ObamaBot and oh-so-righteous Lefty Ezra Klein is angry at Senator Joe Lieberman's dislike of vastly expanding a financially floundering and and fraud-ridden Medicare system that already isn't working to make a lead in for government run ObamaCare that he's actually accusing Senator Lieberman of genocide.
And no, this isn't a joke:
....the defeat of health-care reform will cost hundreds of thousands of lives. That's not a particularly controversial statement. It relies on data from the Institute of Medicine and the Urban Institute, both of which are credible sources who've been used, I'd wager, by Lieberman and The Washington Post editorial page in the past.
Gee, Ezra...why not just call him Hitler and be done with it?
The link Klein cites above goes to one of his own posts that cites the Institute of Medicine’s rather questionable figures that extrapolates that 22,000 Americans die each year from lack of insurance. Which Klein uses to further wack job the questionable data to assume that swelling Medicare to gigantic proportions via the Senate bill would save 150,000 lives over 10 years.
This is soggy thinking even for a Lefty. For one thing, even if we accept the 22,000 number, there's nothing in these figures to show how many of these people could have afforded health insurance but chose not to spend the money for it. Of course Klein, like most of his ilk, dislikes any notion of free choice and wants to make purchasing insurance from the guv'mint mandatory. I get that. But there are a lot of people, especially if they're young and healthy, who simply would rather put their money elsewhere.
Another group who don't buy health insurance,by the way, are illegal aliens, who normally just pop into the nearest ER whenever they have anything from the flu to an appendix attack for free care.They don't normally buy health insurance either. How many of them were structured into these numbers?
Another interesting thing is that there are comprehensive studies using real data that show that MediCare has very little effect on longevity.Not only that,but the study Klein cites was fisked pretty thoroughly and found highly questionable in a major study by Dr. Richard Kronick, a professor of family and preventive medicine at U.C.-San Diego and a former adviser on health care to the Clinton Administration.
Oh, one more point for Klein to mull over. Since, as I've pointed out, government-run healthcare will lead to an overload of the system, a shortage of doctors, greatly increased waiting periods to see a physician and rationing for the elderly, riddle me this: How many deaths are Klein and his intellectual soulmates going to cause if what they want manages to go through?
In another related item, Lefty harridan Jane Hamsher over at Firedog Lake is coordinating a major campaign, telling people not to contribute to the Susan B. Komen Foundation's 'Race For the Cure' campaign for cancer research...simply because Hadassah Lieberman, the Senator's wife is involved.
Yes you can definitely tell that Klein and Hamscher are all about saving lives. Why, I bet we could even dub both of them pro-life...at least as long as we're not talking about babies in the womb.
Ri-ight.
Remember...what matters to the Left is not principle, but control and the Agenda. Always.
7 comments:
Remember how Palin was out of bounds when she made the 'death panel' comment? Same thing.
Both were over the top.
Klein says DIRECTLY caused, which is ridiculous. Like you say, that death-toll number is an extrapolation and therefore a swag, not a precise count of actual current deaths, merely a guess at the future on let's assume fairly reasonable data.
HOwever, for the Left it's not always about control and agenda. Remember the emphasis on 'control' a la 'message discipline' and Tom 'The Hammer' Delay? Just a short while ago, agenda and control were the specialty of the GOP.
Hi Anonymous,
Welcome to JP.
Uhhh..actually IMO Governor Palin was totally correct about those 'death panels' even though the phrase was a bit hyped and exaggerated. Read this.
That's why the Baucus Bill did a cosmetic job of seeming to get rid of those provisions right after she mentioned it. If you're going to have government run healthcare, there's going to be rationing ( especially given our problem with illegal aliens), and huge waits to see a doctor, and there's plenty of real life evidence of that. The elderly( and to a degree, all of us) will simply face major difficulty in getting the level of care they do now...AKA rationing.
I appreciate what you're saying about agendas, but to be honest control and lack of choice does seem to me to be a specialty of the Left.
When it comes to owning guns, restrictions and red tape on owning and operating a business, whom one may rent to or employ, where one may send one's children to school, how much of one's own money one may keep and what one can pass on to one's heirs ( among many other examples) , I think in fairness you would have to agree that the Left is much more restrictive.
As a matter of fact, the only freedom of choice the Left seems to endorse is the choice to have an abortion on demand.
There are a number of things we could do to cheapen th ecost of healthcare and make it more affordable, and I have no problem discussing that.
But free markets,choice and tort reform are some of the keys, and that's something you won't see in the Dems bill.Obama's corrupt deal with Big Pharma is a good example of why this is.
Regards,
Rob
i've always thought of myself as a conservative.
and i know this essay was clearly directed at this ezra guy.
and ezra's liberal bent.
but the way/manner in which ff destroyed this ezra guy i feel as though i been b***h slapped up side the head.
and all i was doing was reading it.
...whooooooaaaaa....
I wondered how long it would take the looney left to accuse an orthodox Jew of genocide, especially one whose in-laws survived the Holocaust. But Klein never did strike me as too intelligent and his latest machinations just shows how much of an ass he really is.
It's also disgusting that this came from some one who is at least Jewish halachicly, whom should know better. Not to mention the genuinely stoo-pid thinking.
I also find the way they're going after his wife especially revealing.
We are not talking about people with a high level of ethics or decency here, I think.
Regards,
Rob
Another thing, FF. Increased healthcare spending here raises the cost of healthcare everywhere. That's what it means to be the big spender with the deepest pockets. At least at the margins that means less health care in Zaire, just to name one place, where a little more healthcare could make the difference between life and death for many, many more people.
Or, said another way, their enthusiasm for spending more here is going to cost more lives than it saves.
Nicely put, Mr. Schuler!
Post a Comment