Meet some of the members of the new Republican death panel

Republican Death Panelist Paul Ryan

Republican Death Panelist Mitch McConnell

Republican Death Panelist Donald Trump

The Republican Congress, Senate, and Donald Trump are coming for Grandma. 

They’re coming straight to the nursing homes of America, where 1.4 million Americans, mostly elderly, all of them frail, are being cared for.

And they’re going to see to it that Grandma and Grandpa — and there’s a good chance this will eventually include you when you get old — will die a ghastly death, impoverished, uncared for, homeless, and suffering.

The victims of the new Republican Death Panel aren’t “freeloaders” or “welfare cheats.” These are honest Americans, hardworking in their day, who held down jobs, raised children, taught school, ran small businesses, served in the military, often lived frugally to save for their old age, and tried, each in their own way, to make life in America better.

They are now in nursing homes because they can no longer care for themselves and, in most cases, there is nobody able to properly care for them.

To get into nursing homes, they first had to spend down their life savings for their nursing care. Then, when they were virtually broke, Medicaid took over and began paying their costs.

Now the Republican health care “reformers” want to murder them. Oh, they’re not going to do it by putting a pillow over their faces and smothering them. Or by pumping some fiery poison into their veins. Or by shooting them. That would be relatively merciful.

No, the Republicans have a crueler idea.

They’re going to force the frail elderly out into the streets, where they can die slowly in the gutter. The death panelists won’t do it directly. Like the Mafia don who never goes out and shoots anybody himself, but simply says “I wish Joey the Mouth would disappear,” and then feigns innocence when Joey is found at the bottom of the river wearing concrete shoes, they’ll enlist, or force, others to do it for them.

They’re going to do it by cutting the Federal contribution to Medicaid, forcing the states, which cannot afford Federal-size contributions, to try to cover nursing home costs. But the states won't be able to do it. Not most of them, anyway.

The eventual upshot will be that many older people who fall ill and cannot care for themselves will not be admitted to nursing homes. And many people currently getting cared for in nursing homes will be forced to leave. Since their life savings have already been “spent down,” they will have no place to go. They will be pushed out into the streets. And there they will die.

That’s when the Republican death panelists, led by Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan, whose work will be signed and approved by Donald Trump, will blink innocently and say, “Not my fault. All I did was cut Medicaid overhead so the rich could have a tax break.”

It’s time to call out the defunding of Medicaid for what it is. And what it is is murder, pure and simple. Murder of the poor to give more money to the very rich. Murder, bloody murder!

America already has death panels. They're called health insurance companies.

As we press closer to passing or destroying health care reform this week, there is news that special interests are pressuring members of congress to kill the bill.

Part of that pressure is the lie that health care reform will create "death panels" to "kill granny."

That's bull. First of all, Granny's covered under Medicare. Second of all, there are no Medicare "death panels" nor are there any proposals for death panels in the healthcare reform bill.

But make no mistake: we already do have death panels. In fact, as you read this, one of those death panels may be considering whether you should live or not. And if they haven't yet, they will—unless we get health care reform.

If an insurance company shuts you out for a pre-existing condition, that's a death sentence if you need ongoing medical care. Death panel.

If an insurance company declares you've maxed out your benefits so you're no longer covered, that's a death panel. No insurance? Too bad. You die.

If an insurance company rejects you for cancer treatment because you failed to mention in your application that you had acne at the age of 14, you die. Death panel.

If an insurance company raises its rates so sky-high that you can't afford to pay and have to drop out, and if you get sick, you die. Death panel.

Health insurance reform will stop insurance companies from doing those things. The only thing health insurance reform means death to is insurance company death panels.

That's why the insurance companies are plowing so much money into intimidating Congressman into voting no.

Tell your own Congressman and Senators to grow a spine and tell the insurance companies to go to hell.

Otherwise, that's exactly what the insurance companies will be telling you.

Well, Hallelujah! The President finally fights back.

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Sometimes I wonder if someone in the Whitehouse is actually reading The New York Crank.

