Huckabee: ObamaCare would have abandoned Kennedy
You know, I’m just going to post this from Politico without comment. Because hey, I wouldn’t want to be accused of “politicizing” the death of Ted Kennedy.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee claimed Friday that under the health-care plan proposed by President Barack Obama, Sen. Ted Kennedy would have been told to “go home to take pain pills and die” after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Huckabee made the remark during his radio show Friday while accusing Democrats of trying to use Kennedy’s death to marshal support for the president’s reform package.
“Senator Ted Kennedy’s death had barely hit the news before we started hearing calls that Congress must hurry and pass a health care reform bill and do it in his memory,” he said. “That not only defies good taste, it defies logic.”
“We certainly can and should respect his years of advocacy and work for the things that he truly believed in,” he added. “But easily the worst reason to do it is in the name of someone who gave us the most shining example of why this particular bill is so bad.”
Huckabee then said that seniors would be denied health coverage toward the end of their lives under Obama’s plan, something the former Republican presidential candidate claimed Kennedy would have been subject to as well.
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303 comments Add your comment
Normal
August 29th, 2009
8:39 am
Huckabee’s a Christian, right? Go figure…
Normal
August 29th, 2009
8:43 am
Fear, that’s all the Republicans have to play with. No answeres just fear…gonna get your grandpa and grandma…how pitiful…
Vinny
August 29th, 2009
8:46 am
Yeah fear -
“What is truly scary, what is truly risky, is to do nothing,” – Barack Obama, fear mongerer in chief.
Mrs. Godzilla
August 29th, 2009
8:50 am
We will get our Teddy Bill.
Vinny is apparently the timid type.
Mrs. Godzilla
August 29th, 2009
8:50 am
Mornin’ Normal…..
Did you watch Orrin Hatch last night?
Eric
August 29th, 2009
8:51 am
I guess if you’re a “Christian like Huckabee” it’s okay to tell bald face lies in the interest of advancing your political standing among the thoughtfully challenged. In that particular group, I’m guessing he’s quite the hero. For the rest of us, he’s obviously what he is, a liar and a hypocrite. He’a a Christianist.
Question
August 29th, 2009
8:52 am
Normal at 8:43 — Seems PresBO is the master of using fear, gloom and doom, and never let a crisis go to waste as he continues to move his socialist agenda forward… correct, how pitiful!!!
Melancholy Mikey
August 29th, 2009
8:52 am
Man, mike isn’t just a Debbie Downer. He’s a boring Debbie Downer. And ya, this has nothing to do with this topic. I just spent a lot of time reading the “Racist Memo” blog comments.
Oh, and there’s some really vitriolic anti-black and anti-semetic comments right at the end. They’re really toxic.
But at least not as boring as each and every one of mike’s comments.
Just Say No
August 29th, 2009
8:54 am
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
Question
August 29th, 2009
8:56 am
Now, back on topic, it would be interesting to objectively assess what care for Ted K’s brain cancer would look like under ObamaCare, or Canada/UK/Cuba’s system (assuming Ted K is viewed as an ordinary “Joe Public”).
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
8:58 am
Huckabee belongs right down there at the bottom of the dung heap with his fellow losers, Thompson, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al. Just another ‘compassionate conservative christian republican’ — always thinking about how he can help his fellow man, the republican, screw someone else.
Normal
August 29th, 2009
9:01 am
Mrs G. No, I missed it, the Little Missus and I went out for lemon pepper wings and fried rice…Yummy!
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
9:01 am
Cure brain cancer — become a republican. There is nothing between the ears to be concerned about. They come lobotomized at birth.
Real
August 29th, 2009
9:03 am
Just Say No — “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” – Barack Obama
Eric – seems you meant to say Obama and not Huckabee??
Normal
August 29th, 2009
9:06 am
I don’t believe most of the people buy that stuff. Some will be duped, but not enough to matter. But what Huckabee is really doing is expressing the Republicans biggest nightmare. They fear that Teddy’s death will be the poke in the butt to get it passed. How can they not vote for a healthcare bill that has the name of one of our greatest Senators on it? The irony is just too much…
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
9:08 am
Huckabee is yet another shining example of what is wrong with so-called christianity in this country. It has been hijacked, for one thing, by pathetic scum-sucking losers that even eat their own in order to advance their master’s cause. Now, there’s true compassionate conservatism.
Vinny
August 29th, 2009
9:09 am
No Teddy bill this year or ever, Godzilla – The American people aren’t buying the warm bucket of snake oil currently being sold by this administration.
josef nix
August 29th, 2009
9:10 am
Mornin’ all! Day off from being paid to separate the snot nosed little bast*ds on the state funded playground and thought I’d see how them playing on the grown up playground are getting along. Whoo-whee! That memo blog is a pip, ain’t it…what a way to start the day! Course I just had to respond…that’s why I’m getting here late. Sorry.
