Andrea Mitchell Interviews Orin Hatch on Healthcare Reform
On 7/27/09 Andrea Mitchell (MSNBC) interviewed Orin Hatch on healthcare reform. The full interview is available here. It is approximately 9 minutes long.)
I was stunned to hear Hatch saying he supported healthcare for those who "really deserve" it. Mitchell did not ask him who that was (or who the undeserving were). I was immediately transported back to Reagan with his discussions of the "deserving poor." Who DOESN'T "really deserve" healthcare. I can't even believe that the Republicans are going to pull this one out again. The clip below from the interview is approximately 52 seconds. It includes the Hatch quote in context.
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I think they both deserve a hearty poke from my pitchfork. I'll leave it up to you to decide where.
July 28, 2009 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andrea did pretty good at one point in the interview. Hatch went off on Obama's reform plan "rationing" healthcare, and Mitchell said (loose translation) "Isn't being rationed already by people's ability to pay or have insurance?" Hatch of course said "it wasn't the same thing" and implied that "old people" would not get necessary care.
So you can poke Andrea in the foot, but Hatch? Where ever you think it would do the most good. It drives me nuts listening to these folks all saying the same thing - sure got their "talking points" down, and not a wit of honesty in any of them.
Maybe you have a load of (hmm) chicken "leavings" you could fork over their heads?
July 29, 2009 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hatch of course said "it wasn't the same thing" and implied that "old people" would not get necessary care.
I think this has to do with the latest in fear mongering, "end-of-life consultations."
Perhaps the pitchfork should be aimed in that region located below the waistline and even with the upper thighs.
Hope you're doing well, Rowan.
July 29, 2009 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah yes, the end of life consultations. Heard Obama asked about that yesterday. More politics of fear. Thanks for the link!
(I'm doing fair to poor depending on the day. Not improving anywhere near as rapidly as I hoped - hence my erratic participation here at the cafe. Thanks for asking. Thanks for asking:))
July 29, 2009 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let see here . . .
About this ... "...got their "talking points" down..."
That short YouTube clip fits closest to the following "talking point" as outlined in the Frank Luntz memo released back in May titled:
THE LANGUAGE OF HEALTHCARE 2009 THE 10 RULES FOR STOPPING THE "WASHINGTON TAKEOVER" OF HEALTHCARE
But ol' Hatch is such a verbal klutz he stumbled on this one and it came out really sounding like crap. But it is how he really feels about the issue.
Smug A--hole!
You can read the entire 10 points at my blog post here in the Cafe by linking through the entitled header above.
~OGD~
July 29, 2009 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi OGD! Thanks for the links to the Luntz Talking Points. He has a guaranteed career with GOP. Maybe Hatch messed up because they've been using related rhetoric so long he slipped up. I imagine he does truly believe that the "lessers" are undeserving.
Thanks for grabbing the Luntz talking points and making them available.
July 29, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any old spot would do, they could both use some major deflating.
July 29, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a great find. Somehow I missed her yesterday.
THE UNDESERVING POOR, by George Bernard Shaw:
"DOOLITTLE. Dont say that, Governor. Dont look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that hes up agen middle class morality all the time. If theres anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "Youre undeserving; so you cant have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I dont need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth. Will you take advantage of a man's nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what hes brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until shes growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you."
July 29, 2009 6:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
GOOD DD!
Yes, the undeserving poor are considered "deficient" in a number of regards, and much of it goes back to lacking in morals and character. I wrote about this ideology a very long time ago (before the web) in relationship to social policy. I'll see if I can dig it up.
July 29, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Meanwhile over on Radio, John Hockenberry was interviewing Bill Frist, His co-host of the morning wrote speeches for Frist. I wrote a bit about this on my blog, urging TPM to fill the comments column with precisely how improper this was. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/amike/2009/07/the-takeaway-becomes-the-throw.php I'm hoping that people will visit the Takeaway and after the fluff, smarm, and obsequy is washed off, demand balance: Howard Dean interviewed by His speechwriter.
July 29, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
You Go amike! Rec'd
Now that's what I call a "friendly" interview.
July 29, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we have to realize that if we don't stand up and fight for single payer health care 'now', we will not only be battling insurance companies and profiteers in our health care system but 'politics' will be forever injected into our health care.
Going into this year most of us wanted a single payer health care system. Many people have become resigned to a public option because they believe it will lead to a single payer system.. but this assumption is incredibly dangerous.
Right now the public option would not even take effect until 2013 'after' the next presidential election. The GOP will go full our to stop it. They are already desperately lying to senior citizens telling them that they will die from changes to our health care system.
