Isakson’s awkward contortions on end-of-life counseling
I like Johnny Isakson. I’ve known him since his time in the Georgia Legislature, and in those days we were often on the same side of crusades. The most memorable was probably an effort to force the hidebound Democrats then in charge to accept substantial ethics legislation. House Speaker Tom Murphy and others fought that effort, but in the end, with public support, we won.
While our political leanings may be different, Isakson has always been personable and reasonable. He has long had a reputation of being willing to work with the other side to get things done, which has led some in his party to question his loyalty.
In the increasingly bitter health-care debate, the Georgia senator seems to have become trapped in a position he doesn’t like much, and the resulting contortions aren’t pretty.
As you know, some of the criticism of the House plan centers on claims that it requires senior citizens to undergo mandatory end-of-life counseling at least once every five years. That claim — absolutely false in its own right — has then been further twisted by some on the right into a suggestion that it will lead to “death panels” condemning the disabled and elderly to euthanasia, as a way to save on medical costs.
On her Facebook page, for example, Sarah Palin suggested such panels could order the death of her son Trig, who has Down Syndrome.
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care,” Palin wrote. “Such a system is downright evil.”
And it surely would be, if such a system existed or was even contemplated. In reality, the House legislation (relevant text is here) would merely add counseling about living wills and end-of-life orders to knee replacements and other medical procedures that can be compensated under Medicare.
Under the bill, those sessions would be entirely voluntary and thus ought to be utterly noncontroversial. Such consultations allow people to make difficult decisions about their health care beforehand, at a time when they are mentally, physically and emotionally able to do so. As in the tragic Terri Schiavo case, once you are incapacitated, that opportunity is gone.
Legal and medical experts strongly endorse such counseling. So does Isakson. In 2007, he helped sponsor the “Medicare End-of-Life Care Planning Act,” which according to the Congressional Research Service proposed “to provide for Medicare coverage of an end-of-life planning consultation, including discussion of advance directives, as part of an initial preventive physical examination.” The full text of the bill is available here. Among Isakson’s co-sponsors were Democratic senators Ted Kennedy and Jay Rockefeller.
While that bill never passed, last month Isakson proposed a similar amendment to the Senate’s version of the health-care reform proposal, and his language was incorporated into the bill with strong bipartisan support.
In an interview earlier this week with Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, Isakson was asked how such common-sense ideas came to be distorted into a euthanasia program.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I understand — and you have to check this out — I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end-of-life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up.”
So far, so good. It truly is nuts to make such a claim. So, at his health-care town hall on Tuesday, President Obama cited Isakson’s support for end-of-life planning to rebut claims that “death panels” would be convened under the plan.
“… 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,” Obama pointed out. “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 — I want to clear the air here.”
That statement put Isakson into a tough position with his party, undercutting one of the most emotionally powerful arguments used by its most irresponsible members and supporters. So late in the day, his office put out a statement trying to separate himself from Obama.
“The White House and others are merely attempting to deflect attention from the intense negativity caused by their unpopular policies,” Isakson was quoted as saying. “I never consulted with the White House in this process and had no role whatsoever in the House Democrats’ bill. I categorically oppose the House bill and find it incredulous that the White House and others would use my amendment as a scapegoat for their misguided policies. My Senate amendment simply puts health care choices back in the hands of the individual and allows them to consider if they so choose a living will or durable power of attorney. The House provision is merely another ill-advised attempt at more government mandates, more government intrusion, and more government involvement in what should be an individual choice.”
The difference, Isakson’s office claims, is that his amendment “empowers the individual to make their own choices on these critical issues, rather than the government incentivizing doctors to conduct counseling on government-mandated topics.”
Isakson’s point that he had nothing to do with the House language is valid, and to the degree Obama suggested otherwise, he was wrong. However, Isakson’s effort to claim that his approach is in some important way different from the House approach is strained at best and in this context misleading. His approach “incentivizes” such counseling the same way the House bill does, by offering doctors financial compensation for conducting such sessions.
Isakson opposes the president’s health-care proposal and voted against the overall Senate version. That’s fine. Nothing Obama said suggests otherwise. But on the particular issue of end-of-life counseling, the differences between the president and the senator are very minor; in the context of bizarre claims about “death panels” and euthanasia, those differences have no relevance whatsoever.
