BS: Death Panel Advisors

Subject: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 11:55 PM

Here they are, so now we know they really exist...

Death Panel Advisors

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Stringsinger
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 08:55 AM

Carol, the worst thing we can do is accept their "frames". Ignore their frames and we
can create new ones. As George Lakoff says, a health insurance plan by the government should be called The American Plan.

Insurance Companies can be called "merchants of death" quite easily.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 11:59 AM

Dr. Keivorkian (sp?) is out of jail and applying for the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: heric
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 12:06 PM

Death Czar

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 01:25 PM

Has anyone actually watched the video?

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 01:28 PM

(Hint: I think it's satire. Either that, or unicorns really do exist.)

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 02:30 PM

I thought it was funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 02:41 PM

I thought, for just a blink or two, that it was actually going to be aimed at reinforcing the paranoia; then it got so obvious that even I could get it. I won't say it's the funniest thing ever, but I'd say good barbed satire.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: jacqui.c
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 02:48 PM

Nice.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 12:18 AM

The Billionaires for Wealthcare would like to thank the Teabaggers, Birthers, and Deathers for their blind support

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 12:36 AM

Too funny!

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 01:15 AM

I strayed from that Death Panel Advisors one to the Ann Coulter panel--my god, but that woman is stupid!

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 02:36 AM

What are "Death Panel Advisers" supposed to be? I'm guessing it's got something to do with the proposed US health care reform, but I don't get the reference.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 03:04 AM

According to the insurance industry shills and their brainwashed minions, the health care reform bill that the US House of Representatives has been working on in committee will create "death panels" that will counsel people who are old or in some way not "productive" to society to end their life prematurely, and will deny such people needed medical care.

This is the kind of vicious lie that the insurance industry is using to scare people into accepting a permanent continuation of the status quo in this country. This kind of thing is the reason the US is the only industrialized country to allow many tens of thousands of people to die every year because of lack of access to health care and for those who have insurance, because their insurance companies deny them needed care (with impunity, I might add).

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 07:07 AM

"This is the kind of vicious lie that the insurance industry is using to scare people into accepting a permanent continuation of the status quo in this country."

Can't they be brought to account. Isn't there any legislation that protects the public from such false representation by private business, or suchlike?

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: jacqui.c
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 08:29 AM

Not when the legislators are in thrall to these companies, who have donated very generously to campaign funds. As with a lot of politicians - duty goes first to your backers and the electorate comes a long way back.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 10:07 AM

That's right. They call it, "freedom of speech". Corporations have the legal status of human being in the US and ultimately, they have more rights than actual people. They can say whatever they want with impunity, and the consumer is not protected against false representations coming from their propaganda outlets.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 01:14 PM

That has me somewhat nonplussed I must say!

So big corporations that profit massively from peoples suffering, are completely legally entitled to propagate to those people, whatever falsehoods that suit them, with no need to provide proofs for their claims?

What sources of information, can the American people trust? I know that's always going to be a moderately difficult question to answer because wherever you go, reporting is somewhat biased - but surely outright lies from industries that profit from sickness, is something quite against the principles underlying Democracy?

And there was me getting in a tizzy over the BBCs misrepresentation of Bear Grills! (UK TV adventure type documentary, which advertised itself as being a bit more dangerous and exciting than it really was..)

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 01:26 PM

That's exactly right. The big corporations can propagate whatever falsehoods they want without providing any proof, and without being held to account in any way.

There are no sources in the mainstream media that people can trust completely. Some are a bit more factual than others, but all of them spread misinformation of one sort or another in service to their corporate handlers' agendas.

And yes, it is definitely against the principles underlying Democracy, which means that what we have here is not a Democracy, but rather, a corporatocracy.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 01:28 PM

I'd like more clarity in the subject. It is not quite factual to say that "big corporations (that) profit massively from peoples suffering, (and) are completely legally entitled to propagate to those people, whatever falsehoods that suit them, with no need to provide proofs for their claim."

Quite frequently, the government's regulatory bodies crack down on claims that corporations are making, from children's toys and pajamas and beds to the pill pushing industry. I'm sure there are other issues that the government regulates - and I'd like to hear more about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 01:35 PM

If the corporations are giving that information directly through their paid advertising, then that is correct.

However, we are not talking about that way of propagating misinformation. In this discussion, we are talking about corporations propagating misinformation using the complicit mainstream media in the US, which the corporations do with impunity. FOX News being the most glaring example.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 01:39 PM

Another way this is done is through the use of "think tanks" that are corporate funded. The Teabag movement is a classic example of this. The misinformation is generated in the corporate funded think tanks, and those organizations then fund and direct the activities of the "grassroots" movement, which is lead by corporate shills like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 10:17 PM

Before I saw this video I pictured going door to door just that way.

Most disturbing is that I swear I know Terry.

People should know that Glen Beck used to do stand up comedy before he got his FOX gig.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 08:40 AM

Crow Sister, Big Corporations have gone farther than you can imagine.

They even passed legislation for themselves that made it perfectly legal for CEO's to publicly and privately misrepresent the profits, solvency and debt of their corporation. In other words they may lie, mislead, cheat and extort money under flase pretenses.

They can fund "grass roots" political action commitees that claim to be green solar energy advocates and take donations from people...when in fact they are a big oil corporation taking money that would have gone to their opposition.

Big corporations are now bringing a suit before the SUpreme Court to make it legal to privatize national elections , throw out 100 years of election laws and allow big corporations to fund without limit the candidate of their choice. If democrats had 1 billion to spend on a presidential campaign, corporations want the right to spend $50 billion or more.

As long as corporations control the legislature and actually write the laws for Legislators, anything incredible thing they want - they get.

We will see what the Robert's Court decides.

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: GUEST,Victor Misrock
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 08:56 PM

Death Panels are REAL. We all must be aware -- this could be the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQE0vNEcb8k

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 09:17 PM

Of course death panels are real. They're called "insurance companies". That's not the future, it's already here!

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 11:35 PM

The refrain from a Buddy Tabor song:

"But you surely cannot punish my success
Just because my way of life has been so blessed
The reason why you ain't got no food or any shoes
Is because Jesus loves me more than he loves you"

Subject: RE: BS: Death Panel Advisors
From: jacqui.c
Date: 17 Sep 09 - 11:54 AM

My daughter's mother-in-law, who is 72 and lives in the UK, has, in the last two years had one hip replacement, was then diagnosed with cancer of the womb for which she had a hysterectomy and follow up chemotherapy and then had the other hip replaced, all under the NHS and at no cost at point of service. Her doctors are now recommending that she considers having an arthritic knee replaced, but she feels that she has had enough surgery just for the moment.

Now, if the scare stories about the NHS were true, she would probably be totally crippled, if she were still alive. She did not have to hope that some faceless individual with a remit to make sure that shareholders didn't lose out on this year's dividend would consider that she was worth pouring cash into. She also did not have to worry that, having had one medical issue, her insurers would pull the plug on her cover. She did not have to worry about where the money was to come from for a co-pay if her cover did not extend to the whole cost of any procedure.

I agree - the 'death panels' are here in the USA right now. I think that you would find that, to anyone in the UK, the idea of a commercial concern making these sort of life or death decisions is a total anathema. The NHS is not perfect and there are tales of a 'postcode lottery' insomuch as where you live might govern whether or not your health authority will be prepared to fund certain medications or treatments, but the care is there without the bottom line for the company and its shareholders being factored in.