Very good...Smart young man. The problem with the term "Life Panel." Is that the current conservative guru poleman Frank Luntz found out the term "death panel, scored higher with conservative kooks. "Republicans when asked for a comment," mumbled something unintelligible then scampered away all with Newt on with speed dial....seeking talking points.
Obviously she is not. You don't' see her carrying a teleprompter around. Dems know she is a threat. Thats why they are so scared of her.
1. While the term "death panel" is perhaps a bit strong, few people with a brain are naive enough to believe the day of rationing is not in the cards, i.e. old folks who're "going to die soon anyways", will no longer continue receiving life prolonging treatments. 2. Why is rationing for a larger social/fiscal good more of a threat under a public vs. private system? For starter because while you can sue Humana or Blue Cross or United Health for contractual violations you cannot sue the Federal Government. 3. Vis a vis' Palin: Even her sharpest critics up in Alaska concede that she's a sharp cookie. Obviously she entered a national campaign without being properly briefed on complex global issues but those who extrapolate from the Couric interview etc that she's not intrinsically intelligent probably aren't overly bright themselves. To wit, she more than held her own in the VP debate with lawyer trained, silver tongued, three decades in the Senate, on the campaign trail for President a few times himself, Joe Biden. 4. It's funny and duplicitous how the Left accuses every conservative Republican of being a dim bulb. George Bush who had better grades and a higher estimated IQ than both Kerry and Gore must really be the ultimate idiot savant. Acording to libtards, Bush who graduated from Yale, received a Harvard MBA, made a $100,000,000 owning the Rangers, is a trained pilot, bi-lingual, stole a couple of elections, conspired to create 9/11, started an illegal war, made his oil buddies rich, yet was a certifiable moron. We should all be so stupid. The same with Reagan. A generation of American's heard little more about him from the leftest media other than he was a "B" movie actor who co-starred with a chimp. Forgotten of course was Reagan's demanding stint as President of the Screen Actors Guild (an elected post) and his weekly radio addresses in California where his authorship was unquestioned, as opposed to JFK who never wrote or read an unghostwritten word. Meanwhile the left nods like lemmings over Obama's academic achievements without a scant, transparent trace of a college treanscript, admissions report or IQ test score.
The worst she is guilty of is hyperbole. You have be one naive fool to think the govt is going to set up a panel to study the effectiveness of different treatments across different age groups and not use that information. No they won't sentence someone to death, but you can imagine how a govt panel will implement something like that. Not all 80 somethings are the same, healthwise, but you can bet they will have some rigid criteria that prevents certain treatments based solely on age and life expectancy.
So some people will not get health care... Why is that any different than the system we currently have? Sure, anyone can get treatment at the emergency room (that isn't going to change with Obama care). However, the terminally ill who have no health insurance or financial resources, what do they do now?