TnGelding–left you a than-you for the post, no hyperbole intended in case Jay takes issue!
And
Normal–left you a word of advice there, too!
josef nix
August 29th, 2009
9:12 am
Question–good question and one I’d like to see the answer to as well.
josef nix
August 29th, 2009
9:14 am
Vinny…
“No Teddy bill this year or ever, Godzilla – The American people aren’t buying the warm bucket of snake oil currently being sold by this administration.”
Bear in mind, though, what the Chinese say, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Normal
August 29th, 2009
9:21 am
Josef, I thought Spock said that…
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
9:28 am
The more interesting question is what does Republicare really look like — past and present. Perhaps the actions, instead of the ‘words’, of these Republicans will help shed some light on that.
RNC Chair, Michael Steele’s pledge to “protect Medicare” comes to us just five months after nearly four-fifths of House Republicans voted to literally end the program as we know it for all Americans younger than 55. Hmmmm. Rationing? Let’s take a closer look.
They cast that vote on April 2 in support of a GOP alternative budget plan that would have converted Medicare from an open-ended entitlement that guarantees seniors virtually unlimited access to care into a voucher system that provides future retirees only a fixed sum of money to purchase private health insurance. That approach, in reality, is nothing more than a variation of legislation Republicans actually passed through the House when they controlled it in 2003.
Are you beginning to see why the Republican strategy is to try to shift the talk to one of what terrible things that Obama wants to do. Well, that’s an easy one.
And, let us not forget where the ‘death panel’ talk really originated either. K.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
August 29th, 2009
9:29 am
Well, if the Rev. Huckabee says it, I beleive it. A good Christian like him wouldn’t lie. They probly wouldn’t even have a nursing home bed for this Kennedy after they told him he had brain cancer. Which was probly caused by all the librul thoughts that run thru his head all these years.
I don’t know why they got to keep pushing for this ObamaCare when the cure for everything is free of charge. Prayer. Yes, if prayer works to take care of GA’s water problems, it will dang sure work to get rid of a little thing like brain cancer. Where’s Oral Roberts when you need him? I’ll tell you where he is. Dead, on account of nobody done enough praying and yelled “Heal!” when he got sick.
Anyway, God probly wouldn’t of healed this Kennedy anyway. He sinned too much, trying to raise up Those People and pick our pockets to do it. And getting in the way of God’s Plan for old people and kids born poor and lazy–death.
Anyhow, I won’t be watching that phony funeral this a.m. Me and Jim Earl and Joe Bill got a tee time down at Countryland Golf Club. You all can watch it if you want to. But it won’t do no good. I imagine this Kennedy is right toasty right now and asking somebody to turn him over so the other side can get brown.
Have a good Saturday everybody.
Jack
August 29th, 2009
9:40 am
Grandpa & grandma do vote, y’know. And they sure as hell ain’t gonna vote for a politician that scares them.
Duckweed
August 29th, 2009
9:41 am
The late Judith Roe, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. This week her family won their legal battle to reclaim £100,000 in care home fees which her NHS trust refused to pay – claiming her condition was not HEALTH related
Duckweed
August 29th, 2009
9:42 am
She said: ‘The UK’s high rates of late diagnosis have played an important part in keeping five-year survival rates low at just 30 per cent – amongst the lowest in the western world.
Duckweed
August 29th, 2009
9:43 am
‘His graveside is the only place I feel at peace. I sit there for hours sometimes.’
National guidelines say doctors should wait 24 hours to give newborns a routine examination because this is when any heart defects can be spotted.
But in letters to the family, the chief executive of East Surrey Hospital in Redhill admitted there had been staff ‘confusion’ and medics ‘did seem to lose sight of Tobias’s particular individual needs’.
Gail Wannell conceded: ‘Tobias did not fall into the category of babies who required the routine 24- hour examination.’
She added: ‘It would have been prudent for Tobias to be examined to see if there were signs of his condition deteriorating.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209771/The-32-hour-delay-cost-baby-life-Mother-sue-failure-examine-sick-child.html#ixzz0PaeqgqYX
AmVet
August 29th, 2009
9:44 am
Huckster Huckabee is in my opinion, just another of their darling frauds who desperately wants to legislate the Republican, slightly updated version of their 1920s “morality”, 1980s trickle down/voo doo economics (hat tip GHWB) and 1520s “science” on the nation.
Which essentially is to say, vilify the weak and glorify the wicked.
All the while he profits immensely and enjoys untold amounts of Jesus lucre in the biggest tax free Ponzi scheme ever created.
