healthcare

• Steve Benen: For some reason, a recent Gallup poll showing strong "pro-life" numbers was a huge story, even though the results were dubious, whereas a new Gallup poll showing weaker "pro-life" numbers is a complete non-story.
• Eleanor Bader at RH Reality Check examines the Right's campaign against ENDA and hate crimes legislation.
• David Weigel reports that conservative TEA Party and town hall protesters are literally taking a page out of Saul Alinsky 1971 book “Rules for Radicals."
• Autumn Sandeen: "I couldn't be more surprised to find out that I'm apparently now the honest to gawd, serious 'face' for the second tier religious right organizations regarding Obama Tranny-Care."
• David Hart debunks Exodus International's new study that claims a 53% "success rate" in converting gays.
• Good As You reports that the Family Research Council has gotten into the act of peddling Paul Cameron's bogus "research."
• Truth Wins Out: Even though Focus on the Family is facing a $6 million budget shortfall, it doesn't mean it is necessarily hurting for money.

Alex Koppelman has written a good piece on how Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, healthcare adviser to President Obama and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has become, for the Right, the poster boy for the supposed push for "death panels" and mandatory euthanasia in healthcare reform legislation, despite the fact that, as Koppelman notes, he "opposes even voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide":

Like Sarah Palin said last week, if you're old, sick or disabled -- or have a friend or loved one who is -- you should be very wary of Democratic healthcare plans. And, too, you should keep an eye on "the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff." This is, after all, one of the two advisors to President Obama dubbed "deadly doctors" by the New York Post, a man also known as "Doctor Death," who, as conservative blogger Gateway Pundit explained, "supports euthanasia ... [and] believe[s] medical care should be reserved for non-disabled 'participating' members of society."

It's become a growing theme on the right: "Obamacare" will mean mandatory euthanasia for your grandmother in order to save money, and the person who created the ideological underpinnings for that policy is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

There's a certain irony to that suggestion. Ezekiel Emanuel, who's currently advising the administration on healthcare reform through a post at the White House Office of Management and Budget, is actually one of the country's leading medical ethicists, a forceful defender of people approaching the end of their life. Indeed, he opposes even voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

Koppelman points out that the false claims about Emanuel's work, recommendations, and beliefs are the result of notorious right-wing healthcare hack Betsy McCaughey's intentionally misleading smears, which have been quickly picked up by the Right and spread as gospel.

Case in point: this new Rick Scarborugh Report from Vision America:

Prov. 13:20 states "He who walks with the wise becomes wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." The phrase "suffers harm" comes from a word that means "to become evil, to be made worse."

A fool is defined in the Bible as the person who says there is no God. I think we are being fair with Scripture to also include those who redefine who God is and who usurp roles which God has reserved only for Himself, including the choice of who lives and who dies.

It seems that our President has surrounded himself with people who believe they have the wisdom to make decisions which our Founders clearly left in the purview of God.

Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, one of Obama's top healthcare advisors and brother of Rahm Emmanuel who is the President's Chief of Staff, co-authored an article earlier this year entitled "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions" It outlines four principles:

1. Treating people equally - which suggests a lottery type system, because it is "hard to corrupt." In other words, let's just roll the dice to see who gets treatment first!

2. Prioritarianism - treating the youngest first because "they have had the least life." In other words: Good luck Granny, here's another pill!

3. Utilitarianism -maximizes the most life-years produced

4. Promoting and rewarding social usefulness. - In Ezekiel Emmanuel's own words, and reminiscent of members of the Third Reich: Include only irreplaceable people who have suffered serious losses. God, help us stop this madness!

...

If Obama's Healthcare Czar implements this system, God help the very old and the very young. Is this what you want? Sarah Palin put into words what millions are thinking: what will happen to me or my loved one if government bureaucrats decide that my/their life isn't worth saving prolonging? Do we really want a government bureaucrat making these decisions?

Of course, if you actually bother to read "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions" [PDF] you immediately see that it focuses on the allocation of "very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines" of which there is very clearly a finite and limited number. It is not talking about limiting healthcare treatment, but rather focuses on how best to allocate finite medical resources.

