Sarah Palin is booted from speech at a Canadian hospital

By GottaLaff



We knew this was coming, did we not? Barbie McLipSchmutz was scheduled to speak at a socialist-- er, public-- abortion-providing, advanced directive-servicing (gasp! death panels!) hospital. But that wasn't going to stop her, nosirreebob! Not when there was $200K at stake!

Let's get real. There was no way one of the two wouldn't eventually quit the other:

Now, the Toronto Sun reports that Palin has “been given the boot” and will no longer appear at the fundraiser for St. Peter’s hospital. Jeff Valletine, the vice president of communications for Hamilton Health Sciences, said that he had received a backlash for inviting Palin.

No more $200 grand? That explains her recycled Hawaiian resort wardrobe. No wonder she quit that trip, too. Also.

Sarah Palin to Speak at a Socialist Canadian Hospital

By GottaLaff



This is quite the big deal for someone who said that Canada should really think about reforming its health care system (video from post above), and who's not the biggest fan of abortion rights, and who thinks "death panels" will kill your Grandma. Me oh my.

Hyp. O. Crite:

According to the Hamilton Spectator, Sarah Palin has been contracted to speak at a fundraiser for the Juravinski Cancer Centre and St. Peter’s Hospital in Canada.

Oopsie daisy there, Barbie McLipSchmutz, I do believe you're exposing yourself to the dreaded H1Socialism1:

– St. Peter’s Hospital is a public hospital within the national Canadian healthcare system. In Palin’s worldview, universal, government-insured health care is “socialism.”

– St. Peter’s Hospital performs abortions. Palin, a staunch anti-choice zealot, has protested outside of abortion clinics and has refused to denounce abortion clinic bombers as terrorists.

– St. Peter’s Hospital, through its Centre for Studies in Aging, offers “advanced directives.” Palin tried to derail health reform earlier this year by falsely labeling advanced directive reimbursements as “death panels.”

Oh dear. This will never do.

I feel a "quit" coming on....

As Barbie said, "Keep the faith".

VIDEO: Canadian satirist kicked out of Palin book signing gets Palin to respond

By GottaLaff

Yesterday I posted this, and today we have the video:

In Canada there's a show produced by CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) which is a political satire show. One if its characters is "a showy woman with lotsa lipstick" who goes by the name "Marg Delahunty".

She went on to say that, apparently "Marg" wangled her way into a Barbie McLipSchmutz book signing...

And then she got kicked out. But she did manage to eke a ridiculous answer out of Barbie McLipSchmutz.



I love seeing these stories come to life after I've pictured them in my little pea brain. This was even better than I had imagined.

Canadian satirist gets kicked out of Palin book signing, told Canada should 'dismantle' public healthcare

By GottaLaff

One of our Commenters, Andrea, linked me to this story and provided the back story:

In Canada there's a show produced by CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) which is a political satire show. One if its characters is "a showy woman with lotsa lipstick" who goes by the name "Marg Delahunty".

She went on to say that, apparently "Marg" wangled her way into a Barbie McLipSchmutz book signing . Here's what happened:

Comedian Mary Walsh’s beloved character button-holed the former Alaska governor at a recent book-signing in Columbus, Ohio, only to be strong-armed away from Palin by a cabal of security guards. [...]

“We told her we’re from Canada, and we’re just looking for a few words of encouragement for the Canadian conservatives who have worked so tirelessly to destroy the socialized medicare that we have,” Walsh recalled Tuesday from St. John’s.

“Four huge big burly guys started pushing, and I pushed back, but I got her attention, and she told us to keep the faith, something like that, and said we’re all trying for the same thing.”

So Walsh and company got booted out, but they waited near Barbie's bus until she left the book store. Then Walsh yelled out:

“Hey, remember us, we’re the Canadians! We came all the way here from Canada!” Delahunty yelled. “When we asked you that question, we didn’t hear your answer.”

Here's what Barbie said. Brace yourselves, it's classic Palin:

“Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit.”

“Basically, she said government should stop doing the work that private enterprise should do,” Walsh said.

Walsh thought it was strange that Palin fans were not allowed to ask her any questions at the signing. Apparently Walsh wasn't around for Election 2008.

“We’re in a bookstore, at a public event, in a place one would think was a bastion of free speech. And no one was allowed to ask questions. What are they afraid of?”

The answer is obvious: Someone would record/jot down/remember the disastrous answers. See: Interview, every.

Canadians are so naive sometimes. Wink.

Clift: Public option/private health insurance = U.S. Postal Service/FedEx

By GottaLaff

Paddy was watching Eleanor Clift and Rich "Soft Porn with Sarah" Lowry on The McLaughlin Group today. She was struck by this exchange (paraphrased). If we can dig up the video, we'll post it later:

Lowry: Competition from the government's public option plan will put private insurance out of business.

Clift: Fed EX and UPS seem to be doing just fine in direct competition with the U.S. Postal Service.

Ding! Next?