And I surmise that he will again stand on a stage full of like-minded losers and repudiated reactionaries as the GOP cranks up their comical circular firing squad one more time.
It has been illustrative to see the monstrous amount of sheer venom unleashed this week by the “Christian” right wing and (im)Moral (non)Majority types here. Desperate beyond measure, this will only hurt their floundering predicament all the more.
So for all you Kennedy/liberal/progressive haters, a stroll down memory lane. See if you can remember this one:
“Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.”
This is the way he lived. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: Some men see things as they are and say why – I dream things that never were and say why not.
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
9:47 am
RepubliCare, In the beginning.
Today about four-fifths of Medicare recipients receive care under an unrestricted fee-for-service program: They go to providers for care, and the government pays most of the bills, almost no matter how high they mount. (The remaining fifth are enrolled in private health maintenance organizations.) In 1999, a commission co-chaired by House Republican Bill Thomas and Senate Democrat John Breaux proposed that Washington instead provide seniors a grant each year to purchase health insurance.
Under that approach, seniors would no longer be guaranteed open-ended payment for care, but only a government voucher to help them buy whatever insurance they could afford. The financial risk would decline for government but increase for retirees, whose coverage could vary depending on their health or wealth. In effect, the Breaux-Thomas design would have transformed Medicare from a defined-benefit program into a defined-contribution plan, the same way employers have shifted from providing guaranteed pensions to 401(k) plans in which they commit only to providing workers an annual sum to invest toward retirement.
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
9:50 am
RepubliCare, Coming to a test site near you.
Beyond Breaux, this vision for Medicare — known as premium support — never attracted much Democratic backing. But George W. Bush endorsed it as a presidential candidate in 2000 and pushed it as president. House Republicans voted in 2003 as part of the legislation creating the prescription drug benefit for seniors to transform Medicare into a premium-support system by 2010. But when the Senate balked, the final prescription bill established a six-city test of the voucher plan still due to start next year.
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, a leading GOP fiscal thinker, revived the idea this year by inserting into the House Republican budget an especially aggressive version of premium support. Ryan proposed to maintain the existing Medicare program, which is open to seniors once they turn 65, for all current recipients and anyone else who is at least 55 today. But the bill mandated that all younger Americans, once they turn 65, would instead receive a voucher to purchase private insurance (with sicker and poorer seniors receiving larger vouchers). In Ryan’s proposal, unlike the 2003 Republican plan, new retirees would not even have the option of buying into traditional fee-for-service Medicare once the voucher system is implemented; Medicare as it now exists would disappear once the last retirees still eligible for it passed away. House Republicans backed the GOP budget including that plan to phase out conventional Medicare this April by a vote of 137-38, but it was rejected amid unanimous Democratic opposition.
Here’s an idea. Why don’t we just do nothing. Leave it alone. After all, our current system is working just fine. Right!
Normal
August 29th, 2009
9:53 am
Like Josef said a couple of floors below…genug ist genug…
Brad Steel
August 29th, 2009
9:56 am
“That not only defies good taste, it defies logic.”
That’s one delicious piece of hypocritical irony from another chubby republican bloviator. These guys just can’t keep their moths shut regardless if the temptation is to spew something out or stuff something down.
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
9:58 am
Defined contribution — Rationing, the RepubliCare way. By the way, how are those 201k’s looking these days. Anyone care to take a shot at how much worse they would look under the Republican approach to dealing with the economy. Go ahead. Make my day.
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
August 29th, 2009
9:59 am
OK, Jay, so you believe that Obama care will pay $500,000 to 600,000 for every 75 year old to have the level of care TK did?
As you liberals say, “just axing.”
josef nix
August 29th, 2009
9:59 am
L-rd! I never though I’d live to see the day I wished Congress was in session, but when is that convention of village idiots going to get back to doing the job we elected them to do and give us something else to get worked up about? Even those of us, like me, suffering from the pre-exsting condition of diarrhea of the pen are finding it hard to do anything more than repeat the same-old-same-old.
We’re either fer it or we’re agin it.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
August 29th, 2009
10:00 am
Hey, what do you know, Hickabee finally got one right.
Go figure.
josef nix
August 29th, 2009
10:01 am
NORMAL–thanks. Genug already!
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
August 29th, 2009
10:03 am
Awfully quite up there in Taxachussetts.
Apparently the people weren’t nearly as enamored with Swimmer as the state run media would have you believe.
