# Those for Obamacare: What guarantee do we have that the gov't won't go further? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 14, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365 "2009-08-14T01:13:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/121 "2009-08-15T03:27:24Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > No one seriously thinks Obama or the current Congress want to “kill” anyone. You haven’t been watching TV lately, have you. Many followers of Palin and Glen Beck are thoroughly convinced that Obama wants to kill them or a member of their family if he can take over health care. They really believe he will [euthanize family members if their medical care costs too much](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/health/policy/14panel.html): > [@](#): > > The specter of government-sponsored, forced euthanasia was raised as early as Nov. 23 – weeks after the election and long before any bill had been drafted – by an outlet decidedly opposed to Mr. Obama, The Washington Times. A newspaper editorial recalled Nazi Germany’s T4 Aktion program, in which “children and adults with disabilities and anyone anywhere in the Third Reich” were “subject to execution [if they were] … blind, deaf, senile, retarded or had any significant neurological condition.” > > Noting the “administrative predilections” of the new White House team, it urged “anyone who sees the current climate as a budding T4 program to win the hearts and minds of deniers.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/opinion/14krugman.html?em](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/opinion/14krugman.html?em) > [@](#): > > Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is one of these supposed moderates. I’m not sure where his centrist reputation comes from — he did, after all, compare critics of the Bush tax cuts to Hitler. But in any case, his role in the health care debate has been flat-out despicable. > > Last week, Mr. Grassley claimed that his colleague Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor wouldn’t have been treated properly in other countries because they prefer to “spend money on people who can contribute more to the economy.” This week, he told an audience that “you have every right to fear,” that we “should not have a government-run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.” > > Again, that’s what a supposedly centrist Republican, a member of the Gang of Six trying to devise a bipartisan health plan, sounds like. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/122 "2009-08-15T03:51:47Z")
> [@](#): > > No one seriously thinks Obama or the current Congress want to “kill” anyone. You’re probably right. No one seriously thinks that. But people are saying it. There’s a term for saying something that you don’t actually think is true. It’s called “lying”. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/123 "2009-08-15T04:39:52Z")
Its not actually lying, there’s some weasel room there. Its kind of like the Fox Gnaws habit of speaking, like “People are saying that the Obamacare plan will lead to mandatory sexually transmitted diseases to build up immunity.” And, yes, that’s true, people are saying it. He just did, and there is a good to excellent chance that people will be saying it tomorrow. But I’m sympathetic to **Starv** ’s memory issues, got some myself, but I earned mine and didn’t take the lazy way out of waiting for advancing age. But its a pity he can’t quite put his finger on these liberal posters who are saying this stuff. Darn shame. Maybe he can remember a name of one of these many, many posters? Cause then he could search on the name, find it that way. No? Hmm, worse than I thought. Pity none of the rest of us can remember one either. **Starv** , I’m afraid I’ll have to recommend that you stop smoking so much weed. Just be thankful you have a vice to throw overboard when you’re holed below the water line. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/124 "2009-08-15T21:02:20Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Ah, but part of the selling point for Obama’s proposal is that it will _not_ lead to a slippery slope. He makes these assurances over and over. Which is all well and good rhetorically - and is _necessary to get the majority on board_ - but right now there’s no credible reason to believe it. This is politics. Sometimes you soothe the warier parts of the public so they’ll take their medicine. It’s like a doctor saying, “Won’t hurt a bit,” when he knows the shot will. It doesn’t mean you aren’t better off despite the scary shot. If government can better serve the public by going further, then it may. Actually, given the political culture, I worry more that Congress will resist change so much as to miss such an opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/125 "2009-08-15T23:56:20Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > Holy cow, that’s a big heaping pile a stupid all wrapped up in a single smelly post. I’d ask for a cite for just about any of that, but expecting that would make me look even more stupid than your post. While this can be read as an attack on the post, not the poster, it is way too close to personal insult. Please refrain from this sort of comment in Great Debates. [/Modding] ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/126 "2009-08-16T00:00:32Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > The fact that “rich” Canadians come here spend all this money on healthcare is proof positive that they are satisfied customers. No. The fact that the very wealthiest people in the world, when faced with extraordinary conditions, are willing to spend money to come to the relatively few specialist centers in the U.S. that few U.S. citizens can afford, indicates that highly specialized situations will attract cash, even when routine care suffers. (For example, Cleveland Clinic is rated, by various studies, the very best coronary care center in the world. It also has a piss-poor reputation for keeping alive people who go in for appendectomies and childbirth or pneumonia.) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/127 "2009-08-16T00:03:02Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Pretty much, yeah. I think it’s pretty widely acknowledged that torturing certain terrorists has saved a goodly number of innocent lives and provided information that has allowed us to know what to look for in preventing other deaths. > > Pretty good trade-off in my opinion. Actually, the number of lives saved based on our torturing people appears to be zero. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/128 "2009-08-16T00:11:51Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’ve read several times around here where a liberal poster defends as perfectly reasonable the practice that exists in other countries where palliative care is given rather than curative care when the patient becomes too old or needs care that would be too expensive given their predicted lifespan afterwards. Other posters have described such a practice here as being reasonable also as they think no one lives forever and its foolish to spend money on old people who have lived their lives instead of on younger people who would derive more benefit from it. (Don’t ask me for cites because I’ve tried. The board’s search engine eliminates short keywords and finds too many threads and posts on the others because the appropriate keywords are too common.) I think I’ll just chalk this up to wishful thinking and broadbrush condemnation. Have one or two posters, (of varying backgrounds and locations), said something that could be construed this way? Possibly. On the otherr hand, you appear to be supporting the outright lies of Sarah Palin which even the Republican congresscritters note are false, so the idea that one or maybe two posters on this board (seem, without citation, to) believe what you ascribe to them hardly makes a case that “liberals” believe what you claim. And it leaves accusations that the proposed health care plan will actually do that in the realm of fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365/129 "2009-08-16T00:38:20Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, the number of lives saved based on our torturing people appears to be zero. Lives lost? Higher than zero. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-for-obamacare-what-guarantee-do-we-have-that-the-govt-wont-go-further/506365.md?page=6)