Poll: Majority Of Republicans Believes Health Reform Bill Will Force Elderly To Decide When To Die
Okay, forget about that poll from yesterday finding nearly half believe health care reform will empower government to withhold medical care from the elderly. This one is even whackier.
I’ve now obtained a new poll that finds a majority of Republicans believe the health care reform bill will force old people to decide in advance how and when they meet their maker.
The new poll, to be released later this morning, was sent my way by the Indiana University Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research, and here’s a chart of this key finding (click to enlarge):
The poll finds that 53% of Republicans believe that “the government will require the elderly to make decisions about how and when they will die.” By contrast, only 31% of independents and 14% of Democrats believe this, according to this poll of 600 adults nationwide.
Note the word “require.” A majority of Republicans believes that the health care reform will force old people to decide in advance “how and when they will die.” This is far more out there than anything we’ve seen polled before.
This goes even farther than Sarah Palin, who famously said that Obama’s death panels would be empowered to decide whether people “are worthy of health care.” This poll, by contrast, asked about the ultimate real fever swamp theory: That health care reform would empower government to force people to pick a date for their rendevous with destiny.
A majority of Republicans believes this. And, disturbingly, nearly a third overall, or 31%, believe it, too.
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This poll also shows that the majority of Republicans are morons.
Tomorrow’s poll results: majority of repubs cannot count to 20 without taking off their shoes.
I wonder if that ignoramus Palin realizes her statements could result in the elderly not being able to afford end of life counseling from their doctors if they want it.
Elderly folk should be outraged. I would be if that dunce was partially responsible for me being denied services that could make the last moments of my life pass easier, focusing on my friends and family, rather than what my next health decision should be.
Tomorrow’s Poll:
Majority of Republicans would eat their own feces if Fox News and Rush Limbaugh told them to do it and told them “liberals and Democrats don’t want you to know about this.”
Joe Klein nailed it: The Republican Party has jumped the shark.
I only WISH that I COULD decide how and when I were to die!
well, sbj, you can, if you opt for euthanasia.
The real crime here is the fact that the Democrats were totally unprepared for this. As someone who has read tons and tons of right-wing blogs over the years, I saw it coming ten miles away. They need to hire me to troll the depths of the wingnutosphere just so they can anticipate the horseshit that will be used against them.
The Republicans are increasingly the party of morons. While Boehner, Palin, Grassley, et al. can gin up these rabid twits into a mindless frenzy, it is really hard to see how they think this will play out to their advantage in the long run. If the Republican Party looks more and more xenophobic, homophobic, fearful, mean spirited, and irrational on EVERY issue, how are they going to attract independents and democrats to vote for their candidates? The above statistics indicate that this is a suicidal strategy. If they can’t win converts, they will continue to lose elections.
Let the circular firing squad continue. Ready, aim, FIRE!
“well, sbj, you can, if you opt for euthanasia.”
That ALMOST sounds passive aggressive. Don’t make me link to the Ed G Robinson Soylent Green clip again…
What’s, well not really astonishing considering the kind of debate they are willing to have, is conservatives have some strange pride in their ignorance they’ve managed to sway public opinion into thinking Govn’t will be pulling the plug.
The right wing talking heads think it’s some sort of victory a significant portion of the population believes a falsehood.
WTF is wrong with these people. They’re cheering “Yay! Teh Stupid is gaining in the polls!”
All these polls are kind of stupid. People are stupid and contradictory. A waiter at Denny’s during the primary told me and my friend that he was voting for Hillary. Then he went on to talk about how Hillary murdered Vince Foster and Bill assassinated some political enemies. The waiter said, but all politicians do that.
I work at a child/elder abuse hotline and I think the meme of “killing granny” would actually be a selling point with the under 50 crowd. A lot of people can’t wait for granny to kick the bucket and start taking granny’s assets and money before she is dead.
I wish I got that choice. My long term health plans include enough money to get me to where I need to be to be left alone so I can die in peace and not being messed with by doctors.
Bill Maher was right! We are a stupid country. While the majority of us are not, there are truely many stupid people in this country and I have to include the ignorant oldsters who don’t even know that their Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are all government programs that they wouldn’t even have without DEMOCRATS! After Obama explains time and time again that this stuff is untrue there’s only 2 conclusions you can reach. Either these people are stupid or they just don’t want to believe the truth. Look at the idiots at Claire McCaskil’s town hall who, when she told them one of the facts about the healthcare plan they screamed back to her “We don’t trust you” We don’t believe you. Where do you go from their?