It was only the last post, three days ago, that I crankily wrote:

President Obama needs to take a leaf from the Indiana Jones script. Enough already with the debating, the arguing, and worst of all the compromising with posturing Republicans (and a few Democrats) who refuse to compromise. That’s all bullwhip.

Instead, the President needs to pull out the Presidential equivalent of his pistol—the public accusatory confrontation—and start plugging Republicans right between the eyes.

And I'll be hornswaggled if that isn't pretty much what President Obama did in his stemwinding speech to Congress today. I especially liked this passage:

But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than to improve it. (Applause.) I won't stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what's in this plan, we will call you out. (Applause.) And I will not -- and I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.

If you missed it, take 55 minutes to click on the video at the top of this post and watch it.

Take particular note of Republicans like Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor wriggling uncomfortably and hanging their heads like bad bullies caught beating up the kindergarten girls.

Now, if Mr. Obama keeps it up, history could actually end up listing him among our greatest presidents.. And we could get a reasonably good healthare bill. And, in time, a much stronger economy.

Go Barack go!

Dear Mr. President: Tell this scoundrel to give us the health care bill most of us voted for, or to get out of Washington

Okay, Mr. President, I’ve had it.

I voted for you when you were promoting a pretty specific plan that promised a “public option” to keep the health insurance companies honest. It wasn’t the healthcare plan I wanted. I was looking for a single payer plan. But I was willing to compromise.

Now I feel I’ve been screwed, Mr. President. By you, Mr. President. Not deliberately screwed. It's just that you're acting like a timid mouse, more interested in getting along with everyone who doesn't want to go along with you than in getting us what you promised. And that includes getting along with Max Baucus, the Montana Senator in the photograph.

Romancing failure

What Senator Max Baucus is trying to foist on us isn’t a plan. It’s a blueprint for failure. It’ll make healthcare more expensive for many of us, pay for itself by taxing other health plans instead of high incomes, and generally make a mess of things. It's the kind of healthcare reform plan that an insurance or drug company would promote to make us hate the idea of a healthcare reform. Which may be why Baucus wrote it the way it's written.

Max Baucus, we know, is on the take from health insurance companies and drug companies.
He and the other “Blue Dog Democrats” (“Blue Vermin Democrats” would be more like it) don’t have the public's interest at heart. It’s time for you to reign them in. Or swat them down.

Mr. President, here are several
things you can do

1. Right off the bat, stop calling it the “public option."

“Public option” is Washington wonk jargon. Americans like Medicare, as evidenced by the screaming hordes who rail against so-called “socialized medicine” and then end their tantrums by screaming, “And don’t you touch my Medicare, either.”

Well, the public option is Medicare. So start calling it what it really is, “Reliable Medicare for any citizen who wants it.” That’ll go a long way toward shushing up the foaming-at-the-mouth morons in the crowd.

2. Reach out with that powerful presidential iron claw you have at your disposal, grab Max Baucus by the throat, and throttle him within an inch of his political life.

Lyndon Johnson was a master of this. You can do it, too. Haul Max’s butt into the Oval Office. Sit him down in a nice comfy chair, smile sweetly and say, “Baucus, starting in 90 seconds, you’re a dead man walking in this town.”

Mention that any bill that benefits something or somebody in his state will be vetoed, as long as you’re President, unless the appropriation for his state is stricken form the bill. Mention that you’re going to mention this to other Senate Democrats — and that you will make him a pariah whose mere presence is blocking their own pork from reaching their own states. Mention it to Senate Republicans, too.

While you’re at it, mention that you’re mighty suspicious of all that money he’s taking from the drug and insurance companies, and you’re thinking of asking the U.S. Attorney General to look into the possibility of influence peddling and bribery. Oh, and of course mention an up-and-coming young Montana Democrat who you might support in the next primary.

3. Then go on to the next Blue Vermin senator.

Keep on doing that until the Blue Vermin Democrats are trembling in their shoes about what might happen if they don't revamp the bill to what you were promising during your election campaign.

4. Forget about bi-partisanship.

You tried it. The Republicans blew off your overtures.

It’s time now to deliver for the people who voted for you, before you blow it, Mr. President. Give us the health care bill you got elected on!

Respectfully (but very crankily) submitted,
The New York Crank