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The Spectacle Blog
Yesterday, the day after the headline making town hall meeting in nearby Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Senator Arlen Specter called the area’s largest newspaper, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, to request time with the editorial board and local reporters. Specter faced off yet again yesterday with an angry crowd over health care, this latest one in State College, home of Penn State. “Good morning” said one student. “Is it?” Specter snapped. A transcript of the later editorial board meeting was published today.
Beginning by saying “we have to acquaint the American people with the facts” and that “there are a lot of rumors,” he answers the second question by zeroing in on Rush Limbaugh and talk radio, later adding that the raucous town hall meetings across Pennsylvania have in fact “influenced” him and that he “didn’t expect” what went on in Lebanon.
The question asked by the Patriot-News was: “What message is not getting out correctly to Pennsylvanians?”
Specter replied:
“The message that is being circulated is filled wit h rumors and influenced very heavily by talk radio. Rush Limbaugh can reach more people than your editorial today. What can be done to acquaint (the) American people with the facts?”
For a moment he appears to endorse a “requirement” that “every insurance plan” have a provision for an “annual exam paid for by the insurance company.” Immediately, as if realizing he is already in the troubled waters of government mandates on the private conduct of individuals, he backtracks: “Not mandatory, but voluntary and paid for to encourage people to take it.”
Having been pounded relentlessly on Tuesday with talk of death panels and euthanasia, he says: “Nobody ought to decide for anyone else what kind of medical care they get in the final days, weeks or near end of life. But people ought to be informed. I got informed by my wife years ago about a ‘living will’ and I said ‘yes, ma’am’ and we had a living will.”
Praising the savings this could generate, he is asked if this could be enough savings “without increasing taxes.” Specter: “Yes, without increasing taxes.”
Asked if his town hall meetings were “poor timing,” he responds by saying he’s done them for 30 years and the current round was “scheduled long ago.” But he added: “I didn’t expect what went on in Lebanon.”
Patriot-News: “Have your views shifted at all based upon the comments you are hearing at these town hall meetings?”
Specter: “It has influenced me. Even though they may not be representative, they are significant, and the temperature is boiling.…The people who are going to these meetings are on the edge of the ledge. Even if the whole country isn’t this way, if this many people are feeling this, we have to take it into account. And you don’t know that if you sit in the Senate Office Building. If you stay inside the Beltway, it’s a great cocoon.”
Asked what advice he would give President Obama “based on what you are hearing at these meetings,” Specter says: “The principal piece of advice I would give — and I intend to pass this on personally, not just to you — is to specify how he is going to fulfill his statement of no addition to the deficit. Tell us what the programs are going to cost to insure the 47 million…what are the president’s figures….If we could deal with the deficit, there would be a lot more acceptance.”
Specter ended this way, in a response to the question “Is there anything you can compare this to in your career?”
Specter, who as a young lawyer served on the staff of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, answered with a wry reference to the man who killed presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald:
“No…Maybe questioning Jack Ruby.”
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More Blog Posts by Jeffrey Lord
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/08/13/specter-attacks-limbaugh-talk
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Tim| 8.13.09 @ 11:12AM
"Having been pounded relentlessly on Tuesday with talk of death panels and euthanasia, he says: "Nobody ought to decide for anyone else what kind of medical care they get in the final days, weeks or near end of life. But people ought to be informed. "
The Triumph of the (Living ) Will.
Tim| 8.13.09 @ 11:36AM
We need national law insurance, all lawers to be paid the same salary from a pool of "reasonable" fees. We should define where 90% of legal costs are incurred, and then ration that activity.
Liberal Reader| 8.13.09 @ 1:02PM
"Conservatives" have succeeded at one thing, and I think it actually was there mission.
They've succeeded in eliminating a single payer option from the debate.
That's a shame, but it's a reality.
Some health reform will pass. People will like it. It will be a partial victory for Obama; and it will be a partial (if Pyrrhic) victory for the right.
As for Limbaugh.
