Grassley Retracts Claim That Government Could “Pull The Plug On Grandma”
This passed unnoticed, but it’s a big deal: Over the weekend, and very quietly, Senator Chuck Grassley completely retracted his widely-reported claim last week that people have “every reason to fear” that the House health care proposal would create a “government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”
The retraction was buried deep in this Washington Post article on Grassley’s role, with a spokesperson admitting Grassley doesn’t really believe what he said about “grandma”:
Grassley says he opposes that counseling as written in the House version of the bill, but a spokesman said the senator does not think the House provision would in fact give the government such authority in deciding when and how people die. The House bill allows patients to decide for themselves if they would like such counseling.
Let’s be clear: By clarifying that Grassley doesn’t think the House bill would “give the government such authority in deciding when and how people die,” his spokesperson completely repudiated his widely discussed claim. This goes much farther than Grassley did in a statement released Friday clarifying he’d never used the words “death panel” and was merely worried about “unintended consequences.”
So, either Grassley made his claim about “grandma” to a crowd in his home state last week and didn’t believe it; or he changed his mind since then.
Grassley’s retraction will get nowhere near the coverage his initial statement did. False or outlandish claims are “controversial,” so they get rewarded with media attention; their subsequent retractions tend to pass unnoticed, because the press has moved on to the next false or outlandish claim. The big news orgs blared Grassley’s initial assertion at the electorate for days, but almost no one will ever learn that Grassley didn’t really mean it.
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I don’t know why you classified this as a “big deal” Greg, we all called this one the day it happened: Grassley is dropping crumbs for the nuts in his base and winning pats on the back from the GOP, then he will turn to the public and the media saying “Little old me? Passing along blatant lies? I’m sure that I misspoke.” The publicized version of this story is that he endorsed the idea of “death panels” and that is what matters. Personally the Finance Committee bill amounts to just legislating a cash give away to the insurance industry at this point which means we need to strengthen the spines of the FOUR OTHER F***ING COMMITTEES that are supposed to have some input considering they represent a whole other body of the government and the only other committee in the Senate. I haven’t heard why the Finance Committee is receiving outsized attention except that it is supposedly the only place where “bipartisanship” can occur.
I posted your headline and general whorunsgov link to his twitter page. nothing comes up, only grassleyisms.
Greg: I think Grassley for the Gasroots went into operation last week. Grassley for the Sane issued a correction. Frankly the indignation has reached a point at which it begins to have little impact. My take: let the Senate do what it wants, let the House go its way and let’s get to reconciliation. At that point we need 51 votes. Now, if we can’t get that for a public option in the Senate then we don’t deserve to govern. Q: can the Bloooo.. Dogs hold up against the PO in the final Congressional bill? Fellow commenters observations welcome.
Does it really even count if he retracts it “very quietly”? It’s already out there floating around in the ether for all of the nutjobs to grab on to.
His spokesperson has basically admitted that a sitting US Senator lied openly and unabashedly to his constituents. You would think that it would be a big deal and someone in the MSM press would cover it. I’m not holding my breath.
Well to be fair President Obama pretty effectively called him a liar on Saturday in a townhall that was shown on all the cable nets. Oh and he also pretty much laughed at Sarah Palin for starting the mess in the first place.
The shame is that there IS a story here.
He flatly stated that people should fear the government pulling the plug on Grandma. You get it totally right at what the options are.
He either lied, flat out lied, to his constituents. He told them what they wanted to hear, instead of the truth, for purely political reasons. Or he actually believed the House bill would pull the plug on Grandma, and has since learned that’s wrong.
His choices are: Partisan Political Liar, or Moron.
Both lead to the heart of health care negotiations in this country – and whether Grassley is the right guy for the job.
You do know calling a Republican a liar is pretty much denouncing your American citizenship, right?
Watch Beck’s capitalistic cure to health care. He essentially says to let rich people pay for expensive treatments, while the rest of us wait years for the price to fall. Sure beats a public option.
Here is the clip.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2575
Calling any elected official a liar, when they are lying, makes me a better American than 90% of our news media – since they let it go.
The lack of a true “free press” (who’s purpose is to be a check on government) is one of the key reasons DC remains so currupt.
He didn’t mean what he said?
