Death panels

Remember the lies about "death panels" in the health care reform bill, about how Barack Obama was going to "pull the plug on grandma"?  Well, now the Republicans are actually doing that.

From Gail Collins in the New York Times:

All this came to mind when I was talking to Flor Felix, whose husband, Francisco, a 32-year-old truck driver with four kids, was denied a liver transplant because the Arizona Legislature had yanked funds for it out of a state Medicaid program.

As Marc Lacey reported in The Times this week, Francisco had been prepped for surgery after a friend whose wife was dying asked that he be given her liver.

“It was good news when we heard the liver matched,” Flor said. “The doctor said: ‘Everything’s going well. We’re going to proceed with the surgery.’ ”

But Francisco, who has hepatitis C, had lost his health insurance when he had to stop working and had gotten coverage under the state Medicaid program. And Gov. Jan Brewer had signed a law eliminating Medicaid coverage of certain kinds of transplants as a cost-cutting measure. Flor said the next words she got from the doctor were: “You need to bring $200,000 as a deposit for the hospital.”

Francisco was summarily discharged. The Arizona state government, which is totally controlled by Republicans, got between him and his doctor.

“The state only has so much money and we can only provide so many optional kinds of care. Those were one of the options that we had taken liberty to discard,” said Governor Brewer, who we all remember for her path-breaking efforts to convince the world that the Arizona desert is strewn with the headless bodies of illegal immigrants.

Felix was one of 98 people in the transplant pipeline when the law went into effect. Arizona claims cutting them off will save $4.5 million this year. Advocates have called on Governor Brewer to use some of the state’s $185 million in federal stimulus funds to restart the procedures. Brewer, who opposed the stimulus, says all the money is gravely needed for other projects. Which she will not name.

You may claim that we can't afford everything, even when it comes to medical care (although healing a 32-year-old father would seem to be more cost-effective than keeping grandma on life-support). And you can claim that life-and-death decisions like this are too important to be made with economics in mind (although that's exactly what's happening every day by private insurance companies).

But what you can't do is make it one way for Democrats and the other way for Republicans. Of course, all that about "death panels" was a complete and utter lie in the first place. Every knowledgeable observer recognized that. It was pure political invention, nothing more. The closest provision in the bill was one permitting voluntary counseling about end of life issues - you know, living wills, hospice care, and such.

But if there'd been any kernel of truth in it at all (again, there wasn't), why do Republicans object when it involves a Democratic proposal, but then go right ahead and initiate "death panels" themselves? The hypocrisy is just astounding, don't you think?

But try to imagine what the Republicans would have said if someone in the Obama administration proposed cutting off liver transplants for Medicare recipients. We heard a lot from John McCain during the health care debate about how reform would restrict Medicare services. We have not heard a word yet on how McCain feels about the Arizona transplant issue. His office did not respond to inquiries about whether he approves his state’s pulling the plug on a 32-year-old father.