Isakson could have, and should have, noted his opposition to the Democrats’ overall approach to health care, reiterated his support for end-of-life counseling and his condemnation of the “death panel” lunacy, and left it at that. But sometimes politics gets the best even of good people.
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219 comments Add your comment
Mort Merkel
August 12th, 2009
8:47 am
Up close does he still look covered in leather and reek of cigarette smoke?
I Report/ I Am The Mob (-: You Whine )-:
August 12th, 2009
8:52 am
in the context of bizarre claims about “death panels” and euthanasia, those differences have no relevance whatsoever.
uh-huh
Randy Stroup, a 53-year-old Oregon resident suffering from prostate cancer, was covered by the state’s public option government health plan, the Oregon Health Plan. But the state plan sent him a letter refusing to pay for his cancer treatment. It offered to pay for physician assisted suicide instead. A 64-year-old woman with breast cancer received a similar letter. She is dead now. Americans don’t want to take this health care fascism nationwide.-AmSpec
I Report/ I Am The Mob (-: You Whine )-:
August 12th, 2009
8:57 am
Obama takes no responsibility for his time served in the U.S. Senate since 2004. He wants us to forget that while serving there he opposed every Bush budget because it did not spend enough. He wants us to forget that as a Senator he joined with Barney Frank to successfully oppose the Bush reforms to clean up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which did so much to cause the financial crisis. In the Congress, he joined with Frank and other ultraliberals who, along with long-time Obama ally ACORN, had long pushed Fannie, Freddie, and the nation’s banks to break down traditional mortgage lending standards, and grant mortgages to so many who ultimately failed to pay them back.-AmSpec
Where have we heard that before?
Mort Merkel
August 12th, 2009
8:59 am
Isakson’s all, “Ooooo, you got your icky Democrat germs on me!”
pd
August 12th, 2009
9:06 am
This whole thing is insane. We can’t have a legitimate discussion on whats in the bill, because we are bickering over things that aren’t in the bill.
The republicans are lying, and the democrats are being so vague, no one understands them.
George American
August 12th, 2009
9:10 am
Sarah Palin is another victim of the difficult to read 1000+ page bill. That’s alot of reading to get done.
Her confusion over an issue that could result in euthanizing her retarded child is completely understandable.
Mrs. Godzilla
August 12th, 2009
9:11 am
“The American Spectator is a conservative political magazine founded by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. It is most famous for its attacks on the Clinton administration in the 1990s, including the Richard Mellon Scaife-funded Arkansas Project. It is operated by the nonprofit American Spectator Foundation, Inc.”
further
“The Arkansas Project is the general name of a series of investigations (mostly funded by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife) that were designed to damage and end the presidency of Bill Clinton.[1] Scaife gave $1.8 million “to unearth damaging information about President Clinton.”[2] Some reports and investigations connected to this project focused on questions about the suicide of Vincent Foster, the Clintons’ investment in Whitewater, and Troopergate.”
American Spectator……there’s your sign!
saywhat?
August 12th, 2009
9:14 am
And meanwhile Newt Gingrich today writes a piece in the AJC entitled “Citizens Just Want the Truth”, mere days after going on Stephanopolous’ show and lying about the whole “death panel” nonsense himself. I guess he believes citizens want the truth, he figures they just don’t want it from him.
Taxpayer
August 12th, 2009
9:15 am
Isakson is worried about the next election. He’s torn between trying to actually do good by we the people and appeasing the party of no, the loser party, the GOP. He knows that the party of no will put up a new candidate to run against him and block him from getting as much financing and run sleazy negative ads against him, etc., if he does not toe the line. He should switch to Independent and take his chances with re-election. At least he could then maintain some integrity, if that is what he truly wants. Then again, at least I have not heard of him doing some of the utterly dispicable things that Saxby, for example, has done. Yet, the people here in Georgia chose to re-elect Saxby and they’ll probably vote against Isakson in the next election because he does not say “No” often enough or does not bow before Limbaugh or does not offer up enough tax cuts or something as equally pathetic. However, I just cannot help but be thrilled when the party of no once again eats its own and apparently without even realizing it. They likely thought that it just tasted like chicken. Good show, Sarah and you other self-euthanizing Republicans.
saywhat?
