasia
was an inherent part of Obama’s
JIM HIGHTOWER
hellish plan. “It is natural," opined
Guiliani last week, “that some
people would believe, particularly
since (the Democrats) have these
provisions (in the bill) for end-
of-life decision-making councils,
that it is natural that people would
suggest that one of the ways you
would do that is to cut off care for
the elderly."
Uh ... Rudy, there are no "end-
of-life decision-making councils"
anywhere in the legislation. And
there’s nothing natural about you
asserting otherwise.
The loopiest part of the right
wing’s obsession with and
distortion of Section 1233 is that
the chief champion of putting it in
the reform package was not Obama,
nor even a Democrat. It was Johnny
Isakson — a Republican, pro-life
senator from Georgia. He has been
advocating end-of-life planning for
years.
"I believe it is every person’s
right and responsibility to make
sure their loved ones are prepared
to make decisions on their behalf by
discussing and documenting their
wishes,” he said in 2005. That’s
what Section 1233 promotes.
The claim by Palin, et al. that the
section hides death panels within
it is, as Isakson so succinctly puts
it, “nuts.”
Indeed, a similar provision for
end-of-life discussions has already
been included in Medicare law for
some patients. Guess who added
it? The 2003 Republican Congress,
and the bill was signed by George
W. So, in other words, Republicans
were for Section 1233 before they
were against it.
But such facts are inconvenient
to those trying to kill heath care
reform. When you get on board the
right-wing loop-the-loop, reality
is not permitted to interfere with a
scary political ride.
To find out more about Jim
Hightower, and read features
by other Creators Syndicate
writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators Syndicate web
page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.
COM
Independent guidance' just a rose by another name
rTlhere was a time when
I rushing a thousand-page
X bill through Congress so
fast that no one has time to read
it would have provoked public
outrage. But now, this has been
attempted twice in the first 6
months of a new administration.
The fact that they got away with
it before, with the “stimulus” bill,
may have led them to believe that
they could get away with it again.
But the first bill simply spent
hundreds of billions of dollars. The
current “health care” bill threatens
to take life-and-death decisions
out of the hands of individuals
and their doctors, transferring
those decisions to Washington
bureaucrats.
Peoplearetakingthat personally—
as they should. Your life and death,
and that of your loved ones, is as
personal as it gets.
The mainstream media are again
circling the wagons to protect
Barack Obama, but this time it
may not work. One of those front-
page editorials disguised as a news
article in the New York Times
begins: “The stubborn yet false
rumor that President Obama’s
health care proposals would create
government-sponsored ‘death
panels’ to decide which patients
were worthy of living seemed
to arise from nowhere in recent
weeks.”
Nowhere? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is
THOMAS SOWELL
“Special Advisorfor Health Policy”
for the Obama administration.
That’s nowhere? He is also co-
author of an article on Americans’
“over-utilization” of medical care
in the June 18, 2008 issue of the
Journal of the American Medical
Association. Is that nowhere?
Dr. Emanuel’s article points
out that Americans do not visit
doctors or go into hospitals more
than people in other industrialized
countries. In fact we go to both
places less often than people do
in those other countries, which
incl ude countries with government-
controlled medical care.
As the article points out, “It is
more costly care, rather than high
volume, that accounts for higher
expenditures in the United States.”
There are more Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (MRI) devices
per capita in the United States,
more coronary bypass operations
and Americans use more new
pharmaceutical drugs created
within the past 5 years.
Americans also have more of
what the article calls “amenities”
with their medical care. “Hospital
rooms in the United States offer
more privacy, comfortand auxiliary
services than do hospital rooms in
most other countries.”
In other words, it is not quantity
but quality that is different— and
more expensive— about American
medical care. This is what Dr.
Emanuel’s “over-utilization”
consists of.
At one time, it would have been
none of Dr. Emanuel’s business if
your physician prescribed the latest
medications for you, rather than the
cheaper and obsolete medications
they replaced. It would have been
none of his busi ness if you preferred
to have a nice hospital room with
“amenities” rather than being in an
unsanitary ward with inadequate
nursing care, as under the National
Health Service in Britain.
