Utterly shameless

[Bet51987]

But I had to laugh...

\"prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system.\"

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9AC1POO0

Bee

[CUDA]

maybe not so far fetched as it might seem.

granted there are qualifiers to this story

Is Obama closing GOP-leaning car dealers?
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
May 27, 2009

There appears to be a side to the Chrysler bankruptcy that has the look of an ugly partisanship not seen in this town since Tricky Dick Nixon was in the White House composing his enemies list and checking it twice every night while watching the evening TV newscast.

Bloggers on the Right side of the Blogosphere are up in arms over data suggesting that President Obama’s White House auto industry potentates are targeting for closure Chrysler dealers with records of contributing either to Republicans like John McCain or to other Democrats in the 2008 presidential primary.

Posts at RedState, Reliapundit, American Thinker, Gateway Pundit, Joey Smith and Doug Ross pointed intitially at the remarkable number of closed Chrysler dealerships whose owners happen to have been contributors to Obama opponents, mainly Republicans.

But those observations were all couched with important qualifiers, particularly that all conclusions were necessarily preliminary, pending completion of a comprehensive analysis of the political contributions by all closed Chrysler dealership owners, and a comparison of those results with contributions by dealers who are not being closed.

That said, when multiple dealers who have been closed are found to have contributed millions to Republicans and mere hundreds to Obama, the serious number-crunching cannot be completed too soon.

Then there is the Reuters report quoting a lawyer representing dealers being closed who came away from a deposition of a senior Chrysler executive with the distinct impression that the company is simply following orders coming from the White House.

[VonVulcan]

Typical partisan politics, both sides do it though it seems the GOP has one-uped the Dems. I'm sure the Dem's will respond with something equally stupid shortly.

Really nothing to see here unless you have an axe to grind.

[Foil]

I saw too many ridiculous claims in my mailbox last election to be surprised by this.

[CUDA]

Personally as the dealership article pointed out. There are probably more Rep dealers then Dem dealers. But anything to get Bee fired up :p

[Drakona]

Why does that seem so farfetched?

From the group of folks that invented gerrymandering, why does distributing healthcare in a politically expedient way seem farfetched?

You'd have to come up with a seemingly principled approach for it, but given that different populations prone to different diseases tend to vote differently, I don't see how that would be difficult.

The government doesn't have a fantastic record of spending or legislating in politically neutral ways. I'm not sure why that should change if they ran health care.

I dunno. Doesn't seem crazy to me. Yet another reason they shouldn't run health care, I guess.

[Foil]

...why does distributing healthcare in a politically expedient way seem farfetched?

Because there's nothing yet which supports the claim. At this point, the concept is only a political suggestion. [IMHO, it smacks more of a 'conspiracy theory' than a legitimate concern.]

Honestly, while I hold no illusions about the ethics of politicians, implementing a scheme like that is really a stretch. Not only because of the inherent obstacles in structuring such a program, but because I can't see the health care profession (including people I know in nursing, research and insurance) allowing it to happen.

[Spidey]

Because there's nothing yet which supports the claim.

If certain people in government weren’t so hell bent on redistribution of things, and you lowered the price…I might buy that.

[Lothar]

...why does distributing healthcare in a politically expedient way seem farfetched?

Because there's nothing yet which supports the claim.

There's nothing that supports the specific claim that the current crop of Democrats will deny coverage/treatment to Republicans just because they're Republicans.

But there is plenty to support the general claim that the government doesn't spend or legislate in "neutral" ways, and I don't see why health care would be any different. Put health care in the hands of a Democrat-run congress and you'll see a push to increase treatments for whatever concerns are most prevalent in Democrat-voting areas. Put health care in the hands of a Republican-run congress and you'll see a push to increase treatments for whatever concerns are prevalent in Republican-leaning areas. Let ANY government decide what health care you can get, and they'll make decisions based on politics, not medicine -- not out of revenge or hatred, simply out of pandering to their party's voters.

[Foil]

Exactly. I meant that phrase to refer to the specific claim about denying health-care based on party affiliation (i.e. the original post).

I completely agree with the general statement that government spending/legislation gets skewed toward the party in power.

[Lothar]

Certainly the original comment -- that politicians would check people's voter registration and deny them care -- is unsupported. But it's not that far-fetched to suppose politicians would be less than 100% above-the-board and less than 100% equitable in their distributing of health care. Would they discriminate directly on party affiliation? Doubtful. Would they come up with a way to systematically tilt the system toward their party, their supporters, their favored causes, etc.? I wouldn't put it past any of them.