August 12th, 2009
9:16 am
George, the only thing Sarah palin is a victim of is her own stupidity and partisan hackery. You two have much in common.
stands for decibels
August 12th, 2009
9:16 am
Jay, I was thinking about Johnny’s difficult position myself, and then a light bulb went off. Here’s the key to what he’d said, and I’d missed the subtlety, earlier:
“I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it [...]”
Note—being the astute politician he is, Johnny makes sure that he is speaking about Sarah’s “death panel” sliming as something he has heard about. That gives him an out. He can always say that he hadn’t seen the full remarks in context (even though they’d been out there a full two, three days when Johnny was being interviewed about this by Ezra, and would take all of a minute to read end-to-end).
That’s why these guys make the big bucks (well, sooner or later.)
stands for decibels
August 12th, 2009
9:17 am
That’s alot of reading to get done.
Her confusion over an issue that could result in euthanizing her retarded child is completely understandable.
George American, I think I love you. So what am I so afraid of?
getalife
August 12th, 2009
9:17 am
” Deather, defined:
Main entry: deather
Function: noun
Etymology: From birther, a related conspiracy theory which holds that President Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen. Inspired by the teabaggers of April 15, 2009.
Date: Mid-2009
Definition: One who believes or spreads the false conspiracy theory that the health care reform legislation before Congress would create “death panels” or force seniors and sick people into euthanasia.
Examples: Sarah Palin is a deather. Glenn Beck is a deather. Rush Limbaugh is a deather.Newt is a deather.”
64 IQ
August 12th, 2009
9:20 am
George .. Everytime I read your posts I feel so much smarter…Thanks
Normal
August 12th, 2009
9:22 am
PD: You are absolutely correct. It seems that no one “On the Hill” knows how to talk straight or talk truth
WHINER: AmSpec? You’ve got to be kidding me. They make up more stuff than The Inquirer” OMG, Bill had sex with an alien from Venus!!!
Don’t waste your time…jus’ sayin’
Taxpayer
August 12th, 2009
9:22 am
And meanwhile Newt Gingrich today writes a piece in the AJC entitled “Citizens Just Want the Truth”, mere days after going on Stephanopolous’ show and lying about the whole “death panel” nonsense himself. I guess he believes citizens want the truth, he figures they just don’t want it from him.
And, Newt will give these “citizens” his sponsor’s version of the “truth”, on a bumper sticker. Newt is quite well known from coast to coast, sea to shining sea. He has left his mark all over Corporate America’s bathroom stalls. For a good time, call 1-800-NEWT. He’s always available for the right price.
jokerman
August 12th, 2009
9:24 am
Sorry I’m late to the discussion…I had to drop my mom off at the social security office, file for my unemployment insurance, and take grandpa to get his new hearing aid paid for by medicare.
I don’t want no big government running my life….Death panels, and all!
Sarah Palin knows what she is talking about….Don’t she?
eagle scout
August 12th, 2009
9:27 am
Normal….The whiner has been citing the American Spector as his source of reason for many a moon.
Eweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
N.J.
August 12th, 2009
9:28 am
This is one place where I really do not fault Isakson in any way. What I do know is that Isakson has been pushing this same “end of life” counseling for a while and what he has attempted to do with the Senate Bill for health reform with regard to this issue is something he has written, sponsored and presented as separate legislation for Congress in the past, the last time being the End of Life Planning Act of 2007. The legislation quite clearly takes any possible decision making out of the hands of the government (it never was, and it is Medicaid Law that has the oldest laws that prohibit the use of public money for purposes of assisted suicide, mercy killing, and even strong prohibitions with regard to cutting treatments if they are becoming too costly, even if they will do nothing to prolong the patients life. There are fewer restrictions on private health insurers in this regard, and even the legislation that extended prohibitions against assisted suicide, mercy killing and withdrawing costly care at the end of life for reasons that it is not thought that it will extend the patient’s life into the private insurance sector, Medicare prohibitions are far stronger. They are as strong if not stronger than the prohibitions of using federal funds to provide abortions. Restrictions against the private health insurance industry doing so are not very strong and have almost no enforcement mechanism at all. The law with regard to using public funds for mercy killing and assisted suicide are rather strong, but the situation with private health insurers is at best vague. The government could step in to prevent such use rather easily, however with private insurers, civil legal action is the only real mechanism that someone would have to get an insurer to keep paying for life support care and medications, and court orders necessary. This of course is very objectionable to the private health insurance industry. They do not want to be told when they can or cannot stop treatment if they do not think it is worth the expense, or they claim it will not extend the life or add to the quality of life. In these situations, the health insurer can have their own panel of doctors override the medical care that the patients own doctors think are best, and the insurance companies want to maintain the right of their own panels to take precedence over the patients health care providers, regardless of the fact that the doctor may have been the patient’s health care provider for decades and therefore far more familiar with the case. The disrupters and the health insurance industry’s involvement in stirring up these fears are based in the health insurance industry’s desire to be the controlling party in end of life situations, primarily because the most expensive care in the entire health system is the care of the elderly. Any method by which they can minimize costs by retaining the ability of their own medical “death panels” to have the final word in end of life issues will be and is being used. The law protects any and all Americans on public health programs from such decisions. There is almost no protection from it in the private health market.
