Death panels? Cui bono?

End-of-lifers need expensive treatments that they can’t afford, so the cost of their care has to come from the profits of insurers and/or taxes. So ask yourself, who is most interested in preserving insurers’ profits? And who are the folks who obsess about minimizing taxes? Now you know who wants death panels.

I think there was a typo…Ms. Allen is a “Political Scientologist.”

Actually Limbaugh et al act like dirty political GOPagandists.

Join the Liberal Democratic Party of the United States http://groups.yahoo.com/group/…..cpartyusa/

“In Allen’s world view, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh et al aren’t vicious political opportunists stoking the crazies into anti-democratic disruptions and thuggery; they’re just misunderstood.”

Jeebus Awreetus Awrightus!

(Thanks, FZ)

OT. SOmething to watch. A man standing with protesters waiting for Obama, has a pistol strapped to his leg. Per MSNBC w/ video

If I may make an observation:

As regards Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, etal: While publicly denouncing them is always important, the only way to really slow down their vile hate speech is to strike directly at the revenue lines of the broadcast entities that carry them. Accordingly, I recommend that progressives get very focused and organized on boycotting their advertisers. Such a movement would be relatively cheap, easy to run and is really the only thing that has a chance of being effective. The operators of FDL, Media Matters, TPM, Kos, and other progressive blogs need to get together on this one and make it happen.

The obvious goal of the “death panel” lie is to win social conservatives. The Republican coalition is social conservatives and economic conservatives. On health care, they are not a natural coalition, so the way to keep social conservatives in line with economic conservatives is to scare them about euthanasia, abortion, and other “right to life” paranoia, as well as shouting “Marxist,” “fascist,” and attempting to de-legitimize Obama’s presidency with the birther nonsense. (The birther nonsense is key, because it implies that there is a sinister evil present in the White House, and hence, once you buy the birther argument, you are primed for the conspiracies.)

Basically, social conservatives are being played for rubes.

Whoa. On the other hand, we’ve all been saying that it’s only a matter of time. I hope he’s now in jail.

Palin, Beck, Limbaugh don’t really believe Obama wants to urge granny to off herself, because no sane person would actually believe something that stupid and preposterous. So it follows that these sages must mean something else, …

Semiotics alert.
Emptywheeel, please call your office.

OT- Sorry about the thread hijack- Just saw on MSNBC. There is a guy waiting with the crown outside of the Health Care Town Hall in NH, that Obama is going to speak at within the hour. He has a gun strapped to his leg and he is carrying a sign that reads Time to give the tree of Liberty a Drink… r something to that effect.
He has not been removed from the crowd even though the police know of his being there. The talking head on MSNBC was pointing out the danger of they guy with the gun… but went on to say that apparently it is legal for him to be there packing. WTFFFFFFFFF? Also, apparently too dumb to connect the fact that the quote he is magling from Jefferson is that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” He is strapped and holding a sign calling for blooshed and HE HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED FROM THE CROWD.

I’ve got patients coming into our clinic every day wanting to talk about the euthanasia the guvmint is planning. Most of these people are rubes. Some are intelligent enough to know better, but choose not to because I guess its just more fun to believe the shit they are being fed. So this is what they all need, props from the WaPo editorial board.

Sorry Mike, saw this too and it blew my mind.

Where, exactly, is the Secret Service? Sheeyut!

From what was said he has a permit and is on a churches grounds who have given permission. Supposedly he is within his rights. I think they need to surround him with machine gun weilding SS agents.

Surely the Secret Service won’t let him get past the door. That would be insane.

I wish this syndrome was limited only to the WaPo editorial page, but their reporting is just as bad.

Hopefully they will pry it from his cold, dead hands.

relax, jesus

. Allen assures us, based on political theory (because she doesn’t actually quote what these people are saying

My bold that says it all

What church is that? And this is in NH? I know NH is all “Live Free or Die”, but the church needs to wisen up a little. It’s obvious the guy is there to intimidate people.

