(h/t David for helping with this post))
Newt Gingrich debated Howard Dean on ABC's THIS WEEK over health care reform. Gingrich helped destroy it in 1994 and is an expert teabagger from way back. He quickly jumped in and supported Sarah Palin's disgusting Face Book comments when she says that her son with Down Syndrome would be put up in front of Obama's death panel and be killed if health care is reformed are just like two peas in a pod. Stephanopolous argued that the euthanasia talking point is completely made up and is not even in the bill, but Newt, the "Marrying Man" doesn't care what's actually in the bill because he'd never do that, he just attacked the evil government as the boogie man.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Those phrases appear nowhere in the bill. The only thing...
GINGRICH: But...
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... but let me just explain what's in the bill and then get you to respond to that. The only thing in the bill is they would allow Medicare to pay for what they say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.
GINGRICH: I think people are very concerned, when you start talking about cost controls, that a bureaucracy -- we don't -- you're asking us to trust the government. Now, I'm not talking about the Obama administration. I'm talking about the government. You're asking us to decide that we believe that the government is to be trusted.
We know people who have said routinely, well, you're going to have to make decisions. You're going to have to decide. Communal standards historically is a very dangerous concept.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's not in the bill.
GINGRICH: But the bill's -- the bill's 1,000 pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You're asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in -- in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.
When were Americans against the government trying to help controlling the costs of health insurance? That's more Beckerwocky coming from the teabagger King.
Transcript of ABC's THIS WEEK below the fold:
STEPHANOPOULOS:....Sarah Palin, on her Facebook page yesterday -- I think it was Friday night actually -- said that, "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."
Now, as you know, Mr. Speaker, the president called that outlandish. He said...
GINGRICH: But why -- why didn't you put up what Dr. Zeke Emanuel said? Because Dr. Zeke Emanuel, who's the chief adviser to the president and brother of the chief of staff, said in writing...
STEPHANOPOULOS: He's not the chief health care adviser. He's written three articles between 1996 and 2008 that include some of those phrases...
(CROSSTALK)
GINGRICH: ... standards.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Those phrases appear nowhere in the bill. The only thing...
GINGRICH: But...
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... but let me just explain what's in the bill and then get you to respond to that. The only thing in the bill is they would allow Medicare to pay for what they say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.
GINGRICH: I think people are very concerned, when you start talking about cost controls, that a bureaucracy -- we don't -- you're asking us to trust the government. Now, I'm not talking about the Obama administration. I'm talking about the government. You're asking us to decide that we believe that the government is to be trusted.
We know people who have said routinely, well, you're going to have to make decisions. You're going to have to decide. Communal standards historically is a very dangerous concept.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's not in the bill.
GINGRICH: But the bill's -- the bill's 1,000 pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You're asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in -- in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.
DEAN: Well, look, this is something Newt and I agree on. I don't want somebody in between the doctor and the patient. I don't want the possibility of losing your health insurance. I don't want people setting standards or denying care. That's all what we have now under the private health insurance system. That's what happens.
Look, I've practiced -- I've practiced for 10 years. My wife is still practicing. Never once did I have a Medicare bureaucrat tell me what I could or couldn't do for a patient, but all the time we have bureaucrats from the insurance companies calling up and saying, "We're not going to cover this, and we're not going to pay for that, and we're denying coverage of that."
The system we have right now is broken. We need to fix it. I think giving the American people some choices about how to fix it makes sense.