What difference will this make? The people who believed it will still believe it and those who didn’t won’t.
They wound the crazy up and they unwind it now.
they CAN’T unwind it now.
Good post, greg. As we know, a lot of people attend to what you write here and your shoulder to the wheel (the one with “competent reporting” on the hubcap) is a real asset.
The conservative opposition is paving the road with memes that have nothing at all to do with what is in the current bills. Because that will defeat the bills. It is what they must do to escalate the issue for their constituents to get them interested enough in the game to cheer their players, otherwise it is much, much harder for their players to get enough traction to play.
What I find stunning is I’ve seen Republican strategists talking up how the WH has had to respond to Palin’s facebook posts as if driving the conversation on complete lies is something to be proud of.
I think the pride in being ignorant line would be appropriate here.
Bagnewsnotes has a post up about the “crowds” at the Teri Schiavo Show and how small they really were and how large the media made them seem.
Same with the Town Hall Riots. In Grand Junction, which is not the most liberal place on earth, by a long shot, the proponents outnumbered the protesters.
The media played this last week like the entire country was protesting and that’s not so.
(off topic) more on the upcoming petroleum industry astro-turf organization… http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/14/us-lobbying
Private Health Care Insurance Is a Sucker’s Game.
The Insurance Cabal takes in more money than they pay out. That is their whole reason for existing. They collect money from as many healthy suckers as possible, making sure to charge enough to pay their executives, and huge health services denial staffs very large compensation packages, and also make large annual profit margins to boost the value of their stock offerings, and their own stock options.
All that money gets skimmed off the top, before they pay out any money to reimburse sick people.
If you get rid of those leeches, then all the money that they are skimming of the top, will then be available to cover the millions who now can not afford coverage, or who the Private Insurance Leeches refuse to cover.
This is not rocket science folks. The Private Insurance Cabal are not in the National Health Care Business.
They are in the National Scamming Business.
They operate in a very similar manner to how Bernie Madeoff did.
They take in vast amounts of money, under false pretenses, and always return far less than they take in.
Can you say Massive Health Insurance Ponzi scheme, Boys And Girls?
A Modest Proposal.
Should they defeat the Public Insurance Option, then it is up to people to go the Boycott route.
All those who are currently at the age where they are covered by Medicare, have nothing to worry about, so they should sit this one out.
All those who are a position where they are young and healthy, should stop paying for Insurance. Purchase only catastrophic coverage. If you have children, and your state covers young kids, go that route. If you are wealthy, only purchase catastrophic coverage.
These are just suggestions, off the top of my head, but you all can organize and come up with creative ways to Starve The Insurance Monster who is devouring your health care funds while people are getting less and less proper medical care.
If they defeat the public option, which of course they want to, because like all scam artists, they do not want to have any limits put on their ability to bleed the public dry, for their own personal enrichment. They hate sick people, that is why they will not cover them. They love healthy suckers.
Remember the gift that County Mayo gave the world;
BOYCOTT. BOYCOTT. BOYCOTT.
Starve the beast. That is probably the only way you will ever get to where people will get honest health care coverage. You have to shed the Insurance Leeches, who are sucking the lifeblood out of, the system, then the Medical profession will demand a single payer system.
Roll up your sleeves and organize.
Only you can kill the Insurance Cabal’s bloodsucking Ponzi operation
Liam – most private health insurance is purchased through employer who are required to offer it. How are you going to unhook that relationship when it’s required? If there is no other alternative you are never going to be successful with some kind of insurance. I wish – but I can’t see it. This is too big for us to take on alone and it’s pretty impossible. People are not going to give up their insurance without something else to take its place.
@Tena,
The Insurance Leeches are counting on people being afraid to take any risk. If you are correct, then:
Land Of The Free, And The Home Of The Brave; MY ARSE!!!
Liam – there are 300 billion people in this country and there is no way you are getting people off their insurance without an alternative. If you offer them an alternative, then it might work.
But you’re talking about people’s very most important security and most people don’t even think about it twice because we’ve done it this way for at least 80 years, or more.
I agree with what you’re saying about insurance – I hate it. I hate the whole concept – it’s barely legalized robbery, but to most people it represents security.