EXCUSE MEE, I have been herded into a “free speech zone” for carrying a sign that called Bush a liar. If I had been carrying a legal firearm… no matter where I was standing, I would have been taken away to god knows where. I’m not saying that we should do the same, but the President should be protected from this kind of bloodthirsty crazy.

What the HELL?!

This is bull legal to carry a gun sure around the president hell no!

Thanks for the comment. If you can share other impressions you’re getting from folks on what they believe/are hearing, I’d appreciate it.

You are taken to a free speech zone but the guy with the gun and a sign gets to stand where he wants?
Hmmm? I hope the police are just trying to move you to safety before they confront this nut.

I’m not un-relaxed. But this guy is obviously a smart ass who wants to show that he can do what he wants. Or maybe worse. With the hatred that’s being stirred up recently, I think it’s a bad idea to have people carrying guns around….. even if the president isn’t around. I truly hate guns.

The funny thing is these rubes don’t mind being killed by the greedy insurance companies, just so long as they’re not done in by the dang gummint bureaucrats.

Huh? this person living under a rock of course Sarah and Rush mean it!

It’s certainly a bad idea. I don’t think that FDL via MSNBC is the most effective security.

The dude is nowhere near anything, the heat is on it.

Unintended consequences? You mean like grandma and grandpa going home from the teabag event and burning their living wills and getting rid of their healthcare power of attorney because they are part of the big government plan to trash Medicare and then put them to sleep?

Hi wigwam, The private insurance companies don’t have death panels; they have individual executioners or “death=dealers” in the form of bureaucrats who deny procedures people need to keep on living

Big shock, they are wrong. New Hampshire, not Pennsylvania

In Allen’s world view, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh et al aren’t vicious political opportunists stoking the crazies into anti-democratic disruptions and thuggery; they’re just misunderstood.

Allen who is your audience the 20%ers nope they know better they Believe Sarah and Rush are Serious the Left we Think the same the Moderates perhaps?
They might listen to you if right wingers were not shooting people with guns because Obama is President.
In this kind of an atmosphere your message of trying to lessen the impact of Rush and Sarah with Moderates is falling on deaf ears.
Just what has happened to the GOP’s advertising machine they should know this stuff?

I was being sarcastic. The author of the WaPo piece should crawl back to the
safety of her seminar room and hope that the 9-12 people never decide to
go after guvmint supported ivory towers

Ms. Allen is probably another in a long line of political theorists trained at the University of Chicago who were taught Leo Strauss and who believe in “noble lies.”

I was wrong, not them.

Yeah and the drug companies well they hate America! they only charge Americans prices so high for drugs that many people do without drugs they need or split the pills in half trying to get by.
the DRUG COMPANIES HATE AMERICA!
Anyone like Rush and Sarah who defends the Insurance and drug companies hates America!

I know I was going with it though:)

You know, pups, I seldom post here (but read constantly) but I am making an exception today.

This morning, while walking through the market with all of the fresh produce, I had a koan. It hit me like a thunderclap.

These people are protesting – the fact that they are protesting the proposed changes to the health care situation is irrelevant – the particulars of their situation.

Marshall McLuhan pointed out a long time ago that it is the medium that IS the message.

These people are simply mad as hell and their only outlet to express their anger happens to be the health care debate.

Allen’s background: http://www.ias.edu/newsroom/an…..79063.html

I think you’re probably right. We have always had a problem in this country with un-focused anger. Most people seem reluctant to blame the true offenders – is that possibly fear of the truth and know that they are probably helpless against the real problem?

Back in the 60s and early 70s I thought the B movie staged protests bore no relationship to the real things. Now I think the protests resemble the staged to a T.