Attention Boys and Girls.
Here is some great news.
“U.S. Life Expectancy at All-Time High”
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/us-life-expectancy-at-all-time-high/
Excerpt:
“Americans are living nearly two-and-a-half months longer, according to new life expectancy statistics released today. In 2007, life expectancy in the United States reached a high of nearly 78 years, up from 77.7 a year earlier.
Life expectancy in the United States has been on the rise for a decade, increasing 1.4 years — from 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The life expectancy data, compiled by the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics, are based on nearly 90 percent of the death certificates filed in the United States.”
Here is where the great news comes in.
This report is actually certification of the fact that Medicare is keeping the Elderly alive, and actually adding to their years.
And what is Medicare?
That is correct. It is a government health care administered program.
The government is actually keeping old people alive, and keeping them alive for longer and longer. The exact opposite of what the “Death Panel” Big Lie spreaders are promulgating.
Take this report, and pass it on to all your contacts, and have them do the same.
Instruct them to contact all people over fifty, that they know, and explain this finding to them. Spread the truth. It is on your side. Start telling it.
The Government is keeping old people alive, while the Private Insurance Companies are refusing to treat sick people of all ages.
Get on it. No time to waste.
@roxsteady — and any senior who doesn’t have a clue about Medicare hasn’t had a clue in awhile, because they were young and middle-aged working adults when Medicare came to be.
“Bill Maher was right! We are a stupid country.”
I’ve been fighting that idea steadily for years and I have surrendered.
He’s right.
Why has no one asked the obvious question to one of these morons? That seemingly obvious question is as follows:
Do you actually believe that politicians are trying to kill off voters?
“Why has no one asked the obvious question to one of these morons? That seemingly obvious question is as follows:”:
Along those lines, smidget, why hasn’t anyone asked them why they think doctors being paid by medicare would want to kill off their paychecks?
“Along those lines, smidget, why hasn’t anyone asked them why they think doctors being paid by medicare would want to kill off their paychecks?”
Oh, I have a lot of questions about what these people are thinking. I just can’t imagine that anyone, even the dumbest of the dumb, would actually think that politicians who are certainly good at protecting their own self-interest if nothing else, would propose, support, and defend a plan to kill of voters.
I find that to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. Forget the fact that’s proveably untrue…it just makes no sense at all. I’m quite sure my 2-year old puppy is more rational that these people.
smidget – of course it’s ridiculous. It’s beyond ridiculous.
The majority of GOPers doesn’t really believe this. They know they’re being polled and that their answers will have an effect on the public debate.
Actually I suspect the majority of GOP’ers do believe this nonsense, but that the number of people willing to call themselves Republicans has shrunk dramatically.
I think this is the end result of one party teaching their members that there is no reliable source of information other than what the party, and it’s acceptable media members, put out. From my experience, Republicans distrust of media and demonetization of Democratic leaders has contributed in no small measure to the surrealism of this debate.
I think Mike C. is close to the truth, but I wouldn’t assign such calculation to the respondents. My personal suspicion is that these people are not well informed even about the lies they’ve been fed (see the poll where more of them thought Obama was born in Indonesia than Kenya), and they’ll jump on any suggestion from a pollster that sounds really bad. If anything, asking the question could inadvertently act as a kind of push poll for impressionable conservatives.
As an aside, the font in this comment box is really ugly. What the hell, man?
Someone’s going to have start to breaking this data down by age. Has the Republican party dwindled so much that they’re not just ‘white southerners’ but rather ‘65+ white southerners’?
There’s a lot of people who should be terrified of these numbers.
You put a lot of weight on respondents parsing of “require”. But can someone who answers in the affirmative here be credited with recognizing such nuance? Really?
The elderly have had socialized healthcare for 45 years. It’s called Medicare. So far no one on Medicare has faced a death panel.
I would only ask this of all of you – Read the following bills floating in the House and in Congress – I have – Then decide on what is best for America:
Which bill – or combination of bills would you support? HR3200 – the Kennedy reform bill – The patients Choice Act of 2009 – The Health Care Freedom act – or the Empowering Patients First Act – among others… I have read them all if you would like to discuss them…
Maybe the answer is right under our collective noses. We Democrats should start our own disinformation campaign–only we’re too “nice” to do that. Or are we? Bwah-hahahaha!