Canadian health care hardly a Marxism threat

By GottaLaff

Why, those crazy Marxist Canadians are positively unAmerican! Wait. No. They should be. They're not American.

Why, those crazy Canadians have some great ideas that we would benefit from in America! There. That's better:

To hear the extremist rhetoric floating around south of the border, you'd think Canada's public health-care system was the socialist demon incarnate, hatched directly from the fevered imaginations of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels themselves.

Cool it, America. Your health-care system is nothing to write home about, with some 46 million people sans insurance, with your managed care and gatekeepers, your doctors wasting time filling out insurance forms, and your insurance companies dreaming up ways to avoid paying out to people who faithfully paid their premiums for years. [...] Then, there are the bake sales to fund some poor soul's cancer treatment, and the bankruptcies of people overwhelmed by medical bills they can never pay. America, you in your glass house down there are hardly the ones to be lobbing stones across the border.

Among the agenda-driven fearmongers are Conservatives for Patients' Rights, led by Rick Scott, who used to head up Columbia/ Hospital Corporation of America (a firm that pleaded guilty to over-billing, after it was probed for fraud), and Patients United Now, which is funded by the right-wing Americans For Prosperity.

However, judging from a CBS News/New York Times poll done June 20, the average American, whose only agenda is his or her own health, is longingly eyeing a public system. [...]

A Harvard University study released in 2005 found that 50 per cent of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in the U. S. in 2001 were due to medical bills, with an estimated two million Americans affected each year. Most of these people were caught in a terrible Catch-22, the kind Canadians do not have to contend with, thanks to our public health-care system. [...]

[N]obody up here has to remortgage their home or scrounge up $100,000 to pay for their health care. [...] Further, the Canadian health-care system prioritizes cases and people whose situations are dire do get in faster; such triaging is done every day with heart bypass surgery and MRIs. [...]

The ad claims Canadian patients have long waits, and don't get care, or certain drugs and treatments, because "the government says patients aren't worth it." That's Stephen Harper's government they're talking about, and although Harper in his pre-prime ministerial incarnation advocated private health care, he ran his election campaign on a promise to preserve public health care. Harper's government is definitely not saying anything about patients not being worth it. [...]

The attacks on Canada's health-care system by Americans gleefully pouncing on the things that are wrong, ignore the far greater number of things that are right.

The trouble with America's system is that the horror stories are not the "extreme exceptions." When 50 per cent of Americans who declare bankruptcy do so because they can't pay their medical bills, those are not a few extreme cases.

Both countries need to fix what's wrong in their own systems by looking at best practices elsewhere, with an eye to enhancing universal access, not compromising it.

Those crazy Marxists are on to something...

Blue Dogs Backsliding On Anti-Health Care Reform Backsliding

By GottaLaff

Today on the Radio Machine, Randi Rhodes easily made the case for a single payer health care plan, and a caller asked why we don't hear those same points made more often in more places. Why can't the Dems make the case for something so many Americans want, that's more cost-effective, that makes so much more sense? Her answer: "Propaganda." The Dems are fighting the usual losing battle against the Rushpublic propaganda machine, and the corporate media are the enablers.

With that, here's the latest:

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) is "unwavering" in her opposition to a Blue Dog Coalition health care position issued late last week, she said Tuesday. The Blue Dogs, a caucus of conservative Democrats, issued a set of principles opposing a public health care option unless it was triggered by the failure of private insurers to meet certain goals.

Harman, in a statement, said she supports a public option without a trigger. "I will oppose any plan that does not include this option, and am unwavering in my opposition to the so-called 'Blue Dog trigger,'" said Harman.

On Monday, the Huffington Post reported that the Blue Dogs had backed the trigger even though 20 of their 51 members, including Harman, had pledged to the reform coalition Health Care for America Now! (HCAN) that they supported a public option without one. (HCAN and other reform advocates consider a trigger to be the death of the public option.) If all 20 kept to their word, the Blue Dogs wouldn't have had enough votes to back a trigger.[...]

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), a Blue Dog who also signed the pledge, told the Huffington Post she backs a public option without a trigger.

"America can't afford to wait for health care reform. While a single-payer system would be ideal, I am prepared to support other measures that also reduce costs, preserve doctor choice, and assure affordable, quality health care for all Americans," she said in a statement. "I think a public option without a trigger would be a good way to fix what's wrong with health care while preserving what works."

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the vice chairman of the Blue Dog Health Care Task Force, has also since come out in favor of a public option without a trigger.

Insurance companies determine whether we live or die, who cares for us, whether we even get care/don't get care, and make a fortune in the process... and they clearly shouldn't. Period.

Why is this so hard? That was rhetorical.

H/t: Ellen

Big Pharma, Big Insurance gaining ground in health care bill

By GottaLaff

This couldn't be any more depressing, infuriating, exasperating, or predictable:

Robert Reich: "I'ved poked around Washington today, talking with friends on the Hill who confirm the worst: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are gaining ground in their campaign to kill the public option in the emerging health care bill."

"Public health care": Fade to black.