300 Millon, not billion.
Sorry
Hell Liam – insurance companies drop us faster than we could ever boycott them –
think about it – it doesn’t take that many people’s money to run an insurance comapany -
Note on control of communications and media content.
For focus, we could say that the townhall strategy has two significant aspects. First, it presents an appearance of some significant consensus opposing healthcare reform (that’s a pretense but it can have the effect of becoming true if believed). We know all that already.
But as I was thinking about it this morning, I realized (again, it isn’t a new thought) that there’s another important element here. Because these townhall events are dramatic, they gain media attention (which is why they are designed to be dramatic). That media attention prevents other potential coverage from airing simply because of time limitations on the content of any show. Thus administration communications to the public is essentially cut or limited.
Effectively, on the broader scale, this works exactly we see with the townhalls, where the townhall crowds are being coached to behave as they are…if they shout out loudly and continually, the communication from the speaker to citizens is severed.
See, for years when public health came up, I always thought that business would cooperate with the government to get the requirement of carrying insurance for employees off their backs. I really thought that business could be approached and that there would be cooperation just on that basis. If employer-supplied health insurance was replaced with government single payer, wouldn’t that save business tons of money?
@Liam -
I am required to take my companies Health Insurance.. if I decline, I must show coverage under another plan (ie, my spouse etc) – if I still decline, I am placed in the bottom tier without my consent…
so – no way to boycott.
I’d like to see reform done by taking the employer out of the mix. Give me the money & require me to buy health coverage.. just like auto-ins.
just my .02
“I’d like to see reform done by taking the employer out of the mix. Give me the money & require me to buy health coverage.. just like auto-ins.”
I’d like to see government single-payer replace employer required health insurance. That just makes the most sense and it’s not happening right now I don’t think.
We are stuck. I have a son with Asperger’s, and he’s on meds, gets therapies, sees a psychiatrist. Cannot go off insurance.
But this is exactly why the Repub free market thing is bogus. When the economy crashed, we stopped eating out, we stopped traveling, buying houses, buying cars. Insurance is one of the few things we’re stuck with. If we can’t boycott, if we can’t shop around, it’s not a free market.
@Boston Terrier,
That would not work. You have to take both The Insurance Ponzi artists, and the employers out of the mix. You do not have any leverage or mass purchasing power, when you purchase as an Individual.
Insurance skims massive amounts off the top of all the money that should be going into providing actual health treatments. They have to go.
Single payer is the best way to go. That gets rid of the Insurance leeches who take a huge cut off the top.
Public option is the next best choice, but you can see why the Insurance Leeches want no part of it. They love how they now have the entire population cowed, and held completely hostage to their terror tactics.
They decide who gets treated, in some cases who lives, and who dies, and their decisions are all based on how they will impact their profit margins. It is all about their profits, and the patients are completely secondary to that.
The beast is devouring us, so we can continue to let it, or we can decide to take steps to starve out that soulless monster.
Kathleen – I have a very dear friend whose daughter has Asperger’s. She was covered for awhile under Texas insurance for children but they drop
ped her 3 years ago and my friend is struggling, like you. Don’t you want to have a word with Sarah Palin about all this? I sure do – claiming Trig would have to appear and justify care which is insane.
How come conservatives and capitalists are always screaming about getting rid of red tape, but then they want piles of tax incentives so businesses will offer insurance. Truly, I can see how the free market spurs innovation and efficiencies. But on health care it doesn’t make sense.
If we don’t push back against the Dick Armeys of the night, they’ll burn through social security and take aim at public schools. After all, the Founders never said anything about the right to education.
@Tena: “I’d like to see government single-payer replace employer required health insurance.”
Agreed 100% – I pay $1700/mo for COBRA (and that’s an ‘inexpensive’ negotiated big-group plan!) and expect to pay more for less when it’s done. We could all pay significantly less in taxes, rather than insurance premiums, and get decent medical coverage. Cheaper than the ‘public option’, and way cheaper than what we have now. Take employers and insurance companies out of the equation and it becomes much simpler and less expensive.
People like Grassley and Baucus were typical leaders of the conservative era of the last 30 years, but we’re in a reform cycle now and both of them are old guys who should be moved aside. We need a different kind of leadership in this country than rich, old white guys with 19th Century ideas. I still hope that Obama is at least a step in the right direction, even though he’s not making the most of his opportunities.