And even then, the article is primarily an examination of the various ways currently used in deciding the allocation of such resources, looking at the pluses and minuses of the various methods and concludes by offering its own system, which it calls "the complete lives system":

[T]he complete lives system combines four morally relevant principles: youngest-first, prognosis, lottery, and saving the most lives. In pandemic situations, it also allocates scarce interventions to people instrumental in realising these four principles. Importantly, it is not an algorithm, but a framework that expresses widely affirmed values: priority to the worst-off, maximising benefits, and treating people equally. To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles or retreating to the status quo.

In short, not one word of Vision America's explanation of the article Emanuel co-authored is true ... and neither is this claim:

Dr. Emanuel has also said that in order to save money, doctors must "eliminate the Hippocratic Oath, which has been the foundation of medicine for centuries, and give more attention to cost when delete treating patients." He advocates rationing care to worthy patients who "need it most." This man and others who think like him are advising our President!

Take one guess where this quote, attributed to Emanuel, actually comes from. 

That's right: Betsy McCaughey.

For what it is worth, Ezra Klein conducted an interview with Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia who pushed for the inclusion of end-of-life planning in the legislation, and Isakson says that claims that it would lead to "death panels ... where people would be euthanized" are absolutely "nuts." 

Klein also points out that Emanuel happens to believe that physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia ought to remain illegal.

But none of that will matter, because right-wing groups don't care about things like facts or reasonable debate ... especially when they can use their lies and distortions to whip up outrage and opposition and, more importantly, use it to raise money:

The time to act is NOW!!! If you believe that God, not Government, should decide who lives and dies, please fax, email and call our Congressmen. You can find contact information at www.Congress.org. We have to attend our Town Hall Meetings and express our outrage at the little value placed on human life in this Orwellian healthcare plan. If we are not motivated to action by this outrage, God help us! The time to act is NOW.

Select here to send a fax to all 535 Congressmen and tell them to vote no on the President's $1.6 trillion takeover of health care. Now is not the time to be silent.

Thank you in advance for your generous support!

Writing in Charisma Magazine, Harry Jackson tells how, a few years ago, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and the insurance nightmare and massive out-of-pocket expenses he faced as a result:

After that initial prognosis, we had a constant tug of war between my family and the insurance company. The insurance company dictated the location of my tests and their costs. This did not seem overbearing until my first chemo treatments were called "experimental" and nearly $10,000 of expenses were racked up in less than two weeks by various additional, preliminary procedures.

It seemed to us that during the first month of my treatment, more hours were spent working on the nuances of the insurance puzzle than actually treating me. My problem was that postponement or denial of treatment meant possible death. I, like thousands of others, could not have survived a six-month delay of the special care Hopkins offered. In fact, if I had been treated at a different local hospital, I would probably not be writing this article. I would not have died from cancer, but of a lack of timely medical attention.

Hopkins eventually assigned a team of five doctors to manage my case because of the danger and the complications that ensued. The rationed healthcare approach of a government funded healthcare system would have undoubtedly blocked my last chance for survival. I cannot help but feel concern for the thousands of others who will be caught in the same position in the decades ahead.

Today, I am cancer free and am expecting to live a long and meaningful life. The cost of this new lease on life was approximately $100,000 of unexpected personal costs beyond traditional medical costs. The out-of-pocket costs for special food, clothing and preventive health treatments were huge. These numbers also don't begin to reflect the loss of both opportunity and income that the disease inflicted upon my family. The perfect healthcare system for me would give both patients and physicians great latitude of treatment.

Jackson says that "after reading my story, you will understand my passion about healthcare" ... and we would if he used his personal experience to, say, argue for the need for health care reform of the sort that President Obama is advocating which seeks to alleviate many of the problems faced during his treatment.  Or, if not that, as least use his experience to make his case against those sorts of proposed reforms.

But he does neither, instead using it as a springboard to demand that no coverage for reproductive services be included in any reform legislation:

The funding of abortion with tax dollars is a moral concern, which should incite pastors and spiritual leaders around the world. Current proposals would require U.S. taxpayers to fund, mandate or subsidize coverage for various healthcare services - including abortion on demand. As an employer of over 60 people, I face the real possibility of having to use tithes and offerings to pay for abortions. This is a moral quagmire for pro-life believers.