The involvement of government
gives Dr. Emanuel the leverage
to condemn other Americans’
choices— and a larger involvement
of government will give him the
power to force both doctors and
patients to change their choices.
As for a “death panel,” no
politician would ever use that
phrase when trying to get a piece
of legislation passed. “End of
life” care under the “guidance” of
“some independent group” sounds
so much nicer— and there are the
terms President Obama used in ah
interview with the New fork Times
back on April 14th.
He said, “the chronically ill and
those toward the end of their lives
are accounting for potentially 80
percent of the total health care
bill out there.” He added: “It
is very difficult to imagine the
country making those decisions
just through the normal political
channels. That is why you have to
have some independent group that
can give you guidance.”
But when you select people
like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to give
“independent” guidance, you have
already chosen a policy through
your choice of advisors, who
simply provide political cover. The
net result can be exactly the same
as if those providing that guidance
were openly called “death panels.”
To find Out more about Thomas
Sowell and read features by other
Creators Syndicate columnists
and cartoonists*. visit the Creators
Syndicate web page at www.
Thomas
creators.com. Thomas Sowell
is a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site
is www.tsowell.com.
COPYRIGHT2009 CREATORS.
COM
False charges about Obamacare don't help situation
. Letters to the Editor Policy
The Polk County Enterprise encourages readers to submit letters ex-
pressing their views and opinions. The letters will be published in the
Enterprise’s “Letters to the editor” column on Thursday or Sunday.
The letters may be written on any subject or issue of general inter-
est.
Letters must be accompanied by a name and mailing address and will
be subject to editing for grammar, punctuation, spelling and length.
Letters must include a telephone number for verification. We will not
publish the telephone number.
Readers should keep their letters brief and to the point. Each letter
should contain no more than 650 words. Letters exceeding that length
will be subject to editing or withheld from publication. Letters will also
be subject to editing for libelous statements and commercialism.
This column is not meant as a forum for political candidates, although
we welcome comments from the public concerning campaign issues.
During election campaigns, we will not allow reference to specific local
candidates.
Letters may be submitted in person; mailed to “Letters to the editor,”
Polk County Enterprise, P.O. Box 1276, Livingston, TX 77351; sent by
fax to (936) 327-7156 or sent via e-mail to polknews@gmail.com.
Deadline for letters is 5 p.m. Tuesday for Thursday’s newspaper and
noon Friday for Sunday’s newspaper.
POLK COUNTY
ENTERPRISE
ALVIN HOLLEY, PUBLISHER
IMtphonc Number 936-327-4357
(USPS 437-349)
WEBSITE: www.EaifltauNewixooi
E-MAIL: AtivirlMafi «itapriM#«itltuanewi.com Nmroom: pdknswitfgmail.oofn
OwMMhu: i4wifMlMBmiUMimwi.8Mn. Emnd u Pmodial Miner u the tat Oflk* M UvinjuonTX
Aijf wimmm Ntaticn upon tin ctatcur, rtamlni or raputition of my penan, (tam or catponlian which
«n anmr In N* neeqapw will be |My convert upon being brought to the Mention of the pubtliher.
.... ..... ' he writer end not neceiwrily thoee of Dili newepeper. Opinion:
let. POSTMASTER: Periodical poetape paid al LivInptott.TX
may appear In titian
OpWoae eapMNd In ebtumni we thoee Of the writer and not neceiearily thoee of thli newapaper. Oplnkma
enpmeed In editorial an iboeo of the EiNanriee. POSTMASTER: Period ~
Plaanaand addnae ehanpee to PO. Box 1276. Uvingiton. Taut 77331.
' |».l|»» I "I I" I» |Hil I .1 III n|\t || \ i IIIllII;’ lli.lt llllli i .ill
T ike the end-of-life tempest.
I Former Alaska Gov. Sarah
JLiPalin popularized the term
“death panels.” She said: “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”
(http://tinyurl.com/ljjzrl).
The charge that the House and
Senate health care bills would
mandate end-of-life counseling —
hence “death panels” — caught on.
Rush Limbaugh, defending Palin’s
charge, said, “(D)eath panels ...
it’s a great way to phrase this end-
of-life counseling” (http://tinyurl.
com/n7uvfp).