He was handed as favorable set of circumstances of any president since FDR and he seems to be fumbling it in many ways. The Republicans couldn’t be more discredited at this point, yet he seems to be taking advice from them and turning on his own supporters. He’s definitely no FDR, and may not even be a Harry Truman or an LBJ.
Obama just needs to take a position and stick to it, instead of telling his supporters something one day, then changing it back again. At least let us know where he really stands instead of making us feel like chumps.
Grassley did succeed in spooking the provision out of Baucus’ bill.
Rick – what we’re going to get is a Swiss=style layer of regs and subsidies that will keep insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and eliminate discrimination in insurance which is rampant.’
It’s not ideal, but it is way way way better than what we have now. And I think once implemented, the country will move toward a single-pay system. We have such resistance right now.
The average Medicare expenditure is about $8000 per year per enrollee. I am somewhat younger than the Medicare cohort, so it might spend $6000-7000 on people like me if we were enrolled. Throw in a good drug plan and maybe you get to $6500-8500. But my retiree health private coverage is $12,500 per year, with copays, large deductibles, etc. Am I not being had? Is my former employer, who subsidizes much of my premiums, being had too?
Obama is on the cusp of generational change in the political realm, a big chunk of the people in power are still representative of an age that is largely past. The media no longer plays the role of fact finding or does anything more than report what was said with no follow ups, all of this means that Obama is in the MOST difficult set of circumstances possible for any president. He is further handcuffed by the insistence of using the system as it is to achieve change rather than toss it or go around it like Bush did. He’s got the right ideas and temperament, but the path to a world where we have a functioning government is still a tricky one that requires change in both the media and Congress.
Keeping it simple:
So you can explain it to those are not the sharpest knives in the drawer:
HEALTH CARE IS FOR TO TREAT THE SICK.
PRIVATE HEALTH CARE INSURANCE IS FOR TO FLEECE THE HEALTHY.
If the mouth breathers still do not get it, then ask them;
If you are sick, shouldn’t you get medical care?
If you have an existing medical condition, should you be denied Insurance?
The 2009 Healthcare Reform is a giant Congressional headjob for the insurance industry.
And Republicans are at the front of the line.
Grassley just said that “government is a predator, not a competitor”.
Then, as a Senator, just what the ***** does that make you, Grassley?
Check out the breakdown on firedoglake.com – The Dems do have the numbers to get 51 votes. Actually they have 57 who say they won’t for for a bill without a public option. I think the Finance Committe and the blue dogs are the one’s who are going to get crushed! If you saw Howard Dean on Morning Joe – God, I can’t stand Scarborough, anyway Howard had the breakdown of exactly how this is likely to play out and the public option WILL BE IN THE FINAL BILL!
One step forward two steps back…
The Ole Beltway walk back…
{”the public option WILL BE IN THE FINAL BILL!”
O I think so too and I know we’re getting a bill passed – that’s a given.
Where in HR 3200 (the only written plan I know of) does it define the solutions being espoused in this blog? Sarah Palin right or wrong at least references the bill. I’ve been trying to read through it myself and it really doesn’t seem to meet the President’s rhetoric. Can someone show me where it “bends the curve of cost”. Guarrentees you get to keep your insurance etc.
They are playing with fire! (and with our lives)
http://evimedgroup.blogspot.com/2009/08/whats-really-killing-grandma.html
I just got my first civilian job after getting out of the Army. TriCare was a nightmare to deal with, but at least I had insurance. That was the first time in my life.
I filled out paperwork yesterday. My boss handed me stack of papers to sign, and one of them was about insurance the company offered. I looked it over. None of the plans were for anyone getting less than 30 hours, and yet the only people they hired that got more than 28 were managers. Yet I had to sign a paper stating I was “denying their offer of coverage” so the company could get a tax incentive.
Big insurance isn’t the only issue. It’s just one of the big ones.
BBQ @ 8:32 a.m.
Reminds me of Tom Braden’s comment about whether Reagan knew about Iran-Contra: If he did know, he’s a criminal. If he didn’t know, he’s an idiot.
stbnow
Would you happen to know if it is’s safe to lift weights while attempting to lose weight? I’ve made it my new years resolution so I’m trying to stick with it.