Randy Hunt
August 29th, 2009
10:05 am
Our health care system is, without a doubt, in need of repair. But we shouldn’t let Rahm Emanuel and his brother, Ezekiel, turn this into yet one more “crisis that shouldn’t be wasted.” If you’re frustrated with our elitist elected leaders ignoring you, please join us on Tuesday, September 8th, for National Pull the Plug Day. Found out more at http://www.PullThePlugOnObamaCare.org
Maxine
August 29th, 2009
10:06 am
So, we have a US Senator and Vice-President using profanity at Sen. Kennedy’s funeral, and everybody is focusing on Huckabee’s remarks. Could be a good thing.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
August 29th, 2009
10:10 am
ABC News reports that “the idea of naming the legislation for Kennedy has been quietly circulating for months” but was kicked into overdrive by Sen. Robert Byrd, the Democratic Party’s eldest statesman.
One day you will drive through Wist Virginee and along side the road you travel on will be Robert “Grand Wizard” Byrd Memorial Health Care Death Panel and Rest Stop signs every 90 miles or so.
You’ll be like ew.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
August 29th, 2009
10:16 am
Conservatives should surrender to something that violates their fundamental principles out of deference to the very man liberals celebrate for never abandoning his fundamental principles? No one expected Ted Kennedy to become a champion of free markets out of deference to Ronald Reagan’s memory.-Jonah Goldberg
duh
@@
August 29th, 2009
10:20 am
AmVet:
Who was Ted Kennedy addressing when he said this:
Ted Kennedy — “I only wish Jack could have been there too last night,” he wrote. “Your presence was such a magnificent tribute to my brother. . . . The country is well served by your eloquent graceful leadership Mr. President.” He signed it, “With my prayers and thanks for you as you lead us through these difficult times.”
I’ve made no bones about the fact that I held NO respect for Ted Kennedy. Why? Because Ted Kennedy hailed from a male-dominated clan that exhibited NO respect for women other than to say they should have the right to kill their unborn babies.
No doubt he only afforded them THAT right in case one of the babies was his or THOSE of his philandering clan members.
Reform Will Happen
August 29th, 2009
10:22 am
Under the status quo now in place, a large percentage of insurance companies would have functioned as Death Panels, dropping Kennedy’s coverae, and they do it to non-Congress people every day, 430 Georgians per weekday. Cancer is one of the leading illnesses to cause someone to be dropped.
Funny that Huckabee’s party and the Blue Dogs are all paid heavily by insurance companies and Big Pharma to protect the Insurance Death Squads, and kill Kennedy’s bill out of his committee which includes a robust public option.
http://www.campaignmoney.org/pressroom/2009/07/27/elected-officials-voting-against-health-reform-received-65-more-in-industry-campaign-donations-than-those-v
http://www.campaignmoney.org/threevotes
Taxpayer
August 29th, 2009
10:36 am
RepubliCare — You’re on your own, sucka.
It’s the american way, republican style. Don’t you worry though. Under RepubliCare, the government most certainly will keep its hands out of your healthcare. You’ll have complete control over your last few tax dollars that are currently being withheld from your paycheck. They’ll just give you a voucher and let you decide whether to send it to Exxon or Peabody or UnitedHealth or Bank of America or… .
AmVet
August 29th, 2009
10:37 am
@@, you are entitled you our opinion.
As are the faux Christians who are delighted that “He (EMK) is burning in hell”.
As am I that the festering neo-conned and their faux morality are a BIG part of the explanation why their right wing has been thoroughly decimated in the past two national elections.
“Winners” in 4 out of 67 contests for a jaw dropping 94% losing rate!
Like DiMaggio’s 54 game hitting streak, I doubt very seriously we will EVER see this again.
“Democrats defeated twenty-two Republican incumbents and won eight open Republican-held seats. Republicans won NO seats previously held by Democrats in either the House or the Senate for the first time since the party’s founding. Throw in losing 6 out of 6 governorships and of course, the White House and VOILA!
I pray (get it?) the trend continues, and see no reason why it will not..
Huckabee/Palin 2012.
TnGelding
August 29th, 2009
10:39 am
Just Say No
August 29th, 2009
8:54 am
Doesn’t (3) define where we are already?
josef nix
August 29th, 2009
10:43 am
masala–an very interesting post. An awful lot like Birmingham in the 1960s. May I ask a personal question? What is your background? I am interested only insofar as persepctive is concerned. I am assuming for now that it is South Asian.
As for your post, I am about as far from a Bush and/or GOP fan as you can get, but I agree with you on what you have put forward. Fierce Advocate has been given a free ride and it is long since time the hypocrite be brought to public accounting, starting, in my “narrow interest” cause with DADT.
josef nix
August 29th, 2009
10:45 am
“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.” –Mother Jones
USinUK
August 29th, 2009
10:46 am
Jo Nix -
been wanting to catch up with you all week … saw your convo earlier this week about Russel Means and movies about native americans …
was wondering if you saw the flick “smoke signals” (mid-1990s) –