DrRich on James Madison, Sarah Palin, and HR 3200

DrRich, a former professor of medicine, clinical cardiologist, medical researcher, teacher and author, has a blog devoted to health care rationing in America. In a Saturday post titled "James Madison, Sarah Palin, and HR 3200" the doctor says the infamous Democrat health care reform bill is "complexity for complexity’s sake." The measure was intentionally made ambiguous, according to DrRich, to allow unelected bureaucrats to redesign the nation's health care system to their own liking. all of the complexity and ambiguity, he argues, is what makes the debate over the bill so difficult. Until the former governor of Alaska got involved in it:

"Sarah Palin is the public figure who has crystallized one of the major concerns about healthcare reform, and she did it with a single phrase: Death Panels."

The measure's supporters are going to have to change their tactics of simply hurling insults at Palin and the town hall protesters, says the good doctor:

"Proponents of HR 3200 are going to have to go far beyond mere ad hominem attacks (against Palin, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, etc.) and even beyond ad populem attacks (against the great numbers of fascistic, terroristic, un-American right wing mobsters who keep showing up at the town hall meetings) to win this argument. They are going to have to argue logically against the logic that makes death panels seem plausible to so many Americans."

DrRich sees why the idea of death panels is so real for the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate:

"Now, whatever you may think of Sarah Palin, realize that she has experienced personally what it is like to cross some of those people of quality who (many now fear) will be determining who gets what in our new healthcare system. Specifically, DrRich is referring to those who have the conviction that Palin had a duty to abort her son Trig. For failing in this duty, she was attacked last fall not only by fringe nut-groups, but also by reputable professionals and professional organizations. The very idea that a woman who chose to bear and raise a Down syndrome baby would be elevated to a position of public prominence was considered, in very many polite quarters, an affront to modern and enlightened civilization. These people would have hated Palin even if she spoke with a Boston accent and was a regular reader of The New Republic."

As it turns out, Palin's concern is one she shares with many other Americans. And that concern is one which could turn out to be very real as the bill, if passed, would morph into God-knows-what down the road:

"So, given the fiscal realities, and the political proclivities of some of the advisors closely associated with our current administration, the notion of something like a death panel might not be as completely crazy as we all might hope."

Our nation, DrRich points out, was warned in its infancy to beware of such complex and ambiguous legislation as the monster that is HR 3200:

"Like Jimmy Madison said, way back when, voluminous and incoherent laws do not avail the people."

Another great read on the subject, and the complete package can be perused here.

- JP