Every single one of us needs to make our voices heard now and I hope you will join me in fighting for a single payer health care system.
Please fax your reps and cc the white house tomorrow and tell them you want a single payer health care system, health care for all.
It will help to multiply the impact of the single payer rally and days events in DC this Thursday July 30th.
We hopefully have 6 people going to the rally as reps of some of us here at TPM.
Every one of us needs to make our voices heard in DC.
July 29, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shout it out and keep shouting! Good recommendations synch.
July 29, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the undeserving "torture" - for the deserving "health care". The values party! NOT!!!!
Thank your for this Rowan! :-)
July 29, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since someone dies every 30 minutes in the US because of lack of access to healthcare, this may be torture indeed. Apparently Hatch thinks some people (the poor for example) just deserve to suffer and die.
July 29, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
good post. I just watched Andrea Mitchell interviewing another Republican about health care today, Mike Pence. I think she needs to get tough. She's a news reporter, and she just can't let people lie, as Pence did, throughout the entire interview. She stopped him politely sometimes, saying "there are those who would disagree..." but the Republican talking points are so transparently a lie--you can't allow them to quote "so called" bipartisan special interest groups like the Lewin Group because the Lewin Group is owned by United Health Care.
The American public is being aggressively lied to about all this and Andrea Mitchell has to step up. End of story.
July 29, 2009 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it would be great if they would put the talking points on one side of the screen and light the appropriate one up every time the interviewee hits one. At the end of the interview we could get the score. If the "reporters" don't want to challenge them directly, they can at least keep them honest.
July 29, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
that's so funny, I was thinking the same thing. A list of talking points that "dings" every time one is repeated.
I still think though that reporters have to stand in the way of lies spouted by either party and report facts. It is their job. These are public airwaves. If someone mentions the Lewin Group as a source of "independent data", that has to be refuted. They are owned by United Healthcare. They are paid to create research and stats that are friendly to big pharma and the status quo insurance industry
This has gone on long enough.
July 29, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree, but there are damn few actual reporters on TV, and virtually none of the news show hosts are reporters. In fact, most of the newspeople on TV are not reporters.
July 29, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was stunned to hear Hatch saying he supported healthcare for those who "really deserve" it. Rowan Wolf
I just listened to the short Youtube segment you linked to. In that segment Hatch didn't say what you say he said.
Somewhere else, perhaps?
July 29, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
It runs between the 30-38 second period and he states (my transcription just done) emphases mine:
July 29, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmmmmm . . .
That's a heck of an eyeball but the ears need work.
Folks hear what they wish to hear.
Prime example is found here.
Same ol' same ol' . . .
I am not surprised.
~OGD~
July 30, 2009 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rowan, good find, but we don't yet know what he means by "deserve". It could be what you are saying or it could be analogous to "those who need healthcare." The poor do deserve healthcare in my thinking, and, who knows?, that could be what he meant.
July 29, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry matyra, in my opinion there is a HUGE difference in the words "deserve" and "need." "Deserve" means that some do deserve and some are undeserving. Even if you take "deserve" to mean "need," who does not need access to healthcare?
July 29, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will stand with you on this one Rowan. In other circumstances, Matyra might have a point. But this is Orrin Hatch we're talking about. He doesn't use the word "deserve" in the middle of a health care debate without really meaning that, in his estimation, there are people who deserve health care, and there are people who do not.
July 29, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who doesn't have "access to healthcare," currently?
Now, if you mean "access to healthcare insurance" -- "coverage" in Hatch's parlance -- then, we're talking about a whole lot of folks.
But the real problem begging for a solution isn't "coverage"; it's costs. Obama's plan comes to little or nothing if it doesn't include a competitive, independently run public plan option, and as it's shaping up, it doesn't look like it will.
July 29, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well lots of people don't have access to healthcare. If you show up at an emergency room without insurance they ask for a credit card. Don't have a credit card? They want cash up front. Increasingly they won't even accept a check.
Live in a rural area? Increasingly, your "access" may be over an hour away.
Right now, access is metered (where healthcare is available) through insurance. It shouldn't be, but it is. However I agree with you that there needs to be a public option that (at the least) competes with private insurance. Personally, I don't think that private insurance should even exist for primary and necessary care. It only provides a profit arena - not good healthcare.
July 29, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rowan - taking your access a step further, say somebody does get into the ER and is seen by a doctor. The doctor prescribes xyz, which is not out in generic form yet and therefore out of reach. Access to health care includes, but is not limited to, affordable medicine, diagnostic tests, prescribed therapies and qualified assistance in the form of home health care. Seeing a doctor is usually only the first step in the health care process, not the end of a journey.
