I've been careful to avoid inflammatory "death panel" rhetoric. And I hesitated to post the video above, because when I first saw it, I questioned its authenticity. But it is legitimate, and it is important, and it's not a joke. Here's the transcript courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:
What an Honest President Would Say
I will actually give you a speech made up entirely--almost at the spur of the moment, of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is, and a candidate will never say, but what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where citizens were honored in terms of their practice of citizenship, and they were educated in terms of what the issues were, and they could separate myth from reality in terms of what candidates would tell them:
"Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I'm so glad to see you, and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health-care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. [laughter] That's true, and what I'm going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people. But that means you--particularly you young people, particularly you young, healthy people--you're going to have to pay more. [applause] Thank you.
"And by the way, we are going to have to--if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive, so we're going to let you die. [applause]
"Also, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid--we already have a lot of bargaining leverage--to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. But that means less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market, which means you are probably not going to live that much longer than your parents. [applause] Thank you."
— A speech that Robert Reich, who served as President Clinton's labor secretary, delivered in 2007.
Discussion: LCR
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5 comments:
he left out that people with influence and those who make donations to the right party will not affected.
So is there any chance that this was some form of satire or sarcasm? Maybe he was showing his contempt for that sort of health care? Probably not, but without hearing the whole speech, I can't make an educated determination.
Of course, I did forget to read the entire script so maybe I should read that first.
RV: Yes the Reichs of the world need not worry about being treated like a commoner.
Jennifer: I've been hoping to find evidence that it's satire or sarcasm, but it's pretty clear that he's serious.
Great find, Right Klik: This is EXACTLY what they think. I'm surprised Reich had the stones to speak the truth! Of course it's not sarcasm....it's 100% true. One need only have to read and follow the current events with "obummer-care" to realize that. And, he was Billary's BFF, so he knows exactly what the master plan is. God help us!
Robert Reich (IMHO) is an evil little man...
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