Posted by Tina
Former Alaska Governor Denali tells Mr. President what he missed on his trip as he mugged for the TV camera and smiled into his phone for countless selfies. My favorite is the picture of a guy gazing from the shore across the waters captioned thus:
A quick trip to our coast would have been worthwhile. Next time! Yes, uneducated media, you can actually see Russia from here. Thar’ she is…(see photo)
The entire piece is amusing, sad, and so incredibly true!
The Mayor’s background is interesting:
Denali served as Alaska’s 9th Governor, the youngest and first woman governor of America’s largest state. Prior to serving as Governor she was Mayor and Manager of the state’s fastest growing community, then went on to regulate energy development as Chairman of Alaska’s Oil & Gas Commission. Denali’s husband, a Yupik Eskimo from Dillingham, is the four-time “Iron Dog” race champion, is a pilot, and worked for nearly two decades as an oil field production operator in Prudhoe Bay. The family owns and operates a commercial fishing business in Bristol Bay.
Sounds like another Alaskan governor, don’t it? They must really value strong, competent, accomplished women in Alaska.
One of the best attractions in AK are the people. You’ll find every kind there, from soup to nuts. Fishing isn’t bad, either, and the animals and scenery are spectacular!
If you ever get the opportunity to go and spend more than a day or two, you’ll be cheating yourself if you don’t stay longer. That’s one place I’d go back to in a heartbeat.
And my abject apologies go to the people in AK who had to endure the latest extended Obumble photo-op ad nauseum.
I cracked up when I read this the other day and suggested we all start calling Sarah Palin, Denali Palin from now on and give Obama full credit for his recognition of her.
This is even better than the meaning of Denali being the, “high one” for our drug using president.
Proof that America The Beautiful is still alive. As opposed to America the ugly and dead as espoused by Obama, Dewey, Chris, and their fellow progs. Thanks Post Scripts, I needed that!
Sarah Palin is still a wonderful person who was horribly vilified by the left for being a conservative woman with an opinion. Her gaffes were no worse than some of Obama’s or Joe Biden’s, but you don’t see the left throwing their own under the bus like McCain did.
Biden never said that the other party was going to put his disabled child in front of a death panel. Sorry, Steve, but “wonderful people” don’t tell such despicable lies. They don’t use their disabled children to score political points by scaring idiots. I don’t like Biden, by Palin is a shameless liar and she has contributed mightily to the dumbing down of America.
Chris show me a time when politicians never resorted to hyperbole, its what they do. We can’t indict the whole of the party for such misconduct. Is there one leading conservative you would vote for for anything?
I take exception to your singling Palin (conservative) out. Her opinion about the ACA, that it contains death panels, is shared by many people, including me, and I don’t consider myself a liar. My own opinion is based on the un-elected bureaucracy that decides how treatment will be delivered based on cost savings. I also think that the very personal decision about end of life didn’t need to be mandated by the ACA, a power that should never be controlled in Washington. it’s my understanding that that portion of the bill was removed before passage so apparently the lawmakers agreed.
The ACA, a bill little discussed or read before it was passed, was filled with confusing legalese and complexity. It doesn’t surprise me at all that people disagree about what it commands. Even the Supreme court had to write law to give it a green light when it decided the tax/fee for not buying insurance was a tax rather than a fee after the government lawyers argued both sides.
Individuals in the party you continue to defend and support do not have a good records on the liar scale, some have told real whoppers worthy of jail and gotten away with the crime.
Sarah Palin is a good person. Your hatred is not founded in rational thinking but in the contentious, sometimes vicious rhetoric used to destroy Sarah Palin. had your party applied the same to Bill Clinton he never would have been president, Instead he is loved and admired.
Tina: “Her opinion about the ACA, that it contains death panels, is shared by many people, including me, and I don’t consider myself a liar.”
Well, that’s nice for you.
“My own opinion is based on the un-elected bureaucracy that decides how treatment will be delivered based on cost savings.”
