Earl Blumenauer Not Getting It

Complaining in a NYT editorial about his end-of-life counseling provision in "the" health care bill lead to that horrible "lie" about "Death Panels", Rep Blumenauer wrote

The most bizarre moment came on Aug. 7 when Sarah Palin used the term “death panels” on her Facebook page. She wrote: “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.”


There is, of course, nothing even remotely like this in the bill, yet other politicians joined the death panel chorus.

Once again -- we are talking about the differences between "what's in the bill", presumably the bill's intent,vs the consequences of the bill becoming law, which include many things that are not in the bill.   Most, if not all bills have this problem.  Which is why government is supposed to be limited according to our Constitution.  I don't believe (and maybe I'm wrong, but I sure don't remember) -- I don't think that Palin  said it was in the bill.  Or even that it was the bill's intent.

"I didn't mean to kill Grandma. I didn’t even mean to create death panels."  the article  begins.

Progressives are only concerned with intent, not with consequences.  In the arrogance self-importance tht  comes from academic speculation taken as "fact", consequences are assumed to match intent.  If they do not, they will either say that more must be done, or blame their opponents.

Perhaps some latched on to Blumenauer's language in the bill to provide evidence of the kind of thing to look out for -- but it's not end-of-life counselling that is the problem.   It's government-controlled end-of-life counselling ... especially when the government is in charge of the purse strings -- that is the problem.

It is the fact that the entity that makes the rules and controls the purse strings is in charge of not only what it will pay for, but what treatment you will be allowed at all at any price -- which is what has happened in all other countries with government-run health care -- that is the problem.