Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross appeared on CNN yesterday to discuss health insurance reform. According to The Hill, when prompted with his position on the bill he replied that he was against imposed government-run health insurance; that he was for policy holders being able to maintain their current plans and choose their own doctor; no federal funding for illegal immigrants or abortions; and no rationing of health care.
But then he went on to say,
I will never vote for a bill to kill old people, period.
Yikes. If the public is truly of the impression that all of this “death panel” talk is a legitimate outcome of health insurance reform then Democrats have really been knocked off their axis. As I’ve noted in previous posts, there’s nothing to this idea whatsoever, and there is nothing in the bill or in President Barack Obama’s plan that would create such a scenario.
Even Ross Douthat, the conservative voice on the op-ed pages of The New York Times, recognizes this.
The controversy over “death panels” is just the most extreme manifestation of this debate. Obviously, the Democratic plans wouldn’t euthanize your grandmother.
He continues,
And if you think reform is tough today, just wait. We’re already practically a gerontocracy: Americans over 50 cast over 40 percent of the votes in the 2008 elections, and half the votes in the ’06 midterms. As the population ages — by 2030, there will be more Americans over 65 than under 18 — the power of the elderly and nearly elderly may become almost absolute.
In this future, somebody will need to stand for the principle that Medicare can’t pay every bill and bless every procedure. Somebody will need to defend the younger generation’s promise (and its pocketbooks). Somebody will need to say “no” to retirees.
Yet, Democrats are stuck on a issue that doesn’t even exist; one that began as a senseless accusation on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. Thumbs up to social media for its continued influence, but let’s be honest. If these are the questions that Democrats continue to respond to rather that the broader issues of how this will help us all (some more in the short-term, others in the long-term), then maybe health insurance reform, like health care reform in 1994, will be a dream deferred. And it may be decades before another president – Democrat or Republican – tries again.
Who wins then?