If you and I do not demand Congress to remove abortion coverage from the legislation this year, abortionists will win a huge cash infusion of millions of tax dollars to fuel their activities.

What connection do Jackson's own health insurance problems have to do with the issue of inclusion of coverage for reproductive health services in reform legislation? None, so far as I can tell. 

And apparently Jackson doesn't know either, because he ends the piece with his own vague call for reform:

We all agree that reforms are needed to the system. I am convinced though that the system we choose must heal two entities - the physicians and patients. Somehow that miracle needs to happen without the government or insurance companies taking us to the cleaners.  

Apparently, hoping that "somehow [a] miracle" will transform our health care system is the best Jackson can come up with.

While perusing the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission's website, I came across this new piece that trots out that standard right-wing claims that health care reform legislation would kill both your baby and your grandparents which was topped off by this suspicious quote attributed to Karl Marx:

Remember, Karl Marx once said, "First you socialize medicine and everything else follows like night follows day."

Now I am going to make a bold claim that this quote is false and that Marx never said it - and I am comfortable making that claim because a quick Google search turns up a mere five results, all of which appear to stem from this piece called "Socialized Medicine – Talking Points" written by Dr. Allen Unruh:

There’s always free cheese in a mousetrap. Along with shekels come shackles.

As Reagan said, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it, and hell where they already have it.” He said, “If we socialized the Sahara desert, in two years we’d be importing sand.”

Karl Marx said, “First you socialize medicine and everything else follows like night follows day.”

Ben Franklin said, “He who would trade freedom for security will end up with neither.”

As Patrick Henry said, “Millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty are invincible against any force the enemy can rise against us.” The battle is not to the strong, it’s to the vigilant, the active, and the brave.”

Thomas Jefferson said, “Rebellion to tyranny is the natural manure of the tree of liberty.” William Penn said, “Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.” Ignorance, apathy, and indifference pave the road to tyranny. To live free is a privilege. To die free is a duty and an obligation.

Remember to refer all your friends, and e mail lists to teapartysd.com to hear speakers at our latest rally on socialized medicine. Every American needs to be informed immediately on the threat to their health, their life and their freedom. America is indeed in the 11th hour and the decisions made with change the tide of human history and alter the destiny of mankind.

Anyway, I fully expect that this phony Marx quote will eventually start getting picked up by others on the Right and, in an effort to head that off, I hereby challenge Dr. Unruh or someone from the CADC , or anyone else for that matter, to verify that this statement was actually made by Karl Marx and to document where it came from. 

I don't expect that anyone will actually take up that challenge, but if they do and it can be shown that this quote is indeed real, I will gladly write a post admitting that I was wrong.  

If you believe that you can document this veracity of this quote, please contact us here and put the phrase "Karl Marx Quote" in the subject line.

Incidentally, the name Allen Unruh sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't recall why, but a quick search reminded me that he has been, for the last several years, deeply involved in South Dakota's efforts to institute an absolute ban on reproductive choice in the state:

Dr. Allen Unruh is a chiropractor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He is the co-founder of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, and served on the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion. He is a member of the Vote Yes For Life Campaign.

• Anti-marriage activists in Maine say they have turned in enough signatures to place a referendum on the ballot in November seeking to overturn the state's marriage equality law.
• The Christian Coalition has taken a stand on health care reform: No!
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty starts positioning himself for a presidential run in 2012.
• The Family Research Council's Tom McClusky's concept of blogging seems to consist of regularly posting Republican talking points.
• Despite what has previously been reported, Sarah Palin will not be attending the Simi Valley Republican Women’s event at the Reagan Library.
• The Family Research Council warns that President Obama's involvement in the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest saga is "just a taste of what's to come if the President signs the hate crimes bill, a massive federal power grab that will allow Washington to judge the thoughts and motives of people involved in matters best left to local law enforcement officials."

