Tag: death panels

#rsrh Democratic Death Panel Watch: OH-01.

The New York Times reports that Steve Driehaus has had his DCCC advertising cut.  This more or less confirms his impending DOOM at the hands of Steve Chabot; but I want to note something else from the same article.  In it, local Democratic party chair Ed Good reports on OH-06 & OH-18 (two more districts where the NRCC is starting ad buys on behalf of the Republican challengers):

“They are going to try to pick off what they think is low-hanging fruit,” Mr. Good said. “But the only way Charlie [Wilson] or Zack [Space] can lose is if our party does not get out and vote.”

Yup.  The locals are playing the GOTV will save us! card, three weeks before the election.  Not a good sign for them; and the lack of any evidence that the DCCC will be matching the NRCC’s expenditures is an even worse one*…

Moe Lane

PS: Bill Johnson for OH-06; Bob Gibbs for OH-18.

*As it stands now, and if I understand the article correctly, the DCCC can allocate existing ad time to Space’s race.  If they don’t, then Ohio Democrats have even more of a problem than they do now, and right now they have a very bad problem.

Democratic Death Panel Watch, 10/05/2010.

Via Jim Geraghty, reports are in that the following three districts have been abandoned by the DCCC.  Well, technically, all that’s happening is one week’s worth of ad purchases have been canceled by the DCCC.  Then again, there’s only four weeks left – and it’s not like any of them are considered safe retentions at this point:

  • IN-08.  Open seat: the old incumbent is Brad Ellsworth, who decided not to run again in favor of losing a Senate race to Dan Coats. The Democratic challenger to Larry Bucshon is pretty much irrelevant at this point; Cook rates this seat as Likely Republican.
  • IN-09.  The incumbent is Baron Hill (best known for this); his opponent is Todd Young.  Cook rates this one as Toss-Up.
  • TX-17.  The incumbent is Chet Edwards; his opponent is Bill Flores.  Cook rates this one as Toss-Up.

It should be emphasized that Chet Edwards has been in Congress for twenty years; he survived the Texas Redistricting Massacre of 2003 and has been holding on ever since; he’s on the Budget and Appropriations committees.  Baron Hill was in Congress from 1998 to 2004, got beat in 2004, then came back in 2006.  These are not political neophytes, nor are they unskilled (Hill is conceited and arrogant, but not unskilled).  Their seats should not be hard to defend.

Which makes you wonder which seats are in even worse shape.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

I made a mistake in yesterday’s post on House races.

When I went along with calling what the Democrats are doing in the House ‘triage.’ Triage implies a situation where an overwhelming number of people have been injured and absolutely must be sorted out by severity of injury, in order to save as many as possible.  What we have here instead is a situation where “sick” individuals are being sorted out not by the severity of their (political) illnesses, but by a combination of the absolute cost of the patient’s treatment, cost-effectiveness of that treatment, and the perceived overall value of the patients themselves.  Those that make the cut get treated; those who don’t, get a palliative.

In other words, House Democrats have set up their own personal death panel.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

My first thought was ‘Death panels,’ too…

…as per the first comment in this Hot Air post about Kent Pankow.  But that’s absurd: we’ve been told by all sorts of people that such things could never, ever, ever happen under a government-run universal health care regime.

Suffering from brain cancer, Kent Pankow was literally forced to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for lifesaving surgery — at a cost to family and friends of $106,000 — after the health-care system in Alberta left him hanging in bureaucratic limbo for 16 crucial days, his tumour meanwhile migrating to an unreachable part of the brain, while it dithered over his case file, ultimately deciding he was not surgery worthy.

Now, with the Mayo Clinic having done what the Alberta Cancer Board wouldn’t authorize or even explain, but with the tumour unable to be totally removed, the province will now not fund the expensive drug, Avastin, that the Mayo prescribed to keep him alive and keep the remaining tumour from increasing in size — despite the costs of the drug being totally funded by the province for other forms of cancer.

Kent Pankow, as it turns out, has the right disease but he has it in the wrong place.

And why would it never happen?  Because the Master loves us and would never hurt us… look!  A squirrel!

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Andrew McCarthy: I can’t spare this woman. She fights.

Ace over at AoSHQ wrote a reasonably comprehensive, well-worth-reading post about why he agreed with Andrew McCarthy disagreeing with the NRO editorial board over ex-Gov. Palin’s successful use of ‘death panel‘ rhetoric in shaping the debate.  I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel; as I said, Ace’s post is well worth reading.  I’m just going to note that I’ve spent the last day or so trying to figure out a way to get Palin to favorably mention tort reform in her next Facebook note… and that it never even occurred to me to try to get the NRO editorial board on-message.

Not that it wouldn’t be great if they did, of course.  It’s just… well…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE]: Language is a bit rough, but you’ll probably like the sentiments.

Sen. Grassley: ‘Death Panels’ are out.

Palin, 1: Left, 0.

Mind you, this is just from one version of the multiple health care rationing bills that the Democrats tried – and failed – to rush through Congress, but one step at a time.

The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.

The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after it was derided by conservatives as “death panels” to encourage euthanasia.

Also, note the use of the term ‘conservatives.’ A rather odd term of art there, but if the article were to use the name ‘Sarah Palin’ it might suggest that a portion of the Democrats’ health care rationing scheme could have been neatly derailed by two Facebook posts by that woman.  Which can’t be allowed to happen at all, at all: why, the very idea is absurd!  Everybody knows that you have to graduate from an Ivy League school in order to be permitted to have any influence at all in public domestic policy debates.

Seriously.  It’s in the Constitution somewhere.  Look it up.

Moe Lane

PS: To answer Allahpundit; it’d be a potential win for the President if Gibbs had only kept his mouth shut.  In other words: no, it’s not a win for the President, too.

Crossposted to RedState.

Camille Paglia has no buyer’s remorse.

But the day is young.

Which should relieve the administration, given what she might have written if she did:

…I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, and hope it’s a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.

Case in point: the administration’s grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton’s megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises — or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens.

Continue reading Camille Paglia has no buyer’s remorse.