RW-(the original)
August 12th, 2009
9:28 am
I take it nobody has gone to Jay B’s link that says “relevant text is here”
I’ll give you not only the relevant text from that link but the entirety of the text.
Comments are closed.
In a way that seems to support the notion of death panels more than it dispels them, but it’s a little cryptic.
Taxpayer
August 12th, 2009
9:30 am
In just the past three cycles, Democrats have gained a net of 374 state house seats and 68 state senate seats nationwide, moving them from slight minority status following the 2002 cycle–49.8 percent of two-party# share of house seats and 49.9 percent of senate seats; the first time Republicans had such an advantage since before the New Deal–to reasonably comfortable majority status in just six years. Democrats now control 56.8 percent of state house seats and 53.4 percent of state senate seats. — 538dotcommmmmmm
Based on current trends, I would have to conclude that the Republican plan is working out just great. Don’t change a thing. Please!
Marlboro Man
August 12th, 2009
9:31 am
I heard Isakson on NPR the other day talking about health care reform. He would have been a little more convincing if he could hav supressed his smoker’s hack a little better.
Elephant Whip
August 12th, 2009
9:31 am
WHY CAN’T WE BLOG ON NEWT?
HEY NEWT: YOU’RE RIGHT 2+2=4. UNFORTUNATELY, YOUR STRATEGY IS 0+0-1,000,000=4.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
August 12th, 2009
9:31 am
Well, I see this 60 year old guy got convicted for feeling up a girl in a Minnie Mouse outfit down at Disney World. It just goes to show there ain’t nothing safe from the good old boys anymore. There’s this Neal Horsely running for guvner that says he done You Know What with a mule and another guy that got arrested for doing You Know What with a dog and it just goes on and on. You best wear one of them metal suits if you’re going out of your house these days.
I think it’s just sinful they’re going to put all the old folk and the cripples in front of a panel that will decide whether they get to live any longer. Sure, it might could fix the Social Security and Medicare problem, but just think of all the lying it will create. We already have women that sellabrated their 39th birthday 40 times, including Sister Dusty, and now everybody will claim to be alot younger than they are just to keep from going in front of a panel. Others will just deny they’re having a birthday anymore. Heck, we’ll probly have 80 year olds trying out for the Falcons.
Anyhow, you can’t blame old Johnny for fibbing a little bit about what he had to do with putting this amendment in the health care bill. He don’t want to get blamed when the panels start traveling all over the country and all the old folk and the cripples get rounded up. A politican has got to think about getting reelected first. Everything else can wait. If this Obamacare bill gets passed he don’t want to have his name on it.
Have a good day everybody.
jconservative
August 12th, 2009
9:34 am
I just read pages 425 through 434 on the House bill. I would oppose that provision because it calls for taxpayers money to pay for the consultation. I do not object to using my tax money to pay for your annual physical. But decisions about medical care in end of life situations is personal & me/family can pay for that.
Only a brain already dead can read “death panel” into that provision.