Mr Lord, he's just a radio talk show host. It doesn't really matter what he says he thinks: what he works for is RATINGS. Specter should remember this, as should real journalists. No more attention need be paid Limbaugh than is paid Jon Stewart or any other paid entertainer. They have their place, but we shouldn't let them interrupt when the adults are talking about serious things.
C4P| 8.13.09 @ 1:09PM
LT/Jeremiah, you crack me up--your last comment was comic relief. Thanks for the laughs.
Any way you look at it, Obama has had his @ss handed to him by the Right. We left a mark, too; Obama's approvals are at 47%. And we're just getting started.
Love it.
C4P| 8.13.09 @ 1:15PM
Take no prisoners and don't let up. KILL THE BILL!
Pingback| 8.13.09 @ 2:11PM
Lord: Specter Attacks Limbaugh, Talk Radio for Rumors… | GrassrootsPA links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Interested Conservative| 8.13.09 @ 2:29PM
C'mon LR - you can do better than that, and have in the past.
That's a depressing recitation of predictions and opinion that's almost wholly fact free. Not that it may be right, but it sure is spiritless.
If nothing else, how about explaining "death panels"?
Liberal Reader| 8.13.09 @ 2:53PM
Interested --
Why should I have to explain "death panels"?
If I write, "Rush Limbaugh eats human flesh," isn't the burden on me to prove such a thing?
As it happens, the idea that "death panels" are being contemplated has been thoroughly debunked -- including by the Republican Congressman who authored the provision that prompted the whole bizarre fantasy in the first place.
That information is widely available, Interested. I'm going to go ahead and let you find it out for yourself.
As for my predictions:
Democrats do control Congress. They won't want something as controversial as the public option without significant Republican support. That's my prediction. Unless you have some Republicans, it just won't sit well with the people, and it actually won't work, because there's all kinds of ways the Republicans could sabotage the program down the line if none of their own are on board with it.
However, passing more stringent regulations (just like lifting stringent regulations) can be done on a more or less partisan basis. My guess is that is what will happen.
I could be underestimating Obama's political abilities. Then again, I thought there was no way he'd beat Clinton, and then I thought there was no way he'd beat McCain. What the hell do I know, anyway?
And my guess is that the health reform that does pass -- once people see that it does not provide for concentration camps or mandated sex change operations, or whatever -- will be popular because it will start bringing costs down.
Good to see you around here, though, Interested.
Interested Conservative| 8.13.09 @ 3:09PM
I don't think I sharply disagree with much of that, but wonder at the overreach by the administration. The Pelosi/Reid actions I can understand as more sharply partisan, but I expected the POTUS to finesse more.
It's now clear that his primary goal is whatever you want to call health care law - socialized medicine/insurance reform/universal coverage and so forth. He had Mitt Romney, of all people, to pivot off of, and he's pretty clearly set on a solo-democratic only move.
Maybe they're confident they survive the '10 midterms with majorities, maybe they want minorities to set up the '12 re-election.
I just don't think there's enough room in the economy to swallow all the changes without a pretty severe political reaction.
All that, and we're still waiting for what VP Biden labelled the unexpected challenge/crisis to test him.
He'll have a difficult second act to conjure up for the '12 campaign, and could be Carteresque without a few breaks.
As for the "death panel", it's simply amusing that Gov. Palin will get the props for the crippling blow. She's getting very W-like in her strategery and ability to foster misunderestimation.
Liberal Reader| 8.13.09 @ 4:06PM
Interested --
Obama has been courting Republicans like Grassly day and night for months on health care. He's just not going to get them, ultimately, and that's going to limit the kind of bill he'll be able to get.
I think if Obama had his deepest heartfelt wish, we'd move to single payer. He knows it's not happening. He's not going to try for it. And depend upon it: politically speaking, he's 1000x smarter than Jimmy Carter.
About the economy:
Obama's argument is that the economy can't afford a real, long lasting, job-producing recovery WITHOUT health care reform.
He's either wrong or right about that.
But what I give him credit for is taking a stand: he's staked his WHOLE domestic policy -- that is to say, his presidency -- on an idea that probably can't benefit his first term anyway.
