Goldberg's strained defense of "death panel"

NRO's Jonah Goldberg objects to the New York Times story on the "death panel" myth that I praised earlier today (and mocks me as "think[ing] the Times story is just frick'n awesome, just as it is"):

My own question is why the Times couldn't bother to at least quote Obama's interview with . . . the New York Times:

LEONHARDT: And it's going to be hard for people who don't have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right? I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

LEONHARDT: So how do you - how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

I don't think Obama's calling for a death panel here, if by death panel you mean something out of Logan's Run. But, it sure sounds like something that even a non-conspiratorial person might worry about. If Obama said he wanted a "free-speech panel" to offer guidance on what newspapers should or shouldn't say, the Times would get its knickers in quite a twist (at least I hope they would).

Note that even Goldberg has to admit that "I don't think Obama's calling for a death panel here, if by death panel you mean something out of Logan's Run." He's instead reduced to defending the argument that Obama's statement about an advisory panel providing advice on difficult end-of-life issues is "something that even a non-conspiratorial person would worry about." However, Sarah Palin and her allies made a much stronger claim, as Politifact pointed out:

We've looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn't. There's certainly no "death board" that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care. Conservatives might make a case that Palin is justified in fearing that the current reform could one day morph into such a board.

But that's not what Palin said. She said that the Democratic plan will ration care and "my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care." Palin's statement sounds more like a science fiction movie (Soylent Green, anyone?) than part of an actual bill before Congress. We rate her statement Pants on Fire!

Goldberg goes on to criticize the Times for not discussing a Peter Singer article in the New York Times Magazine that called for rationing health care:

Also, now that I think of it, the Times story could also have mentioned a huge piece by Peter Singer in this magazine called the New York Times magazine called "Why We Must Ration Health Care." It drips with examples, illustrations, and arguments about why oldsters should be offed to save money. Again, it can't be held against Obama, but if you're trying to figure out why conservatives think liberals want to do this sort of thing, the Times might ponder just a bit harder where conservatives got the idea in the first place. It's all fine to point fingers at Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, but both of those guys actually cite evidence that comes from the Left's own words and actions. A real truth-squadding piece would look at the actual evidence.

What's unclear, however, is how a magazine article has any relevance to the truth value of a (false) factual claim about the content of a bill in Congress. I think Goldberg might need to brush up on how the legislative process works.

Comments

[David]

Brendan says Goldberg admitted that, "I don't think Obama's calling for a death panel here." Goldberg actually said that Obama didn't call for a death panel "if by death panel you mean something out of Logan's Run". As I read it, Goldberg went on to imply that Obama was calling for a "Death Panel" in another sense of the phrase. Brendan's objection is just semantics.

Brendan refers to the way the legislative process works. I'd say the way it works is that bills are submitted, then amended in both houses and further amended during reconciliation. Key parts of actual policy may be determined later by formal administrative decisions as well as particular administrative practices that are adopted. The courts might also change the meaning of the law. Then the law will be changed by subsequent laws.

So, if a position has support among the leadership, there's a real chance that it might become a part of the final law. Thus, comments in support of limiting care made by Obama and other influential people are important considerations in guessing how the final version of government health will actually operate.

Also, economic reality will affect how a law works. A law based on "1 + 1 = 3" cannot stand as written. Obamacare is supposed to pay for itself, but it won't, according to the CBO. Meanwhile, the government is running unprecedented deficits. IMHO we can be virtually certain that care will be rationed, because there simply isn't enough money to pay for everything.

[bnyhan]

Fair enough on the Goldberg quote -- I added the rest back in (even though I included the whole quote above).

[David]

A quote from Robert Reich shows why quibblilng over current wording in the various health bills is not a sufficient analysis:

Why aren't progressives—indeed, why aren't ordinary citizens—taking the meetings back?

Mainly because there's still no healthcare plan. All we have are some initial markups from several congressional committees, which differ from one another in significant ways. The White House's is waiting to see what emerges from the House and Senate before insisting on what it wants, maybe in conference committee.

Since there's still no healthcare plan, we should take with a grain of salt any definite statements, whether made by proponents or opponents. Given the uncertainty, it's appropriate to look at whatever clues we can find to help us guess the ultimate terms, including statements by various Plan advocates. In particular, a major article in the New York Times, an outlet decidedly opposed to Republicans, is relevant.

[Ken Lovell]

Shorter David: everyone knows the left is a monolithic ideological group in which all members think alike, therefore something that appears in the a newspaper 'opposed to Republicans' is by definition a true reflection of all leftist intentions and beliefs.

The idea that rationing is an informative label for a situation where there are not enough resources to go around is intriguing; perhaps we should rechristen classical economics 'rationing'. Perhaps the scaremongering opponents of reform can explain how any health care system can avoid the problem that there are never enough resources to provide everyone with the level of treatments that doctors would ideally like to offer, and never will be. Medical research programs ensure that new treatments become available much more quickly than the ability of the masses to afford them.

People who can afford it get better health care than those who can't. That's how things are now and that's how they will continue to be in future. The idea that this represents 'rationing' is an absurd misrepresentation.