Barack Obama seems to have taken personally Sarah Palin’s accusations that his administration wants to set up “death panels” for the elderly.
Reuters Blogs
Posted by: Jeff Mason
At a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday the president got personal — citing his own grandmother, who died shortly before he was elected last year — when refuting charges by the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee about his healthcare reform plans.
“I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate, and have to struggle with that,” Obama told the crowd.
“So the notion that somehow I ran for public office, or members of Congress are in this so that they can go around pulling the plug on grandma? I mean, when you start making arguments like that, that’s simply dishonest,” he said.
The issue stemmed from a provision in a House of Representatives bill that would have provided government funding for optional counseling on end-of-life care issues such as hospice.
Palin, who has spoken out against Obama’s reform plans, and other critics referred to the process as “death panels.”
Obama, who has refuted the rumor before but is struggling to gain support for his overall healthcare reform agenda, said enough was enough.
“We’ve got enough stuff to deal with without having these kinds of arguments,” he said, without mentioning Palin by name.
1 comment:
And how many children grow up not knowing their grandparents now because they couldn't afford interventive or (even better) preventative health care? The death panels are here and now: they are the CEOs of health care and pharmaceutical companies, and their hands are red with the blood of millions of innocent dead. Health care is already rationed: if you can't afford it, you go into hock for it or do without. The system is broken.
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