Half in love with death
by digby
These pro-lifers are on a roll today:
Candidate for Senate and Former GOP Governor and presidential candidate Tommy Thompson:
The candidate gave credit to a fellow Wisconsin Republican’s proposals for Medicare. “I think Paul Ryan is going at it in the right direction. I support Paul as far as he went but I believe there are other things that need to be done. I would set it up so that individuals, when they reach age 55, would have a choice. If they want to stay in the Medicare system, let them stay. But if they want to go into a new system, let them go in and get subsidized to the extent that they can buy their own personal health insurance.”
[…]
Thompson also spoke candidly on the role of end of life costs play in the Medicare budget. He said costs incurred in the last six months of patients’ lives account for 28 percent of it. “What happens? Mother or father or grandpa and grandma, you’ve been away, you haven’t done very much. Children come home, mother or father’s on their deathbed, they feel guilty because they haven’t being paying attention to mother or father. Let’s face it. So they say “let’s do everything we can for mother or father. Don’t spare the costs.”
And to think it was only a couple of years ago that the Republican Party was having a collective nervous breakdown over Medicare paying for consultations on the living will. And now Thompson here seems to be in favor of not only destroying Medicare but encouraging kids and grandkids to stop “feeling guilty” for literally pulling the plug on Grandma.
Remember when Peggy Noonan wrote this?
They seem to have fallen half in love with death.
What does Terri Schiavo’s life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?
Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not.
With the cheering for executions and the applauding for letting the uninsured die,praising women for choosing death rather than abortion — and now Thompson saying that medical costs are high because people feel too guilty to pull the plug — well, that sure seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?
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