Seriously, we just can't make this shit up:
Transcript over the jump
SCHIEFFER: Senator Grassley, you have talked as Senator Conrad has about a bipartisan approach. But you really caught some Democrats off guard, a couple weeks ago, when you said this the other day. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRASSLEY: We should not have a government program that determines you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER: Now, Democrats say there is nothing in this legislation that would pull the plug on grandma, or even require people to discuss it. Why did you say that, Senator Grassley?
GRASSLEY: I said that because — two reasons. Number one, I was responding to a question at my town meetings. I let my constituents set the agenda. A person that asked me that question was reading from language that they got off of the Internet. It scared my constituents. And the specific language I used was language that the president had used at Portsmouth, and I thought that it was — if he used the language , then if I responded exactly the same way, that I had an opposite concern about not using end-of-life counseling for saving money, then I was answering –
SCHIEFFER: All right.
GRASSLEY: And relieving the fears that my constituents had, and from that standpoint, remember, you’re talking about this issue being connected with a government-run program which a public option would take you with. You would get into the issue of saving money, and put these three things together and you are scaring a lot of people when I know the Pelosi bill doesn’t intend to do that, but that’s where it leads people to.
SCHIEFFER: Well, that’s what I was trying to get from you this morning. You’re not saying that this legislation would pull the plug on grandma, you’re just saying there are a lot of people out there who think that it would. Or do you want to say this morning that that is not true, that it won’t do that?
GRASSLEY: It won’t do that, but I wanted to explain why my constituents are concerned about it, and I also want to say that there is an $8 billion cost with that issue, and if you’re trying to save money and you put an $8 billion of doctors giving you some advice at the end of life, doctors are going to take advantage of earning that $8 billion and constituents see that as an opportunity to save some money.
It just scares the devil out of people. So that ought to be dropped. And by the way, some newspaper people were saying that we dropped it from the Senate Finance Committee because of the hullabaloo that you just played, and that’s not true. We got this out of our bill a long time ago, and Sen. Conrad will tell you that I was in conversation with people on the Finance Committee way back in March, that we weren’t going to have any of this end-of-life stuff in our bill because it scares people.
SCHIEFFER: Okay, point taken.
This just keeps getting funnier and funnier, and you gotta love how Sheiffer is giving him an "out" when Grassley clearly said it was perfectly okay for them to fear that Obama wanted to kill Grandma and REPEATED IT even after he was called out. I'm sorry, but this man is full of shit. When Obama used the phrase, he was pointing out that it was a dumb claim:
Let me just be specific about some things that I've been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for "death panels" that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that we don't -- it's too expensive to let her live anymore. (Laughter.) And there are various -- there are some variations on this theme.
It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, et cetera. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they're ready, on their own terms. It wasn't forcing anybody to do anything. This is I guess where the rumor came from.
The irony is that actually one of the chief sponsors of this bill originally was a Republican -- then House member, now senator, named Johnny Isakson from Georgia -- who very sensibly thought this is something that would expand people's options. And somehow it's gotten spun into this idea of "death panels." I am not in favor of that. So just I want to -- (applause.) I want to clear the air here.
Now, in fairness, the underlying argument I think has to be addressed, and that is people's concern that if we are reforming the health care system to make it more efficient, which I think we have to do, the concern is that somehow that will mean rationing of care, right? -- that somehow some government bureaucrat out there will be saying, well, you can't have this test or you can't have this procedure because some bean-counter decides that this is not a good way to use our health care dollars. And this is a legitimate concern, so I just want to address this.
We do think that systems like Medicare are very inefficient right now, but it has nothing to do at the moment with issues of benefits. The inefficiencies all come from things like paying $177 billion to insurance companies in subsidies for something called Medicare Advantage that is not competitively bid, so insurance companies basically get a $177 billion of taxpayer money to provide services that Medicare already provides. And it's no better -- it doesn't result in better health care for seniors. It is a giveaway of $177 billion.
Now, think about what we could do with $177 billion over 10 years. I don't think that's a good use of money. I would rather spend that money on making sure that Lori can have coverage, making sure that people who don't have health insurance get some subsidies, than I would want to be subsidizing insurance companies. (Applause.)
Another way of putting this is right now insurance companies are rationing care. They are basically telling you what's covered and what's not. They're telling you: We'll cover this drug, but we won't cover that drug; you can have this procedure, or, you can't have that procedure. So why is it that people would prefer having insurance companies make those decisions, rather than medical experts and doctors figuring out what are good deals for care and providing that information to you as a consumer and your doctor so you can make the decisions?
So I just want to be very clear about this. I recognize there is an underlying fear here that people somehow won't get the care they need. You will have not only the care you need, but also the care that right now is being denied to you -- only if we get health care reform. That's what we're fighting for. (Applause.)
How in the hell could Grassley have gotten "you have every right to fear" out of that answer, IF it was really where he got the phrase?
Here's what Grassley said on August 12th:
"In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life," Grassley said. "You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma."
Grassley was being DELIBERATELY MISLEADING (aka LYING) when he later said:
"With all the other fears people have and what they do in England then you get the idea that somebody is going to decide grandma lived too long," said Grassley. "You understand why you get it."
"Now, the best thing to do if you want people to think about end of life number one -- Jesus Christ is a place to start," Grassley continued. "It ought to be done within the family and considered an religious and ethical issue not something politicians decide.
in response to:
"You know there is nothing in the House bill that will require any elderly person to stand before a committee and decide whether or not they are going to live or die," she chided, as the roughly 200-person crowded booed.
Why not just admit, that there is no such provision? I understand (not really) saying one thing to the home crowd and another to the national crowd, but come on!
On August 16th he said:
The issue is whether end-of-life provisions should be part of legislation that's about controlling health care spending, and which also creates a government-run health care program, as the Pelosi bill does. Doing so escalates concerns about the rationing of health care, since government-run plans in other countries ration to control spending. Putting end-of-life consultations alongside cost containment and government-run health care causes legitimate concern.
SANE people wouldn't have made the connection that allowing for funding for end of life counseling = pulling the plug on Grandma. In fact, Jon Stewart did a great job of ripping this talking point apart.
So Chuck Grassley, don't put the blame on Obama. But he's already tried to blame those darn liberals:
RATIGAN: Senator Grassley, welcome to the program. On the phone as it may be. What's going on between you and the President, if anything, as it pertains to these death panels?
GRASSLEY: Well, listen. I see that as nothing more than a distortion from the far left bringing up these end-of-life concerns, which are not the issues we ought to be talking about. We ought to be talking about government takeover of the health care system. We ought to be talking about the exploding deficits. We ought to be talking about the failure to get on top of high health care costs, and all of these things are in the Pelosi health care bill. And it seems to me they don't want to talk about the real issues.
NO ONE on the left even entertained the notion of a "death panel" as a serious or "legitimate" concern. You know why? Because we're smarter than that!
With friends like Grassley, who the hell needs enemies?