That is to say, the health system we have today -- the one Republicans want to stick us with forever -- is simply going to go bust in the next five to ten years, long before Medicare, by the way.
If Obama's right, he's playing a long game, and one that threatens not to do him any political good in the short run.
The costs will cripple this country -- and Medicare with it -- if we don't do something, and like in MA, getting the healthy into the system is crucial.
Missy| 8.13.09 @ 4:11PM
LR/Jeremiah, what a liar you are! Sloppy, too! Must be the second string trolls posting here today.
Are you referring to Republican Senator Johnny Isakson from Georgia regarding ObamaCare "Death Panels?" You know that specious claim was refuted by Isakson and subsequently retracted by the White House.
LibReader/Jeremiah, you're slipping up just like your Dear Leader, and you look just as deviously incompetent, too. Moron.
Dixie Pixie| 8.13.09 @ 4:17PM
To: Liberal Reader
Who are you going to believe, Obama or your lying eyes.
To answer the question, will Obama-care deny medical care due to cost reasons the answer is “YES DAMMIT YES”.
It is a fact the Jefferson County government in Alabama got into a cash flow problem and took money out of the indigent care accounts of the local hospital “Cooper Green Hospital”. It is a fact Cooper Green Hospital did deny health care to terminal ill patients including chemotherapy to cancer patients.
The good news a quick court ruling found the Jefferson County Commission acted illegally in taking the funds from the indigent care accounts. Cooper Green Hospital was funded by a sales tax and earmarked for indigent care usage by the state legislature. The court found the Jefferson County Commission must reimbursed the accounts and must refrain from accessing the funds. The even better news was no one died. This time the patients were lucky but what about the next time.
My “lying eyes” have seen patients put on the street by a Democrat Party dominated government in a Democrat Party controlled city due to cost reasons. What you say can not happen has happened.
Jim Treacher | 8.14.09 @ 3:33AM
If nothing else, this whole health-care thing is worth it if it's got Arlen Specter hating life.
"47 million." What a farce.
AB| 8.14.09 @ 8:42PM
Specter thinks this is not representative??? He also lives in that DC bubble and can't see the forest when he's in the midst of it. For those of you that want universel care look to England and Canada. They have run short on money so then care is rationed. The so called rumors and myths are IN the bill that Specter and the rest of the bussards have not read. Finally, look to those advising Obama and you will find a frightening array of individuals with beliefs that believe some lives are worth more than others, that sterilants should be put in the water, etc.,etc. Become informed beyond the party line for the sake of your children, parents, yourself, etc.,etc.
Judyth Vary Baker | 8.30.09 @ 6:06PM
How accurate is this article, when the writer says Oswald killed Kennedy? Arlen Specter is the man who agreed with gerald Ford that the bullet hole in Kennedy's back had to be officially moved UP over four inches so it would align correctly with a shot from the "Oswald window"-- he was also present at Jack Ruby's polygraph test, which we now know was rigged. Specter is also the man who accepted a bullet found on a kid's stretcher at Parkland Hospital (Ronnie) that was in near-pristine condition and annunced that it went through Kennedy's back, emerged from his throat (despite anatomy proving it had to hit cervical bones to do that), entered john Connally where it cracked a rib, then exited the body to hit Connally's wrist, where it shattered the bones next to the mesial area--leaving behind pieces of bllet that x-rays show were too big to fit back into the 'magic bullet' --but which went with Connally to his grave to keep the Big secret--then the bullet exited Connally's wrist and thudded into his thigh, where it fell out onto somebody else's stretcher. But man, it fit the need! Specter lied about the bullet and where it entered Kennedy's neck. What else could he lie about? see jusythvarybaker.com and jfkmurdersolved.com ("JFK II") -- and the banned documentaries on YOUTUBE--TMWKK Episodes 7-8-9 (each in 5 parts). get the books Dr. Mary's Monkey by Edward Haslam, Crossfire by Jim Marrs, and Lee & Me -- and learn the truth. Internet is setting us free.