• The Religious Right's healthcare webcast was held last night and you can listen to the audio here. It was apparently such a success that the Family Research Council has decided to hold its own webcast next week.
• Boy, it seems like Republicans can't even send around racist emails about President Obama any more with getting into loads of trouble.  What is this world coming to?
• Al Mohler explains why the Southern Baptists aren't going to be changing their stance on the role of women in the faith any time soon: "Ultimately, I'm not so fearful that the times will judge us as I'm aware that God will judge us, and I hope with all my heart that he will find our church is faithful to his word."
• Alan Chambers talks to Focus on the Family about his new book Leaving Homosexuality: "The key thought here is the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality. It’s holiness. There are people who are conflicted with their sexuality, involved with homosexuality, and there is a way out for those who want it. But it doesn’t say that they’re going into heterosexuality, because that’s not the point. The point is that people can leave whatever it is that God calls less than His best and move into something that is His best, becoming more like He is."

We have been collecting everything that the Religious Right has been saying about efforts to pass health care reform for an upcoming Right Wing Watch In Focus report and, in doing so, quickly noticed that their primary focus was on claiming that any such plan would lead to public financing of abortion.

Until recently, activists and organization had been primarily making this case individually, but now it looks like several of them have decided to team-up for a nationwide webcast tomorrow evening:

Pro-life groups, including Focus on the Family, are hosting a webcast Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT to educate and mobilize pro-lifers against President Obama's healthcare reform bill, which currently mandates public and private insurance coverage of abortion.

The healthcare reform has hit a roadblock in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Fiscally conservative Democrats, known as Blue Dogs, have balked at the cost of the plan.

Pro-life advocates are hoping the delay allows them to marshal support for amendments that would take the federal funding of abortions out of the bill.

"We are advocating amendments that would simply remove any mandates for abortion, remove any federal subsidies for abortion," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life.

Others agree that this is a watershed event for the pro-life movement.

Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List said: "It is without question the biggest event since Roe v. Wade when it comes to the pro-life issue."

Participants include James Dobson, Charmaine Yoest, Tony Perkins, Frank Pavone, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Wendy Wright, Tom Minnery, Rep. Chris Smith, Richard Land, Day Gardner, and several others, including Mike Huckabee, according to Dan Gilgoff.

Politico has more on their effort:

A coalition of anti-abortion groups is set to open a new front against Democrats’ efforts to restructure American health care, claiming the plans open a back door to publicly financed abortions.

The groups, which are launching a broad campaign on the issue this week, claim that existing health care proposals constitute a stealth “abortion mandate” that will spend taxpayer money on abortions and require insurance companies to cover abortions — allegations that health care reform supporters call misleading.

“President Obama keeps on talking about common ground, and there is really, really common ground on funding issues,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, the group organizing the planned three-week campaign on the issue. “Almost no one wants to fund abortion, regardless of their position on abortion as a whole.”

Yoest’s group plans to release a letter to Barack Obama on Thursday in which it cites, according to its reading of proposed legislation, “our belief that the bills are intended to include abortion.”

The noisy, contentious health care debate — which has grown pointedly acrimonious in recent days — has proceeded largely without reference to abortion. But the decision of these high-profile conservative groups to launch the new campaign under the rubric “Stop the Abortion Mandate” may change that and provide a new obstacle to the reform legislation.

The leaders involved include Christian conservatives such as James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins; and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Dr. Richard Land, who will be launching the push in a webcast Thursday evening.

“We just realized how urgent the situation was, what was at stake,” said David Bereit, the national director of 40 Days for Life, another group involved in the campaign, which will focus on generating pressure on members of Congress to insist on an explicit ban on abortion within the legislation.

Apparently, not all Republicans in Oklahoma are pleased with the spectacle that Rep. Sally Kern has been making of herself over the last year, at least according to an email that Brenda Jones, an active Republican in the state and owner of Jones PR, which describes itself as "Oklahoma's most senior-level team of experts accredited in national public relations," sent to Gary Jones, the Chairman and Executive Director of the Oklahoma Republican Party.

The email found its way into the hands of the Oklahoma Journal Record, which has posted it on line:

The Republican Party needs to do something about this.