Taxpayer
August 12th, 2009
9:38 am
Randy Stroup, a 53-year-old Oregon resident suffering from prostate cancer, was covered by the state’s public option government health plan, the Oregon Health Plan. But the state plan sent him a letter refusing to pay for his cancer treatment. It offered to pay for physician assisted suicide instead. A 64-year-old woman with breast cancer received a similar letter. She is dead now. Americans don’t want to take this health care fascism nationwide.-AmSpec
Insurance companies actually are the ones that like to pull such tricks on individual policy holders except they go about it in a much more underhanded, dispicable, fiendish, devilish, etc., way — they wait until you actually need the insurance that you thought you had paid for all those years and after you have run up enough unpaid bills to force you to file for bankruptcy and then they send you a letter stating that you incorrectly completed your questionnaire and cite the portion of their policy that clearly states that you insurance is null and void if they send you a letter that states, for example, that you incorrectly answered a question on your questionnaire. Would anyone like to see some examples from those questionnaires. The least they could do at that point is offer a complementary end-of-life counseling session discount coupon.
Brad Steel
August 12th, 2009
9:44 am
If you find Limbaugh or Glenn Beck to be to highbrow, just cut-n-paste American Spectator. It’s drivel is refreshingly idiotic.
By the way, the German version of AmSpec reads more beautifully feels more authentic.
RW-(the original)
August 12th, 2009
9:45 am
Just in case anybody really wants to see the bill as it stands now The end of life area begins on page 424 and it sure has a lot more “shalls” than it does “mays.”
George American
August 12th, 2009
9:47 am
YOU LIBERALS HATE SARAH PALIN BECAUSE SHE SPEAKS FOR REGULAR REAL AMERICANS – NOT THE FANCY-PANTS NORTHEASTERN ELITES WITH THEIR OH-SO-FANCY AND EXCLUSIONARY DEGREES FROM HARVARD.
NRB
August 12th, 2009
9:50 am
Whatever Jay. You moron. You’re not getting your socialist health policy. So go back to being a cheerleader for the Afghan war…you know…Obama sending our troops to DIE FOR OIL.
Mr. Snarky
August 12th, 2009
9:50 am
Looks like not just old gullible people are scared…so is Isakson. I think Voldemort is behind all this deceptive “Death Panel” BS.
George American
August 12th, 2009
9:52 am
ALTHOUGH SARAH COULD TAKE A SHORT DRIVE TO CANADA TO GET FREE 2ND-RATE HEALTHCARE, SHE DOESN’T BECAUSE SHE WANTS THE GOOD HEALTHCARE HERE IN AMERICA THAT IS NOT PAID FOR BY YOUR TAX DOLLARS.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF LIVING UP TO HER PROMISES AND A HIGHER STANDARD THAN YOUR LAZY LIBERALS!!!
jewcowboy
August 12th, 2009
9:53 am
Looks like ole George American might need some Depends looking at the diarrhea he’s spewing. Are they covered by Medicare?
jconservative
August 12th, 2009
9:53 am
Re the swastika on David Scott’s’ sign -
Maybe he did it personally. If so, it was a brilliant political move. The other side is automatically the bad guy. If he did not do it and the “other side” did, then David Scott is still the winner. The other side are the bad guys. It is a win – win for David Scott.
The losers are guys like me who oppose a government sponsored option. It is going to be hard enough to block that without some brain dead drawing a swastika on Scott’s’ sign & giving his side the free publicity & the free air time on TV.
Kayaker 71
August 12th, 2009
9:57 am
This raucous debate over the health care bill is caused by one thing and one thing only. There might be parts of it that would serve the public well. I don’t believe that a “death panel” was even suggested by anyone except Rham Emmanuel’s brother when he said that our health care dollars could be better spent on those between 20 and 50yrs of age. That’s fine if you are not 72.
Claire MacCaskill, the senator from MO received a comment from someone in the audience of her town hall meeting that said “We don’t trust you”. She stood there like a deer in the headlights, not even comprehending what the person had said. I really don’t think that these elected officials even come down to our level most of the time. They are sequestered in their own little world, worrying about the next election and the latino vote and don’t have a clue about how America feels about them. We don’t trust them, plain and simple. The light bulb had not gone on yet and I doubt that it ever will.
Bosch
August 12th, 2009
9:59 am
Don’t most doctors do this kind of thing anyway? Why do you need a specific appointment set up to discuss these matters? The last time we took the old folks to the doctor, the doctor had this kind of “talk” with all the old folks.
Harry
August 12th, 2009
10:00 am
Any death panels come near me and I’ll whip out my wand. Sectum sempre! Luckily, I’m going back to London and sensible healthcare soon.
