August 5, 2009: GOP Senator: Democrats’ Health Care Proposal Would Deny Care to Terminally Ill Kennedy

Charles (“Chuck”) Grassley addresses an AARP meeting in early 2009. [Source: AARP]Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), one of the GOP senators counted on by the Obama administration to help pass the Democrats’ health care reform package, tells a radio audience that under that reform package, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) would be allowed to die. Kennedy is in the final stages of terminal brain cancer. Under the proposal, Grassley says, Kennedy would be denied care; instead, a younger patient would receive that care because they could “contribute more to the economy.” On Iowa City radio station KCJJ-AM, Grassley says: “In countries that have government-run health care, just to give you an example, I’ve been told that the brain tumor that Senator Kennedy has—because he’s 77 years old—would not be treated the way it’s treated in the United States. In other words, he would not get the care he gets here because of his age. In other words, they’d say ‘well, he doesn’t have long to live even if he lived another four to five years.’ They’d say ‘well, we gotta spend money on people who can contribute more to economy.’ It’s a little like people saying when somebody gets to be 85 their life is worth less than when they were 35 and you pull the tubes on them.” The Iowa Independent notes that the health care reform proposal has no provisions for “rationed care” of any kind, as Grassley asserts, much less a provision to deny care to elderly patients in favor of younger, more potentially productive patients. [Think Progress, 8/5/2009; Iowa Independent, 8/5/2009] Adam Lioz, a correspondent to the liberal Huffington Post, writes: “My first thought after watching video of Grassley’s statements is that he has now disqualified himself from participation in further Senate Finance Committee negotiations. How can someone act as a good-faith negotiator on a critical and complex issue while simultaneously stoking fear and spreading bald-faced lies about the content of the leading legislation on the topic? And why should Democratic senators take him seriously and continue to engage him? Bipartisanship is helpful; but at what cost?” [Huffington Post, 8/13/2009]