The IPAB does not decide how treatment will be delivered, as we have discussed many times.
“I also think that the very personal decision about end of life didn’t need to be mandated by the ACA, a power that should never be controlled in Washington.”
Personal decisions about end of life are not mandated by the ACA, as we have discussed many times.
“The ACA, a bill little discussed or read before it was passed”
Absurd. The discussion was as long as it was loud. You couldn’t have missed it; you took part in it.
You are lying to yourself.
Chris have you ever had any major health problems?
My disabled daughter has and the idiocy of the mandated order of treatment helped to put her life in grave danger.
The government has been deciding what treatments are allowable and what treatments aren’t since long before the ACA. The ACA creates a panel of un-elected bureaucrats to make these decisions. In both cases it’s not doctors working with individual patients making the decisions…it Washington DC.
Had my daughters local doctors not had their hands tied by the bureaucracy her health would not have been put in such jeopardy. Ironically, and sadly, the “allowed treatment” leads to more bucks for the government program when a much cheaper approach would have been better. In my daughters case it was an RX for about $25.
Please don’t be so insistent, and obnoxious, about things for which you lack experience and knowledge.
Big government power and control does not work!
Chris the regulation that mandated end of life was a result of the ACA being passed into law. The law only shays what shall be done…the regulators assign rules and mandates.
I had not heard that Obama “pulled the plug”on the regulation:
It was an original madate through regulations implementing the ACA, however.
The ACA WAS NOT debated by the full congress as a bill. it was written and passed behind the closed doors of Nancy Pelosi.
The public argument does not count when it comes to actually passing a law. only the debate of our representatives result in law!
I don’t mind your disagreement but i could do without the condescending attitude, Chris.
Tina, the IPAB does NOT decide what treatments are “allowable.” They decide what will be paid for by Medicare. Is your daughter on Medicare? Or are you referring to a different panel than the IPAB.
Further, you claimed that “personal decisions about end of life” were mandated by the ACA. Your citation does not support that claim. The first sentence of what you quoted says this:
“The Obama administration has suddenly pulled the plug on a new regulation that made voluntary end-of-life counseling a reimbursable service under Medicare.”
Do you see the difference between “mandated” and “voluntary?” The ACA never mandated end of life counseling, but it did ensure that the government would pay for it. That was until some people lied and said they were “death panels” designed to hasten the deaths of senior citizens.
I am not trying to be condescending but your arguments aren’t adding up.
Jack, I think the statement I mentioned goes beyond mere hyperbole. You find it disgusting when Democrats say Republicans want to push grannies off a cliff and I agree, but I think this instance was particularly egregious because she was using her own disabled son as a political pawn, and she misinformed thousands of people into believing in “death panels” where people are deemed worthy of healthcare based on their level of productivity to society. This has no connection to reality, and it’s only one of her many harmful statements.
I don’t judge all conservatives because of Palin; I think most conservatives don’t like her any more.
As far as any conservatives I’d vote for…I can’t think of any at the top of my head. I don’t think all are bad people or anything, it’s just that our philosophies are just too different.
Fair enough Chris, I think in time your views will moderate and you will find some conservatives you could support and some liberals you couldn’t…that’s when you get to be accused of being fair and balanced! lol
Chris the Democrats and the media used Sarah Palin’s family members as political pawns in much more vicious and demeaning ways. The sycophantic, Barrack loving left media was stalking all of them for heavens sake!
Palin was defending her child against what she thought could be a real threat.
I admire Palin for standing up to such horrid bullying; she was singled out for Alinsky treatment like no other in my memory.
Tina: “Palin was defending her child against what she thought could be a real threat.”
I don’t believe Palin thought that there was a “real threat” of a government panel deciding whether or not her son was worthy of healthcare based on his level of productivity in society.
If she did think this was a real threat, she is an idiot. If she didn’t, she’s a liar. Neither speaks well of her.