Allen joined the U Chicago faculty in 1997, was Dean of the Division of Humanities there by 2004. Someone placed her on the academic express lane. I’m not familiar with her work, but given her background it’s probably tres chic PoMo crap. Her op-ed sure reads like it:

In asking lawmakers to consider not merely the goals of their policies but also the experiential meaning of concrete realities that those policies may bring, they have a point.

I’m no expert on post-modernism, but that sounds like the sort of stuff that was driving Mrs. Dr. BC nuts when she was responding to PoMo critiques of her dissertation research.

Their claim is that, whatever the stated goals of policymakers, the concrete outcomes that will flow from the policies on the table will include experiences that feel like rationing and conversations that sound like “death panels.”

Dr. Dr. Allen is being disingenuous here. Health care is already rationed in the USA, but the rationing is conducted by access to deep pockets. There is no reasoning involved in the rationing.

The private insurance companies don’t have death panels; they have individual executioners or “death=dealers” in the form of bureaucrats who deny procedures people need to keep on living

Yup. NYCeve calls that “murder by spreadsheet.”

Like when 1000 Nam Vets went to DC to try to end the war?

University of Chicago

Bush may have gone to Harvard but he was only a puppet if you want to be the person writing what the puppet says come to the University of Chicago. Of the Bushies who were not puppets they all might not have been our Grads but even Darth and Rummy were all influenced by what our Grads thought.
University of Chicago were 2010 and beyond looks to for the future of Evil.

I think that’s right. These people have an image of America that is very different from what we see; they believethat view is threatened, and they’re both angry at and afraid of what they believe is happening. It doesn’t have to be health care. It could be climate change, or immigration. If Obama were trying to end the Afghan war, it would be that. This is a clash of world views, of political perceptions of reality, and the actual facts don’t matter. They’ve been lied to, misled, for decades, and the only way anything approaching a progressive agenda, or even a centrist agenda rhetorically based on “change” can be passed will be over their adamant and soon, violent, opposition. I wouldn’t be surprised to see armed confrontations soon. Half the South has been buying ammunition, while we’re commenting on blogs.

She has a Ph.D. in Classics from Cambridge and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard. I guess she liked going to school in towns named Cambridge.

But Allen came up through Classics, which I don’t
ordinarily think as your typical path to wingnut glory … oh, never mind.

They’ve been lied to, misled, for decades, and the only way anything approaching a progressive agenda, or even a centrist agenda rhetorically based on “change” will be over their adamant and soon, violent, opposition.

That’s a frightening thought, Scarecrow.

YUP

I don’t think she’s a wingnut. Naive.

Scarecrow,

I am afraid you are correct.

I’m not sure when the wingnuts decided that Classics was a good tit to latch on to, but Hannah Rosin notes the heavy emphasis on the classics at Patrick Henry College in God’s Harvard.

I notice this “military historian” never saw the business end of an entrenching tool.

We should try and recruit hem with emotional lizard brain appeals to anger at a specific target? We might get some but many of them are really racist.
If you had details as to how even a 1 or 2 % drop in the 20%ers numbers would be worth it. Because on election day if only 1 or 2 % of them vote our way or even just stay home I think we can get some big in the West and South.
The GOP will be fighting to be a regional party then.

It’s a nice place. I live literally 50 feet from the town line.

I don’t think she’s a wingnut, nor do I believe she is a naif. She is ambitious and looks to me like a player in the PoMo game.

Political Theory is a field within political science. The field itself doesn’t privilege any specific views stated by any political theorist. So Danielle Allen’s being a political theorist doesn’t in any way justify the nonsense she provided us this morning. From beginning to end this piece is just speculation, which WaPo probably published because of its faux novelty, and elitist orientation i.e. someone with intellectual and academic credentials is providing us with a different view of the falsehoods the conservatives are offering; saying that these literal falsehoods conceal a deeper truth that Government policies always have unintended consequences which may be disastrous if we don’t anticipate and guard against them.