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley
of Iowa piled on: “You have
every right to fear. ... We should
not have a government program
that determines if you’re going to
pull the plug on grandma” (http://
tinyuri.com/pdxnq6).
But no bill in Congress mandates
end-of-life counseling, much less
“death panels.” And there’s a
deeper problem. When opponents
of nationalization make such
easily refuted charges, supporters
of nationalization gain the upper
hand. All criticism is undermined.
Neutral observers can easily
conclude, “If the death-panel claim
is false, why believe anything else
the critics say?’
That would be a disaster.
There is reason to be concerned
about end-of-life counseling, but
JOHNSTOSSE
the truth is more complicated.
Here’s the story.
The House bill does deal with
the issue. (The Senate Finance
Committee bill did until the
provision was removed the other
day.) Section 1233 amends the
Medicare law to add “advance
care planning consultation”
(counseling about living wills and
the like) to the list of reimbursable
services (http://tinyurl.com/
myotwp). The provision defines
“consultation,” but nowhere does
it require Medicare beneficiaries
to participate or authorize death
panels. (Grassley voted for a
similar provision in 2003 when his
Republican-controlled Congress
added drug coverage to Medicare
(http://tinyurl.com/oq4jqw).)
But even if some conservative
Republican critics are wrong
about Section 1233, there is good
reason to worry about Obama's
nationalization scheme.
The reason can be found In
Econ 101. Medical care doesn't
grow on trees. It must be produced
by human and physical capital,
and those resources are limited.
Therefore, if demand for health
care services increases — which is
Obama’s point in extending health
insurance — prices must go up. But
somehow Obama also promises, “1
won’t sign a bill that doesn’t reduce
health care inflation” (http://tinyurl.
com/co928w).
This is magical thinking (http://
tinyurl.com/5sznet). Obama,
talented as he is, can’t repeal
the laws of supply and demtmd.
Costs are real. If they are incurred,
someone has to pay them. But as
economist Thomas Sowell points
out, politicians can control costs —
by refusing to pay for the services
(http://tinyurl.com/qe8u9c).
It’s called rationing.
Advocates of nationalization hate
that word because it forces them to
face an ugly truth. If government
pays for more people’s health care
and wants to control Costs, it must
limit what we buy.
So much for Obama’s promise
not to interfere with our freedom
of choice.
This brings us backtoend-of-life
consultation. As the government's
health care budget becomes
strained, as it must — and, as
Obama admits (http://tinyuri.
com/qtqk6z), already is under
Medicare — the government will
have to cut back on what it lets
people have.
So it is not a leap to foresee
government limiting health care,
especially to people nearing the
end of life. Medical “ethicists”
have long lamented that too
much money is spent futildy in
the last several. months of life
(http://tinyurl.com/mbq3rc). Are
we supposed-to believe that the
social engineers haven’t read their
writings?
And given the premise that it’s
government’s job to pay for our
heath care,concluding that 80-year-
olds should get no hip replacements
makes sense. The problem is the
premise: that taxpayers should pay.
Once you accept that, bad things
follow.
In the end, perhaps the biggest
objection to nationalized health
care is the “principal-agent
problem.” For whom does the
doctor work? Ordinarily, the
doctor is the agent of the patient.
But when government signs the
checks and orders doctors to
reduce spending, it is not crazy
to think-tb# this wbn’t influence
their “advance care planning
consultation” (http://tinyuri.com/
nv7vje).
Freedom is about self-
determination. Obama’s health care
scheme would undermine both.
John Stossel Is co-anchor of ABC
News' "20120* and the author
of "Myth. Lies, and Downright
Stupidity.” He has a new blog
at http://bhgsjubcnewsjCouV
johnstossel.Tbfind out more about ..
John Stossel and read features by
other Creators Syndicate writers
and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate Web page at www.
creators.Com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 BY
JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.
COM
nialii i 'niB—
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Reddell, Valerie. Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 68, Ed. 1 Sunday, August 23, 2009, newspaper, August 23, 2009; Livingston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth820173/m1/4/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Livingston Municipal Library.