The connection between health insurance and death rates is, at best, tenuous.
Ruth Marcus, in The Washington Post, pointed out yesterday that studies are not in agreement on the subject, leading Marcus to conclude as to Obamacare: “Gee, I hope this works out.”
But that has not stopped Democrats, from party leaders to sycophantic columnists and bloggers, from throwing around phony and contrived numbers of “deaths” occurring due to lack of Obamacare.
Every day the supporters of Obamacare spew their blood libel.
One of the people making that false connection was Ezra Klein, also at The Washington Post, who now is upset about “fear-mongering” on the right. In a throw-away line in his post, Klein kinda, sorta, almost apologizes for accusing opponents of a public option of being killers:
Few of us are on a mountain with this stuff, of course. Many condemned me for saying that Joe Lieberman was willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands to settle an old grudge with liberals when he threatened to blow up the bill if the Medicare buy-in wasn’t removed. I’ll stand by the math of the comment, and the analysis of Lieberman’s motivations, but I certainly wish I had phrased it somewhat more delicately. The word “cause” was ill-advised.
“Ill-advised”? That’s it, after you accused Joe Lieberman of being a mass murderer, and your compatriots accuse us of being mass murderers? Isn’t that the worst kind of fear-mongering? Isn’t that the Democratic Party?
Apology not accepted. See you in November.
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Comments
In your post below of Dingell claiming that the government needs to control the people you should also note that he has been one of the most egregious flame-throwers on this issue, and over the longest time. To this day he claims that 18,000 American deaths per year can be laid directly at the feet of Republicans!
In fact, that "control the people" quote by Dingell was in direct response to a specific question from WJR AM radio host, Paul W. Smith, as follows:
SMITH: "Are we ready to allow 72,000 more people die in our country, if 18,000 died, or whatever the number is, if the figure that anyone comes up with, per year, because of a lack of health insurance or healthcare, uh, when this bill doesn't basically take effect until 2014?
DINGELL: "Paul W., were not ready to be doing it, but let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways, it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.
You know, our Republicans have spent a long time not participating, not helping, carping and delaying, but at the same time they have contributed nothing to this and made no offers whatsoever at to what it is they want or what they stand for."
Dingell is really the worst sort of demagogue, a man who is quite willing to publicly, falsely and repeatedly accuse others, on purely political grounds, of causing the mass deaths of thousands upon thousands of American citizens, yet when he is asked the obvious question about the 2014 effective date of the legislation he voted for, he blithely puts it off to some sort bureaucratic incapacity!
Democrats seize on a few incidents to claim "Tea Partiers are violent." Does it bother them that the President is now buds with a guy who arguably was an accessory to a massacre?
If we are having that large a number of deaths under the best system in the world, imagine the impact that the government has when they make the whole process less efficient. After all, the VA is every so great (not really), it has a morbidity and mortality rate that is far in excess of its couterparts in the private world. The same can be said of any public hospital. It did a study on the death rates from cardiovascular surgery at LSU Shreveport. This is a teaching hospital, so it is the best the government can offer. There CV surgery carried a death rate of about 30% and very few gratfts were patent at one year. In the private world, with the same patients, the death rate is 3 % or less and grafts are patent for up to 10 years.
Welcome to the world of government controled medical care.
Go Big Red!
Every day the supporters of Obamacare spew their blood libel.
Well, apparently as you have cited, the Democrat tactic (now that the bill has passed) is to ease off that blood libel a bit, so that they can now falsely accuse Republicans of terrorism for continuing to oppose ObamaCare, or even failing to disown the protesters!
So, today notice that the papers are filled with stories of Democrats who have allegedly received threats, or who are being protested publicly for passing ObamaCare.
On MSNBC's Hardball, House Whip, Congressman Clyburn of Georgia actually had the temerity to address the anger on the right, and to accuse Republicans of terrorism if they did not disown the opposition, or continued to encourage opposition to ObamaCare on the specious theory that Members of Congress are somehow guilty of such terrorism if they in any way encourage the anger from the House floor, or in the balcony!
Check it out (ht, Drudge). Here he is responding to a Chris Matthews question about the protests, with the background filled with pictures of protesters holding signs opposing President, and the passage of the bill.
Congressman Clyburn: "This stuff is beyond the pale. And they need to stop this because, I can tell you, I’ve seen how these things escalate. People out there in the streets get their signals, or what they think are their signals, from the people in positions like we hold.
And so if we don’t disown that and go get our people to move beyond that, if we participate in it, either from the balcony or on the floor of the House, you are aiding and abetting this kind of, terrorism, really."
Oh. So, it's okay for months and months to falsely accuse Republicans of killing thousands and thousands of American citizens during the run-up to passage, but once it passes, any further opposition is terrorism?
Correction, comment above: Congressman Clyburn of South Carolina (not Georgia).
(sarcasm)
Anyone who is in favor of people driving private automobiles is in favor of death. We must all act to outlaw private driving, to save the 50,000 people who will die this year, and the 500,000 who will be injured. Stop the driving. Stop the death.
Some will object that economic activity will fall, that people will lose jobs, that this will be very expensive, and that people should be allowed the freedom to risk their lives if that is what they wish to do. I say that mere economics must not be a barrier to saving the lives of the innocent, people who deserve our help. This burden of death falls disproportionately upon the very young and the very old. This is what government was created to do, to regulate people's lives in ways that they would not individually choose.
This will also reduce our healthcare costs and our carbon footprint, as significant economic and planetary benefits.
Receiving health insurance and healthcare is a right, and this demands that we work for and fund those positive rights. In the same way, and in the same spirit, stopping the premature death from driving cars is also our duty.
(/sarcasm)
EasyOpinions
I just got a call from some breast cancer organization wanting a donation "to help those women suffering with breast cancer who can't afford treatment." I told him I couldn't afford to donate now that my taxes will be at a punishing level to pay for the Obamacare those women will receive. Did I add to the death toll?
Professor Jacobson:
Thank you for highlighting the asymmetric warfare going on in the world of political characterizations. I was a bit nervous when I pointed out the manner in which Democratic members of Congress casually tie Republicans to the killing of Americans. (http://www.anti-republicanculture.com/2010/03/charity-on-display.html).
Your post makes me feel like I got it right.