Of course, this point of view doesn’t make the same point about the article itself, or about private sector health insurance and other health care institutions. And while it is an uncontroversial general point, the article contains nothing factual to suggest that there is anything in the legislation that would lead to the specific unintended consequences it envisions.

Which one? The original or the Massachussetts doppelganger?

I’ve been handing out the Pearlstein article from last week, & taking the time to explain what the consultation would mean. I would like to mobilize other primary care docs/staff to do the same. Seems like we are left out of the discussion. Then again, a lot of folks don’t want to hear the truth.

Funny how Conservatives love the classics then argue for old time religious values. Just like the conservatives who killed Socrates because he was teaching the young to disrespect the Gods.
How can you love the classics but act like the fools who killed Socrates?

Mass.

This is idiocy. Anyone who has seen how end of life decisions are currently managed would know what a haphazard hodge-podge they are. Rather than try to deal with them in a rational fashion before something bad happens, the idea appears to be to keep them swept under the rug until a crisis when poorly communicating physicians and conflicted family members can get together to ignore the wishes of the patient.

I’m reminded of the aphorism: “Anything that has to call itself a science isn’t.”

An organized, collective response by health care providers who encounter requests for counsuling and/or concerns about the misrpresentations would be very worthwhile — and would get a lot of coverage I would think.

Victor Davis Hanson is best described as a real piece of work.

Good comment interesting I was thinking more that by not quoting Sarah and Rush the writer was avoiding the reality of what was said and was hoping the audience had not read what they had said either.
Your comment is a different take but valid.

Check out this dude in Arlen’s face.

I think there’s much to this, and that it relates both to the disempowerment of “regular people” over the past God knows how many years, and also the specific policies of this Administration. The stimulus bill hasn’t done very much for Main Street. The Bank Bailouts did almost nothing for Main Street. The auto bailouts were tough on big businesses that are among the few favored by Main Street. Now comes the health care reform, following upon decades of giveaways to big business, and it is shaping up more and more as if it is an expensive giveaway. Obama has been quoted as viewing himself as standing between the people and their “pitchforks,” and big business. In short, what has he done to make disempowered people think he is their friend, and to trust his health care reform or at least be neutral towards it?

Hi BC, Trained by The Committee on Social Thought, I’d bet on Strauss and Platonism, rather than PoMo.

Didn’t Republicans already approve of ‘Bush/Chaney Death-Torture Panels’?… WTF?

Arlen handled it well. The guy had an emotional (sounds like he was going to cry) but not a logical case the almost crying probably helped it shows sincerity fake that and selling is easy.. He will convince emotional thinkers based on sympathy not fact but we didn’t have them anyway.
As far as his comments to Arlen about being judged by God. Supporting Healthcare is like the Good Smaratian I don’t know what bible this joker is reading or what lies he heard from the news.
I do think Obama has to do something about right wing lies and threats of violence delivered by the news if we are going to win this.

Thanks wigwam. I’ve seen NYC Eve’s well-crafted epithet, and it’s very appropriate here. I also think that “well, even if you believe in that nonsense about “death panels,” which I swear to you is not in the legisaltion, do you think you’re better off with the possibility of “death panels” run by Government appointed experts subject to Congressional pressure, or with the reality right now of “death-dealers,” bureaucrats incentivized by bonuses and supervised by insurance company executives interested, above all, in their next million and the value of their stock options?”

EXACTLY !

Allan, have you ever read Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies. Where you end up depends very much on which classics you take seriously.

If you say so. My doctorate is in Statistics: as far as I’m concerned PoMo and Neoplatonism are good drinking games, but not much else.

or with the reality right now of “death-dealers,” bureaucrats incentivized by bonuses and supervised by insurance company executives interested, above all, in their next million and the value of their stock options?”

A better way to phrase that for the confused among us is “the reality right now is that the death-dealers are insurance company bureaucrats who get bonuses for denying care to you.”