July 29, 2009 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is also no medical followup from ermergency rooms. They'll set your leg, but they won't change or remove the cast.
July 29, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, and for both of us having said all that, Ellen's point remains:
:-(
July 29, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's what older brothers are there for.
July 30, 2009 4:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ya' know . . .
"I believe that nicotine is not addictive."
Just saying . . . Ya' know.
~OGD~
July 30, 2009 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I mean those who deserve government subsidized healthcare. He may be thinking if someone's making $150k/yr, then they would not deserve to have the government spotting them healthcare as much as a family making $50k.
You are right in that everyone should have healthcare, I'm just trying to pull a Bill Clinton and ask what Hatch actually means by that word. If he means what you are saying, that there are deserving, and therefore undeserving, poor--then you are right. But he could be making a completely different distinction in his mind that just slipped out.
I guess if he says it again, or others start talking about who deserves healthcare, then we'll know that a Reaganesque therm is back. But one word in one interview doesn't yet mean that he wants to start making judgement calls on who gets access to healthcare. That would be making the assumption that Hatch is eloquent.
July 29, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I recommend taking a look at the Republican Talking Points listed at OGD's Blog. If you still want to give Hatch and the Republicans the benefit of the doubt and that they truly have good intentions, then that is a personal call.
July 29, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read OGD's blog and hope the Democrats will be able to frame healthcare in a way that labels it far better than these Republican obfuscations. It's a shame that no-one argues based on merits alone.
The reason that I was arguing wasn't about Hatch's implied altruism, or the Republican media plan. It's about what I felt was you taking one word in one interview and stretching the absolute implications it a bit too far.
If you had ended the the blog with a "Let's find out if this is what Hatch actually meant." Or "Keep an ear out to see if the word 'deserve' crops up again." Then I wouldn't have been so crabby.
If this "deserve" idea keeps popping up in the Republican discussions on health care reform, then you are right that "I can't even believe that the Republicans are going to pull this one out again." I'm just not yet convinced that this one idea has been pulled out.
July 30, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Granted, I COULD be jumping to conclusions. However, there are also repeated "code words" that are used in politics. "Deserving" is one of them. It is rare for a politician of Hatch's tenure to "slip up" in a canned interview.
July 30, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL, I'll keep my ears open and if I hear "deserve" again, or if someone else hears it and reports it here on TPM, then I'm prepared to eat crow.
WAY OT: Speaking of crows, if you've a moment then check out this npr article from a couple days ago: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106826971
Werid.
July 30, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
um, "Weird".
July 30, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ya' know . . . Matyra
I don't give Orrin Hatch, nor any of these bureaucrats one iota of a benefit of the doubt. At 60+ I've heard almost every negative spiel that people on the left, center and/or right have spewed. I have heard their negative words and those words that are not positive influence so many others' opinions and thereby their behaviors and values. I know you hear me.
Now speaking of the Luntz memo and words, I can only shake my head at this one that totally leaves the citizen out of the picture of the importance of affordable coverage and health care services. It's spinning it to be NOT about the people's needs but about being afraid of the bureaucratic control.
And this post of mine here at the Cafe truly underscores the vile depths that the wackos will go:
Always being told to be afraid ... To be very, very, very afraid?
Just saying . . . Ya' know.
~OGD~
July 30, 2009 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the last 2 blogs that you've put out, OGD. I read some of the memo and am glad it's out there and not just circulating amongst Republicans in secret. Hopefully we can respond in kind or just expose what they are doing effectively.
July 30, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto!
July 30, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rowan . . .
Hey Hey ... This has been an an excellent thread.
There's word in the wind in my world from Mark Karan & Jemimah Puddleduck that I tour with that there may be an upcoming visit to the Great Northwest celebrating his new lease on life after recovering from stage 4B throat cancer after his two year "Walk through the Fire." And I'm fairly certain that if it comes to pass we no doubt will be in your vicinity. I would love to cross your path in 3-D. I will keep you posted through your email at your journal. Make sure you checkout the background story here, and you just may enjoy the free tunes in the player.
Thanks for posting that video.
~OGD~
July 30, 2009 2:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
It has been an excellent thread, and thank you for your contributions. I am still trying to figure out the video thing. TPM made it difficult because once created, it wouldn't accept the script necessary to run it. SO I posted it to YouTube (not what I really wanted to do) to get it into TPM. thanks for letting me know you appreciated the effort.
Please do let me know if you'll be in the Portland area. 3-D indeed.
July 30, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink