A Health Care Hand Grenade

Former Clinton hand George Stephanopoulos, writing on his ABC News blog this morning:

Mike Huckabee tossed a hand grenade into the debate over who's politicizing Ted Kennedy's death Thursday morning when he told his radio audience that under Obamacare, Kennedy would be told to "go home to take pain pills and die."

Which Democrat will toss it back first?

Will any Republicans jump on it by challenging Huckabee head-on?

One thing's for sure: by joining the debate in this time in this way, Huckabee is showing how determined he is not to be outmaneuvered by Sarah Palin in the early 2012 bidding for the GOP's conservative base

How will Mitt Romney respond?

Stephanopoulos , of course, wants this hand grenade to explode, hopefully in a Republican's face. Never debating the merits of Huckabee's claim, he labels it a smear, mocks him as Palin-esque (which, of course, is actually a compliment), and attempts to belittle the conservative "base".

But of course, Huckabee speaks the truth. The intent to ration health care to the elderly has been all but admitted by the president, who claims he can find half a trillion dollars in Medicare "savings" (read: diminished treatment for seniors), and by Ezekiel Emanuel, a top health-care adviser to President Barack Obama and older brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has said the following:

He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia"

So it doesn't matter if you led a full productive life as an American citizen...once you are too old, and no longer can continue to serve the state, you will be allowed to die, so that your resources can be re-allocated to the younger and healthier.

More:

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).

So Huckabee's point is valid - the elderly will be given a choice (by the government, the sole health-care provider) of living in agony, or a quick death. Unless, of course, elderly politicians are exempt from Dr. Emanuel's gleeful elimination of "non-productive" citizens. Which, no doubt, there will be...

But Stephanopoulos refuses to even discuss the merits of Huck's claim; he just labels it a "hand grenade" that he expects to blow up in the Republican's face - perhaps he is counting on a nation he believes is mourning in sorrow over the loss of Teddy "Killer" Kennedy?

But hey - maybe George is right, and it is a grenade. In that case, I would love for a Democrat to pick it up - as he advises, and others are daring - and attempt to exploit this issue. Perhaps Stephanopoulos realizes that this is a bomb waiting to blow up ObamaCare, and perhaps that's why rather than try to debate this with the facts, he instantly politicizes and Palin-izes it.

C'mon, Dems. Pick this grenade up, as Georgie so eagerly suggests. You know somewhere Sarah Palin is smirking, waiting for someone stupid enough to do so. Who was the last one who take her on? Oh, yeah - Barack Obama, who claimed there were no "death panels" - only to hastily scrub them out of the health-care bill.

If you guys are smart, you'll let this one die, because you can't debate it or defend it.

Then again, "smart" and Democrats" are two words that rarely belong in the same sentence together...