Allen is an example of that well-known phenomenon, the academic airhead. Every department has them. They are the people who live off their credentials (two PhDs) not the quality of their ideas. I mean who in their right mind would write the “experiential meaning of concrete realities” when all that is meant is “individual experiences”? It is absurd. Allen is absurd.

Her idea that we should talk about end of life issues when we are in our 40s and 50s is silly as well. Sure, the conversation can begin when you hit 21 and are legally adult. But who you are at 40 and who you are at 75 is not the same. The choices you would reasonably make at one age are not the choices you would make at another. Allen of course knows none of this because I doubt she ever bothered to talk to anyone in the medical profession about it.

But what has been touched on by scarecrow and is at the heart of the matter is that Allen is validating the arguments of the wingnuts. It doesn’t matter whether she agrees with the wingnuts or not. She is giving credence to their views. Not all arguments have two legitimate sides however: Holocaust deniers are not on the same level as Holocaust historians, nor creationists with biologists, or climate change deniers with climate scientists. This is where Allen does the most damage and is at her most dishonest.

There’s much to this. The kind of political science practiced by Professor Allen is certainly not very scientific in its approach. There are parts of political science that try to follow what they understand to a scientific approach. But this has been going on for a long time, and the results we see, leave much to be desired. If we view science as a body of knowledge that works, rather than as an approach or a process having certain characteristics, political science (full disclosure: my original field) isn’t much of a science.

So’s yours. the avoidance of quotation in order to grind one’s ax is a very popular practice; and I think that Allen was certainly doing a lot of ax-grinding in that piece.

Her idea that we should talk about end of life issues when we are in our 40s and 50s is silly as well. Sure, the conversation can begin when you hit 21 and are legally adult. But who you are at 40 and who you are at 75 is not the same

And the choices appropriate at 40 and at 75 aren’t the same, either. A 40 year old who has a heart attack and a bypass is recommended ought to seriously consider it. An 80 year old who has the same heart attack and the same recommendation might very rationally choose to take a pass on the surgery.

I’m curious. Were you taught about Condorcet and Arrow in PoliSci?

Right, I agree, and my Doctorate’s in political science, with a lot of quantitative and statistical background. However, one correction about Allen, I didn’t say so, I just guessed so. It certainly could be PoMo that she’s reflecting, or even both.

Thanks.

I agree. After having been involved in politics for over 30 years, I believe that politics is the work you do at every level. In political science the thing that should be taught is what was done, who did it and how well it worked. It’s just not a science – it’s an ever-evolving process – because it’s always different.

Terrific as always.

In Sacramento this evening there will be an interfaith prayer vigil at the federal court house to pray for the health care “debate” crisis. I plan to attend and wonder what it will be like.

It’s organized by SacActs, a highly respected and sizeable group of religious organizations – large mainline and small neighborhood churches, synagogues, temples and I think mosques, that are multi-racial, ethnic and socio-economic classes, etc. that have been extremely effective in bringing about substantial social change on clearly definable issues over many years.

SacAct is one of many, many such organizations that are loosely based on Saul Alinsky style of community organizing.

In the midst of my very strong feelings of anger, disgust, fear and …… I’m grateful there is this collective alternative to try to regain hope and sensibility.

Blessings,

Hugh,

I certainly agree. The offering of what amounts to excuses is probably why BC is guessing that she’s a PoMo relativist.

BC, actually yes. I read Condorcet in Political Theory, and Arrow’s Theorem in a Political Science Graduate program emphasizing scientific approaches to political science.

Hi Twain, Thanks. The fact that it’s always different doesn’t prevent it from being a science. For example, evolutionary theory is scientific, but the facts underlying evolutionary processes are always unique facts. I think political science isn’t very good because we’ve just not been successful in developing good theories. One can’t guarantee the success of science by following a particular scientific approach. Success is emergent in science. It could take hundreds of years to become good in this field.