“I don’t like Biden, by Palin is a shameless liar and she has contributed mightily to the dumbing down of America”.
argggggg…. typo, typo, typo’s ..It should have read; I don’t like Biden, but Obama is a shameless liar and he has contributed mightily to the dumbing down of America.
Chris,
Would you consider the hundreds of thousands of veterans dying on the wait lists at the VA to be similar to a death panel? Or is it just incompetence on the part of the administration? Everything else the entitlement crowd creates turns into an ugly, corrupted system that hurts those it seeks to help, so why would the ACA be any different?
Palin made her share of mistakes, but she’s no dumber than much of what is said by the left. She was singled out because she was a conservative woman who the left absolutely couldn’t stand. It became cool with the pop culture crowd to hate her and her family, but she has stood strong through it all. That’s worth admiring.
Chris: “…the IPAB does NOT decide what treatments are “allowable.” They decide what will be paid for by Medicare.”
Do you not see the idiocy in your statement? They decide what will be paid for and the order in which doctors can use treatments that will be paid for. Those on Medicaid and Medicare are on fixed incomes and some face restrictions for personal payment of these items/treatments. SSA checks are immediately docked for any amount the patient pays for himself (which can play havoc with the ability to pay the rent and buy food since the adjustment back can take months).
Treatment IS controlled by bureaucrats! Period!!! These people are stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare. (The bureaucracy often messes up in other ways too. My daughter qualified for Medicare because she worked but her paperwork was overlooked for 8 YEARS, sitting on a desk somewhere.
You didn’t respond to my question about needing treatment for yourself so I assume you have never had serious health problems. It’s people like you who vote for big government control without the slightest knowledge of how it works in the real world. Oh goody, you get someone else to carry the burden for insurance to pay for your sore throat or broken arm. Meanwhile the big government nightmare just got worse for those who really do need complex or specialized treatment or drugs.
The bureaucracy in big government control is very expensive and produces an inferior product…it is insanity.
“Do you see the difference between “mandated” and “voluntary?” The ACA never mandated end of life counseling, but it did ensure that the government would pay for it. That was until some people lied and said they were “death panels” designed to hasten the deaths of senior citizens.”
I do see the difference and apologize.
But the panel that has the power to regulate whether the government mandates it in future is still in place and as costs to the government rise, and they will, there will be all kinds of cuts, including in this area. Those who support government involvement and advise on this issue, like Ezekiel Emanuel will council on the high costs of late in life treatment. A letter to the editor of the NYT references his book and includes the following:
The other side of the coin is that young people don’t usually need very much in terms of healthcare services. They pay to guard against the unexpected and later, ills associated with aging. Insurance is (was) not designed for the healthy and well. Insurance is (or was supposed to be) a protection against severe illness or age related problems.
There are sensational stories about people being kept alive on machines and such but I would guess that the average person facing this problem with an elderly parent, along with the help of his doctor, does realize further treatment is useless, if not cruel, and does make the right decision.
I understand the fear that drives the accusations against the “death panels.” Palin was fighting to stop passage of this stupid law which we didn’t get to see until after it was passed. She was speaking to what was being considered. We are/were all aware of the deaths that have occurred unnecessarily at the VA, we are/were aware of poor treatment of our vets, and we have read the accounts of unnecessary deaths and poor treatment in England under their big government controlled system. We have all of this evidence that government cannot produce excellence or even cost effective care, and yet you and others like you believe with all your heart that the ACA will be different than these examples…astonishing!
The point behind the objection now as then, is that big government has no business involving itself in our personal lives and decisions. It has no business controlling the insurance industry. The ACA regulations can change, and will, in future unless we end it…and saving money will drive the decisions made by the “death panel.”
The term is a affront to you, I get it.
To me it is the perfect word to illustrate the power and potential to do harm of an un-elected bureaucratic panel that is required to consider costs rather than what an individual patient might require.