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Sheldon Whitehouse, Terrified of Gov't Health Care Takeover

By Joseph Lawler on 11.17.09 @ 9:33AM

...but only when the "health care" is abortion. From a truly insincere Politico article:

Added Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.): "For the first time, what the anti-choice advocates are saying is that [the federal] dollar now has to control ... what these private-sector companies can offer. That’s new, and that’s a big intrusion into the relationship of the private citizen with his or her insurance company.”

Well thank God, then, that Sen. Whitehouse is working overtime to keep the government out of health care! Oh wait.

Sheldon Whitehouse doesn't want people making decisions for others about "health care." But at the same time he wants the government to make far more decisions for others about health care. I wonder if the good people of Rhode Island realize just what a genius they have representing them.

Although it's a little unfair to single out Whitehouse, when almost all the Democrats are engaging in this very basic hypocrisy.

The larger problem is that Politico presents this quote without any context, as if it were a legitimate point. If the reporter, David Rogers, included just the very basic background, that Whitehouse is advocating that the government take on these kinds of health care decisions, Whitehouse would be exposed as a fool.

The entire article is filled with such sleights of hand: Rogers quotes the Guttmacher Institute without mentioning its close ties to Planned Parenthood, which should be an obviously necessary disclosure. He subtly hints at the possibility that Catholic bishops are motivated by racism. He follows a quote from an anti-abortion source with a shamelessly weaselly "or is it?" And so on.

One would never guess from the article that the Democrats are trying to have this both ways: they want to socialize health care decisions, but condemn pro-lifers for trying to make the socialized decision not to pay for abortions with tax dollars.