As nearly as I can tell, Condorcet’s work in voting theory and Arrow’s Theorem just about exhaust the scientific content of political science.

Still amazed that these Town Halls do not draw the lines as they do in Senate Hearings. State early on and even post it outside these halls. If you verbally and continually interrupt and speak or scream out of order..you will be warned and then hauled on out of the room.

You can sit quietly with your signs (Code Pink at hearings) but if you disrupt out you go. And if you resist leaving you will be arrested.

Period

I swear if these were anti war protesters their asses would have all ready been hauled out of the room

Hi Sacrecrow,

Thanks for an excellent post. It really struck a responsive chord here.

BT’s up
Obama’s Town Hall in New Hampshire – Live Video

Can someone explain to me in whose interest it is for big newspapers and network and cable tv (MSNBC excepted, sometimes) to push this? Do they think it is a test of their power to shape reality to suit whoever pays them most? I’m really surprised at how these so-called ‘journalists’ are so willing to lose readership and advertisers to what end [Fox has already lost advertisers, and more are quitting the network, for example]? To please some other kind of master? Or to test their own power? I wish someone could enlighten me?

When I think of political science, I think of someone like Buckley sitting around pontificating about things they have never done. I mean no disrespect but politics is DOING the work, in the trenches, every single day. Putting your heart and soul into it and loving it. I do love it. It’s like strawberry shortcake to me. I have always loved it and my children and grandchildren are learning the same way. I have done everything from the lowest jobs to managing campaign offices and it’s hard work and a blood sport.

OMG! West Side Story! A movie from my youth! My father had the album in the early 60s) and I had memorized all the lyrics to all the songs. (Hey! We only had 4 channels on TV back then — and no PCs!)

Thanks for the memory.

Part of the problem is that she is from the school that gave us Leo Strauss and Milton Friedman. These were two people who theorized and pontificated constantly, but in both cases were proven pathetically wrong when their theories were actually put to the test.

Well, That depends on your conception of science. Arrow’s theorem is mathematically correct but depends on ontological assumptions for its application and application to the real world. Specifically, the theorem denies the ontological reality of collectives, a view that can’t be scientifically sustained.

In any event, there are many works in political science that apply approaches that may be called scientific, and the degree to which results of these studies fall short of good science isn’t noticeably different than the results one finds in any of the other social sciences. None of the social sciences predict very well, and the explanations offered by one social scientist for past and current events are rarely more convincing than alternatives proposed by others.

Thanks. I certainly agree that politics is doing the work and that political science is something else.

Danielle Allen, who researched and identified the origin of the ‘Obama is a Muslim’ meme, says

This change in Obama’s position [IE individual requirement] goes a long way toward explaining the objections to the new reforms that are being raised vociferously through grass-roots action by citizens on the right.

which I do not agree with… as the reason for the objections but this part does ring true…

The issue, rather, is that they recognize that the stated goals and structure of a policy may not fully capture its full range of outcomes in practice.

which I do agree with. And certainly it is important to have a convincing answer, if possible, to the concerns rather than calling the person making the crazy claim a crazy person.

The appropriate answer, therefore, is to explain the institutional checks that will prevent the emergence of such unintended consequences.

Can we say that under the new regime one will always be able to pay out of pocket for any procedure one desires, subject only to the limitations of triage practices that have always established priorities for who receives care when and that have, therefore, always provided an ethic for how to ration a limited good in the face of unlimited desire?

If the above is true, and it addresses the perceived problem, and it would satisfy the opposition, why NOT argue it? And this,

And perhaps the counseling sessions meant to help us all think about end-of-life issues should be conducted when each of us is in the prime of life …

Perhaps if we developed a practice of expecting these counseling sessions to occur in our 40s and 50s, we would view them, like financial counseling, simply as a necessary step toward being able to enter retirement with peace of mind.

I do not agree with the path to the answers but the answers make a lot of sense to me, and I think the movement would do well to consider them.