Mark Souder - The Best We Can Do I Guess

Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 7/31/09 @ 3:44 pm - Filed Under Uncategorized

From a local paper:

The health insurance bill being written by congressional Democrats “will probably steer people to use public funds to kill themselves,” Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, said Thursday.

Souder conducted a wide-ranging conference call with northeast Indiana callers and e-mailers Thursday evening about the congressional debate on overhauling the health insurance system.

If you believe this then you are probably beyond help at this point. It’s one thing to challenge the merits of a proposal but it’s quite another to outright lie in order to scare constituents. But like I’ve always said, you get the government you vote for…

H/T - Reverent & Free

Comments

9 Responses to “Mark Souder - The Best We Can Do I Guess”

  1. gadfly on July 31st, 2009 9:40 pm

    Sometimes more checking is required before using webposts. Reverent & Free’s effort to verify Mark Souder’s words were unsuccessful because he restricted his PDF search to two words. AWB has found the provision for euthanasia in the House bill here.

  2. Jeff Pruitt on July 31st, 2009 11:35 pm

    I read plenty about this nonsense. I didn’t feel it was necessary to thoroughly debunk Souder’s silly statements but now maybe I will…

  3. Kenny on July 31st, 2009 11:38 pm

    Jeff, you are losing credibility with this post.

    Thanks,

    Kenny

  4. Mark Souder’s Euthanasia Lie Debunked | Fort Wayne Politics on August 1st, 2009 12:16 am

    [...] seems to be some lingering questions regarding Souder’s statement about the House health care bill promoting euthanasia. So let’s see if we can get to the [...]

  5. Jeff Pruitt on August 1st, 2009 12:58 am

    Kenny,

    I have just thoroughly shredded Souder’s lie in my most recent post. Please read and then let me know exactly where I went wrong.

    I have a feeling you’ll be changing your tune soon enough.

  6. William Larsen on August 1st, 2009 1:47 am

    I seriously doubt Souder supports this bill, but if it passes, then there is within its legislation guide lines informing people with terminal illnesses that there are other options. I think I read today that Souder commented on this. To be honest I cannot remember what he had to say on the subject.

    But does anyone truly believe this could not happen in the future?

    What happens when you have to wait for months for a knee or hip replacement? While waiting for surgeries a lot of things go wrong, infections, sickness to name two. This means laid up and loss of motion leading to muscle atrophy (I know this first hand after 2nd and 3rd degree burns and several very deep lacerations laid me up for months).

    Keep in mind that 2/3 of Medicare costs are keeping people alive in the last two months of life. It may not be now, but in ten or twenty years when they have squeezed out everything they can, what is next?

    How many government programs have morphed from their original intent?

  7. Where'sGraham? on August 1st, 2009 9:29 am

    You can never know about our Congressman. Didn’t he say in a newspaper article sometime back, that there were more illegal Chinese than illegal Hispanics in Ft. Wayne?

  8. Jeff Pruitt on August 1st, 2009 9:36 am

    Bill,

    Keep in mind that 2/3 of Medicare costs are keeping people alive in the last two months of life.

    Do you have a source for this? I find that statistic interesting…

  9. William Larsen on August 1st, 2009 1:11 pm

    Jeff,

    Here is a link. The number may have changed over the past few years due to knee, hip replacements and stents. Many of these people would just wither and die, but now go onto live longer. I know in 2002 when I was running I had read value from the PEW charitable trust that showed nearly 40 to 45% was for the last month alone.

    http://www.thirteen.org/bid/sb-howmuch.html
    More data on end-of-life care:

    * Nearly one third of terminally ill patients with insurance used up most or all of their savings to cover uninsured medical expenses such as home care.

    * 27 to 30 percent of Medicare payments cover the cost of care for people in the last year of life.

    * 40 percent of Medicare dollars cover care for people in the last month.

    * 12 percent of Medicare spending covers people who are in the last two months.

    * 10 percent of Medicare beneficiaries account for 70 percent of program spending.

    Here is a PDF file I found. I have not read the entire thing yet due to being tired. The number this reports is lower than my number.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=%2Bcost+last+two+months+of+life&as_epq=medicare&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images

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