Death panels in our health care system are a frightening thought.  However, look who introduced this idea into the discussion.  It was the Republicans who thought about this as a way to save money, not the Democrats.  The Republicans are saying it is a horrible idea now in order to frighten you away from the Democratic plan.  However, if they came to power and a public insurance option were in operation, might they change their tune about how horrible it is?  The Republicans are the ones telling you that government doesn’t work.  Whenever they come to power, they set out to prove their point.  Instituting such a policy might be one way they would do it.  This could be similar to how they treated the people of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina..

Who was it that thought torture might be a good war tactic?  Again, Republicans not Democrats.  Remember they disguised their actual thoughts by telling us that they do not torture.  In fact, at the highest levels of government,  they were requiring water boarding even as they denied that it was torture.

When you look at the ideas that people bring to the public forum, it gives you an insight into how their minds work.  Especially when they originate the idea without prompting from actual events. Although, maybe the death panel idea does come from some of the private insurance companies where some Republicans have worked.  The private insurance companies do seem to be able to put roadblocks in front of promising to make their rightful payment until the patient dies.  After death they promise that they would have covered the surgery that would have saved the patient’s life.

The lesson to be learned here is that when we do get health insurance reform in this country, we must make absolutely sure that no Republican death panel dreamer ever gets control of the reins of this public program.

I can’t imagine what other ugly schemes they can dream up to save money, but I bet they have lots of them.

For those who don’t remember the news for more than a few days, I’ll remind you that people like Sarah Palin helped popularize the myth of the mandatory government death panels that would sit in judgment of people to decide if their lives had sufficient merit and future prospects to warrant spending money to preserve their lives.

The Republicans pretended that this was the same thing as the Democratic proposal to fund optional conversations between a patient and a doctor about how to handle the practicalities and options that present themselves toward the end of your life.  I don’t call a discussion between a doctor and patient to be a panel.  It is certainly not government run.  Also voluntary is not mandatory although I guess it is easy to confuse the two words.

But at least they told us what options would come to their minds if they had the chance to run things.

If you need any further reminders, see my posts on this blog, Palin’s ‘death panel’ comment on health care is challenged and Special Comment On Sarah Palin.

The following comment from Huffington Post, is typical of those who believe government programs cannot work well:

The Postal System, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security all have one thing in common. Their bankrupt.

Yes, lets socialize health care.

Who thought that was a good idea?

This argument may seem reasonable at first blush, but my response was made in the following rebuttal:

If Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid could take in premiums and then refuse to pay the health care bills of its subscribers, then it could profit like private insurance does.

If the postal service were not mandated to provide service that the profitable companies avoid, they might make a profit, too. Fedex and UPS do not deliver to my house 6 days a week. They deliver when it is convenient and profitable for them.

Well, to some extent local governments have known how to do this for years.

My father owned and ran a small drug store in a working class to poor neighborhood for 40 years up till he retired in the 1980’s. Many of his customers were on welfare as it was called back then. He would submit bills to the welfare office that would bounce them back for minor errors. He would fix the bills and resubmit them and wait and wait for payment. He frequently had to take out personal loans to float the store’s inventory until the payments would finally come in.

Now that drugstores are run by big corporations and welfare is partially Federally funded through Medicaid, the burden has been shifted to the recipients who are now denied coverage unless they can hire a lawyer and fight for it.

This tactic of denying coverage was something that seemed to be a brainchild of the Reagan, Bush, Bush administrations.

The lesson learned should be that if we ever do get a public option for health care, don’t ever elect Republicans to national office to control it.  Remember that all the nasty things that you are worried about such as death panels are ideas that come from Republican minds.