"We're going to let you die."
As incredible as it may sound, those are the words of Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, in a speech given two years ago whose premise was "what a Democrat presidential candidate would say if he wasn't worried about getting elected".
You don't say.
His remarks were caught on audio, (much to the chagrin of those pushing Obamacare right now), and you can listen to them by clicking the "video" below. A transcript of his comments is posted below as well, (via WSJ [6]).
It's interesting how, as you listen to his comments, you can see how much of what he says looks an awful lot like some of the elements of (and logical consequences of) current Democrat health care proposals.
Enjoy... and pass it on!
[7]
TRASCRIPT:
I will actually give you a speech made up entirely--almost
at the spur of the moment, of what a candidate for president would say
if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other
words, this is what the truth is, and a candidate will never say, but
what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where
citizens were honored in terms of their practice of citizenship, and
they were educated in terms of what the issues were, and they could
separate myth from reality in terms of what candidates would tell them:"Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I'm so glad
to see you, and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few
things on health care. Look, we have the only health-care system in the
world that is designed to avoid sick people. [laughter] That's true,
and what I'm going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be
more amenable to treating sick people. But that means you--particularly
you young people, particularly you young, healthy people--you're going
to have to pay more. [applause] Thank you."And by the way, we are going to have to--if you're very
old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those
drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going
for another couple of months. It's too expensive, so we're going to let
you die. [applause]"Also, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the
federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid--we already have a
lot of bargaining leverage--to force drug companies and insurance
companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. But that means
less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on
the market, which means you are probably not going to live that much
longer than your parents. [applause] Thank you."
TAKE ACTION: Contact your members of Congress and tell them to vote NO on Obamacare! [8]