About a year ago when you and I talked about the future direction of the Party, I stated that the Party needs to stay focused on economic growth, jobs, jobs, jobs, stay true to our anti-tax and pro-business platform. No Party, no group, no any person can ever win new members and sustain its base when the public image is single focused on legislating morality. Especially in these difficult times when people are losing jobs and retirement funds are vanishing, economic growth and a vision for a prosperous future is what will attract young people. This judgmental rhetoric on morality is exactly what repels people away from the Republican Party; and frankly, contracts our core principles for less government and liberty.

A year ago after Sally Kerns [sic] received national coverage on her “terrorist” comment, Oklahoma immediately lost 2 companies who were a week or two away from announcing they were moving to Oklahoma and bringing high-paying engineering and technology jobs.

I was horrified at the Republican National Convention when I personally witnessed her seeking CNN, FOX News and other national media cameras on the convention floor because I knew she would embarrass not only Oklahoma but the entire Republican Party with her inflammatory decisive rhetoric.

My great aunt and uncle built Olivet Baptist Church as members since the late 1930s. Now they are 90 years old and were forced to leave Olivet a couple years ago because they were made to feel that they were going to hell because they are registered Democrats, although they are strong conservatives who voted for Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. She and her husband are politicizing God’s pulpit. It is starting to look scary and a bit like that crazy church in Kansas. They are up to something, and it’s not good.

Gary, we can never build Oklahoma’s Republican Party as long as Sally is the face of our Party. Everyone keeps touting “Ronald Reagan.” As someone who worked for him very closely for 9 years and in The White House West Wing, he rebuilt and grew our Party by attracting Independents and Democrats by standing strong on economic issues and national security. Of course, he strongly opposed abortion and supported many family value issues, but he advocated for these issues from the heart and not a bully pulpit. For example, he strongly opposed the gay agenda. But from concern and compassion about the gay community’s health, he started a Presidential Commission on AIDS to bring healthcare and other leaders to the table to discuss how to stop the spread of AIDS and HIV for the common good of the country. President Reagan understood that his duty was to protect ALL Americans, although he may disagree with their life choices, which is their liberty that does not need government intrusion.

This is very damaging to Oklahomans, Oklahoma Republican growth, and the Republican Party at the national level. 

It's odd that Jones seems to rely so heavily on the memory of Ronald Reagan in criticizing Kern as the sort of thing that is keeping the state party from moving forward considering that one of Reagan's most famous axioms came to be known as the "Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

Last week, in announcing that he would be hosting yet another press conference at the National Press Club, this time "to discuss what he and other pro-life leaders will and will not do if healthcare passes and includes paying for child-killing," Randall Terry declared that Congress would be responsible for any violence that occurred as a result:

It is clear that many elements in the pro-abortion congress and White House want to force Americans to pay for the murder of the unborn in their "healthcare" program.

If that happens, it is tantamount to the government putting a gun to taxpayers' heads to pay for the brutal murder of an innocent child. This is tyranny and evil of the highest order.

"Please understand: neither I, nor any thinking person wants the convulsions that would inevitably come from such a government policy -- the decision to force Americans to pay for the murder of their neighbor.

"Nevertheless, the sheer horror and frustration of such an evil policy will lead some people to absolutely refuse to pay their taxes. And I believe -- if my reading of history from America and around the world is correct -- that there are others who will be tempted to acts of violence.

"If the government of this country tramples the faith and values of its citizens, history will hold those in power responsible for the violent convulsions that follow."

Today, Terry issued another press release announcing those who would be joining him at the conference, which consists largely of people of whom we have never heard, plus "a Catholic Priest [and] a leader from the 'tea party movement'" and warned that passage of any such measure would cause people to snap, leading to "horrific consequences" unlike any this nation has seen "since the Civil War":

If Congress votes to fund the murder of babies by abortion in any "health care" bill -- either explicitly or implicitly -- there could be horrific consequences.

Pelosi and Co. cannot expect millions of Americans to betray God, and to pay for the murder of their neighbor without something snapping. They must not delude themselves: Congress runs the real risk of national convulsions that have not been seen since the 60s, or perhaps since the civil war if they try to compel Americans to pay for the murder of the innocent.

If they attempt to fund abortion, it is tantamount to the government putting a gun to taxpayers' heads to pay for the brutal murder of an innocent child. There are many of us who will not comply.