The real death panels

As a fan of the oddly-shaped roll of toilet paper otherwise known as Investor's Business Daily, I'm deeply saddened to have remained ignorant of this outstanding performance of theirs for the past two weeks:

...many Britons were surprised to read a recent editorial in the American newspaper Investor’s Business Daily. The editorial stated, "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless." Well, Hawking was in fact born in Britain and has lived there his whole life. The newspaper was forced to run a correction. Hawking said, "I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. [I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.]" That’s the National Health Service of Britain.

After expunging this exquisite error from the original article (the soberly-titled "How House Bill Runs Over Grandma"), IBD issued a petty, quibbling non-apology of a "retraction", in which they stated that Hawking "was a bad example" to illustrate their thesis.  This prompted one pithy commenter to respond:

Picking Hawking wasn't just "a bad example." It was a counterexample. And one that shows sloppy, partisan thinking at that. Now ask yourselves, how many counterexamples do you have to see before you change your minds about something?

This is actually far too charitable, since it implies that IBD is concerned enough about silly trivialities like "facts" that any amount of evidence could convince it that the position dictated by its ideology is the wrong one.  But a second commenter offered an even better response, in the form of an anecdote which I think you'll agree is truly hilarious:

My brother died in January after about 15 years of living with ALS. His death occurred after his health insurance (top of the line) was exhausted. My efforts to get the insurance carrier to extend coverage three more months to permit him to be around for the birth of his first grandchild, after which he was to be removed from his ventilator, were denied. This is the American system.

Oops, did I write "hilarious"?  I meant "horrifying beyond imagining."  (Though to be fair, the corporate health insurer in this anecdote didn't technically "run over Grandpa", since they prevented this man's brother from becoming a grandfather in the first place.)

What is hilarious here is that while we're wasting time talking about absurd straw men like government "death panels"—meaning nothing more menacing than elective end-of-life counseling (formerly endorsed and even sponsored by many Republicans, until their lunatic wing's propaganda pushed them away from it)—there are actual, literal corporate death panels ending the lives of people in this country every single day.

These corporate death panels operate under the overriding principle of minimizing costs and maximizing profits.  And if you can't see what that means for the people unfortunate enough to need life-saving health care from them, you may have a promising future on the editorial staff of Investor's Business Daily.

[ Previous dust-ups with IBD here and here.  Funny stuff, but I can't take any credit for that, since IBD provides all the humor up front. ]

Comments

[KDelphi]

Thanks, John. Those of us with life-threatening conditions without insurance thank you.

The Dems entire plan has been a straw man--"public option" shmoption--or something.

If we had a civilized population, we would have HR 676. If Obama had any passion about anything, he wouldve spent his luxurious, drooly personal capital on universal coverasge, instead of that bogus Stimulus Pkg. Think of the universal care we could have bought with that....

The MSM kept asking why progressives werent out there to counter the Demented Lottery playing NRA people--give us something worth getting our ass shot for, first.I live in a concealed carry state--there might be something worth getting shot for, but HR 3200 aint it! And all the press talked about was how "protected Obama was" so dont worry about it--I was more worried about others in the audience! But, if you keep signing all gun regulation out of law and kissing up the the NRA--viola!

I dont want anyone to get shot, but, if they will let 20-80,000 die every year and ask millions of Afghani civilians and thousands of US troops to die---maybe they should be ready to lay down thier lives for--SOMETHING!