Doggone/GA
August 12th, 2009
10:01 am
“he figures they just don’t want it from him.”
That was EXACTLY the same thought I had!
Taxpayer
August 12th, 2009
10:02 am
How many Republicans, in government, have refused to accept taxpayer-funded healthcare insurance, on principle, and opted for an individual policy. Stand up and be counted. Show we the people your true color. Yellow.
NRB
August 12th, 2009
10:02 am
Thankfully, militia groups are on the rise. Hopefully the idiots in government are starting to sweat…
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9A140QG0&show_article=1
Mr. Snarky
August 12th, 2009
10:03 am
Correction. Perhaps Isakson has become an old gullible person…like Gandalf, Whiner, and the rest of you right wing scaremongers. They’re gonna take away my cane!
Brad Steel
August 12th, 2009
10:04 am
jconservative @ 9:53 am postulates: Re the swastika on David Scott’s’ sign – Maybe he did it personally.
Have they looked for the spray can beside his white robes and pointy hood?
nutjob. chuckle chuckle.
USinUK
August 12th, 2009
10:05 am
Kayaker –
“She stood there like a deer in the headlights, not even comprehending what the person had said”
well, geez, Kayaker, what **can** you say to that? “I’m sorry”? “You should trust me”? “I am not a crook”??? there really is no good answer to that other than “I’m sorry you feel that way”.
Bosch –
“Don’t most doctors do this kind of thing anyway?”
if you’re going into the hospital for a procedure, yeah, they’ll talk to you. but, what if you’re a 75-year old who has a stroke out of the blue? what if you’re in a car accident? what if you don’t have family and aren’t exactly a person “of means” with an attorney??
my dad had a heart scare about 6 or 7 years ago (he was 75) – after that, he set up his living will and talked us kids through what he wanted done. before that, he really didn’t want to think about it.
me, I think it’s probably one of the best provisions in the bill (and should actually be extended to ALL Americans, not just the elderly)
USinUK
August 12th, 2009
10:07 am
nrb –
your 10:02
only a complete wanker would cheer bloodshed.
Jackie
August 12th, 2009
10:08 am
@I Report
Again, your conservative zeal does not allow you to understand what you posted concerning ACORN, Freddie and Fannie has no merit.
ACORN has nothing to do with lending and the standards put forth. If you care to remember, Dubya pushed for the new standards for housing as the Repubs thought this would be a good way to help all get into housing. Secondly, the housing crisis was brought on by the unregulated standards for financial institutions to allow the dismantlement of usury laws and business contracts. How could 4% default rate on all home loans cause a collapse of the system?
How many folks today that have home loans that are “under water” because the property they purchased is worth less than what was originally paid?
You are astute enough to realize we are in a deflationary spiral that causes much of the market turmoil.
You are entitled to your opinion, you are not entitled to your own set of facts!
Mr. Snarky
August 12th, 2009
10:11 am
“Re the swastika on David Scott’s’ sign -Maybe he did it personally.”
He probably did. Then he trashed his house, his car, and beat up his wife so he could blame it on the opposition.
Newsflash: Not everyone is like you, jconservative.
Greg Mendel
August 12th, 2009
10:12 am
Isakson can’t afford to distract people from the Big Lie being pushed by Republicans regarding health care legislation.
The Republican solution to problems is to deny there’s a problem. (See: Katrina, economic collapse, NIEs, etc.) Conversely, they go nuts over imaginary threats. (See: Iraqi WMD, War Against Christmas, Death Panels, etc.)
The Wal-Martians love it.
Taxpayer
August 12th, 2009
10:14 am
Wait a minute. I thought the Republicans were telling us all that all Corporate America needed were tax cuts to make tax revenues go up and to make companies come back to the USofA instead of setting up in China and India. What happened to that lie. Oh! Right! Folks found out it was a lie and so the Republicans had to scramble for a new one.
Mrs. Godzilla
August 12th, 2009
10:15 am
“(CNN) — Religious groups in favor of health care reform have launched a national campaign to offset the loud opposition to President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, organizers announced.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/11/health.care.religious.groups/index.html
Can I get a big AMEN!
(or a big RAMEN! for you pastafarians)
eagle scout
August 12th, 2009
10:15 am
George what do you call a short drive? I would suggest you don’t even know where Alaska is if you think Canada is just a short drive away!