Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Conservative Incoherence

Matthew Yglesias (usually a little too bleeding heart liberal for my tastes) has a good point today about modern Conservative (i.e the party of Limbaugh and Palin) objections to health care reform, specifically the Independent Medical Advisory Council. In its current iteration IMAC would function as a federal sieve to prevent wasteful spending on medical interventions and treatments not proven to be efficacious. It's supposed to be an independent board of doctors and health care professionals who make decisions based on best available evidence. Seems reasonable right?

Sarah Palin, in her by now trademark unhinged outrageous obliviousness of the truth, revisits the idea of this somehow being a variation of the dreaded "death panels" she ranted about during the summer (never mind that they never existed to begin with).

Here's the problem: IMAC is related to Medicare spending (you know, the gargantuan federal entitlement program). One would think that someone of a conservative bent, someone from a limited government, reduced federal spending frame of mind would be all in favor of an independent private council that sought to limit federal spending on healthcare. But coherence and truth are always trumped by partisanship and the possibility of scoring cheap political points in today's Republican Party...alas..

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Medical Interventions and treatments not shown to be efficacious????....
You mean like Screening Mammography, PSA testing, the 5 Vessel CABG Barney Frank got at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1999, the Annual Physical including Full Body MRI that every President since Nixon gets on the taxpayer's dime, Treating Tertiary Syphillis in Black Males???
It's like going to Auschwitz and being surprised that its Zyklon B instead of Perfume...

Unknown said...

I must say I'm disappointed, Buckeye Surgeon, since I'm new to this blog and had some hopes. But when you crudely dismiss Palin and Limbaugh, and merely go with the liberal party pablum, illustrates why the liberals have won. Wake up: yes, there will be death panels, and yes, cost-control will assume the form of rationing by bureaucratic decision (read, 18 year old secretary reading off some gov. list)
Doubt me? then go back to sleep, mock conservatives who have the gall to speak the truth etc. Just a guess: you're pro-choice, aren't you? Gee, I wonder what that might to do with this line of thought??