August 8, 2009--

Jake Tapper makes uncharacteristic mistake in article on criticism of ObamaCare by Sarah Palin despite characteristic fairness.

          Jake Tapper, the ABC News reporter with a well-deserved reputation for fairness, makes an uncharacteristic mistake in his August 8, 2009, article on Sarah Palin's criticism of proposals for ObamaCare.  Unlike many in the media, Tapper drinks no one's Kool-Aid and suffers from no derangement syndrome, so there's no basis for attributing his mistake to anything other than imperfection in his consistent efforts to be fair.

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          What's his mistake?  Regarding an August 7, 2009, FaceBook post by Sarah Palin, he says:

Asked specifically what the former governor was referring to when painting a picture of an Obama "death panel" giving her parents or son Trig a thumbs up or down based on their productivity, Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton responded in an email: "From  HR3200 p. 425 see 'Advance Care Planning Consultation'."

That's a curious reading of page 425 of the House Democrats' bill, which refers to “advance care planning consultation,” defined as a senior and a medical practitioner discussing “advance care planning, if…the individual involved has not had such a consultation within the last 5 years.”

Tapper's thesis is that Palin's criticism mischaracterizes the proposed ObamaCare provision for "advance care planning consultation."  Considered in isolation, the intended meaning of such provision is certainly subject to the interpretation of it's purpose being nothing more than institutionalization of governmental efforts to prod elderly patients into making long-term plans about their own wishes for their own medical treatment in the context of what may transpire as their final, fatal illness.  But what Tapper overlooks are three things:  One, there's no doubt that the legislative intent of proponents of ObamaCare is for government-run health-care to become the only health-care system (i.e., a "single-payer" system), Two, it's certainly not unreasonable for critics of current proposals for ObamaCare to analyze and critique the likely effects of such proposals in light of the obvious long-term legislative intent evinced by the ObamaCare plan as a whole, and Three,  a recent example of the application of comparable provisions in Oregon's highly-touted, Canadian-style health-care system supports, rather than invalidates, the center of gravity of Palin's criticism of ObamaCare proposals.  To understand, just watch the video below:

Given the not-reasonably-debatable fact that the intent of proponents of ObamaCare is for it to inevitably become a "single-payer" system under which the government controls the dispensation of all "health care," Palin's critique of the ObamaCare provision is more realistic than Tapper's criticism of Palin's critique.

          Given the obviousness of such political agenda of Obama and his socialized-medicine allies promoting "ObamaCare," Obama's recent feigned ignorance of elements of the ObamaCare clearly reinforce the validity of Palin's understandable cynicism about claims by ObamaCare proponents that the plan is "not a 'trojan horse' for socialized medicine."   An example of a common situation under which such provision (about which Obama feigned ignorance), would force a family onto a "government" plan is self-evident in the context of an OB-Gyn visit of an expectant mother asking her obstetrician whether her quitting her job after childbirth and then having medical coverage for her and the new baby to then be added to her husband's medical insurance would constitute the type change in her husband's medical insurance that would render it disqualified under ObamaCare and thus require them to acquire the "government plan."  (That reasonable disputes about this exist and derive from common sense is evident from an internet searches about OB-Gyn visits under ObamaCare.)  

          Given such flagrant duplicity of Obama and the main proponents of ObamaCare, one could hardly take seriously Obama's disingenuous attempt (see link above) to deny that such would be the case under ObamaCare.  Remember that old addage, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"?

Jim Wrenn, Editor at WrennCom.Com.

Permanent link to this installment:

http://wrenncom.com/CommentaryArchives/2009/20y09m08d08-01.asp.

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