Huckabee: Sen. Ted Kennedy is a “Shining Example” of Why the Health Care Bill is So Bad (UPDATE – Huckabee Responds)
Mike Huckabee addressed the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy and its impact on the health care debate Thursday morning on his radio show “The Huckabee Report.” He began his show by criticizing President Obama and others who have used Sen. Kennedy’s passing as an opportunity to rally support for their health care proposal.
“Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death had barely hit the news before we started hearing calls that Congress must hurry and pass the health care reform bill and do it in his memory,” said Huckabee. “That not only defies good taste, it defies logic. We certainly can and should respect his years of advocacy and work for the things that he truly believed in. But there is no good reason to rush through a giant unread bill that would transform American health care and impact every citizen.”
He went on to offer another lesson we may learn from Kennedy’s death.
“But perhaps the worst reason to do it is in the name of someone who perhaps inadvertently gave us the most shining example of why this particular bill is so bad. Proponents deny that this bill will devalue older people’s lives or encourage them to except less care to save money. But it was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don’t have as long to live might want to just consider taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them. Yet when Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 77, did he give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die? Of course not. He freely did what most of us would do. He choose and expansive operation and painful follow up treatments. He saw his work and vitally important and so he fought for every minute he could stay on this earth doing it. He would be a very fortunate man if his heroic last few months were what future generations remember him most for.”
“I want to see improvements in health care too,” Huckabee concluded. “But I think a better way to honor Ted Kennedy would be to ensure that every American has access to the latest private health care as good as what Senators receive.”
Speaking of Gov. Huckabee on the radio. Alice Stewart, who will be guest hosting the Dave Elswick Show this coming Monday afternoon on KARN News Radio, tells me that she will have her former boss as a studio guest from 4:30 to 5:30. Other guests will included Arkansas political bloggers David Kinkade and Blake Rutherford, Ernest Istook from the Heritage Foundation, and pollster Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports.
UPDATE – This story was first reported here but widely circulated on major blogs such as Huffington Post, Politico, and Drudge Report. This lead to Gov. Huckabee directly responding to this on his FoxNews show this weekend with this…
August 28th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
[...] Tolbert Report: Mike Huckabee addressed the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy and its impact on the health care debate [...]
August 28th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
LIAR. DEATH PANELS WERE PUT INTO MEDICARE IN 2003. Guess who was president?
Old Huckabuck sure liked Ted Kennedy’s ARKids program. Huck bragged about that piece of SOCIALIZED MEDICINE for years.
August 28th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
YOU SICK BASTARD
Tolbert Note – Not sure if this is meant for Gov. Huckabee or me or both.
August 28th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Like other GOPers, Huckabee has clearly mastered the tactic of the “Big LIe.” Obama never said that the elderly and sick should be denied care. The quote is from a Q&A in which he was touting the wisdom of doing research into which treatments actually work and which don’t and providing this info to doctors and patients so they can make informed decisions. How awful to give people info with which to make informed choices about their own care.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
This is sick and deserve no comment. It is indeed a lie. If Huckabee felt compelled to make a comment like this, he could have at least waited at least a week or two. TASTELESS.
Curious that those against health reform keep commenting on the specifics of ‘a health reform bill’ when there is no bill yet in either the House or the Senate. Duh!
August 28th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Huckabee is a very very sick ######!
August 28th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
What an obscenely cruel and tasteless comments. What is wrong with these people? They purport to be Christian, yet they are mean, nasty, narcissistic and self righteous. They purport to be conservative, yet they are wavering on the edge of fanatical, suspicious, even and deliberately ignorant to many things, including their perception of what defines good and bad.
BTW, Health Reform does NOT include these so called death panels. If one would actually read what it says, it is simply offering the option to make one’s own decisions about medical care.
August 28th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Huckabee has it wrong. In discussing HR3200’s provision for benefits to cover the cost of a patient’s VOLUNTARY conversations with the health-care professional of their choice about medical options in the case of terminal illness, Obama was doing nothing more devious or demonic than describing a provision that has existed in Medicare coverage for years, with no one complaining about it. I wish we could discuss the various plans afoot without resorting to this kind of distrotion. It does nothing to enlighten. It only frightens. And whom does that benefit?
August 28th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Excuse me — that was supposed to read “distortion.” You see, facts (and proper spelling) are important to me. Also, I misspoke when I said Medicare has covered such consultations for years. I was thinking of legislation toward that end which was introduced by Republican Representatives and Senators in recent sessions of Congress. You may be aware that Sarah Palin officially endorsed the concept when she was Governor of Alaska.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
[...] morning, Mike Huckabee criticized Democrats for using Ted Kennedy’s memory to promote health care reform: “Sen. [...]
August 28th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
WOW, Tolbert made a lefty blog somewhere. Way to go buddy. Keep it up and the trolls will keep coming. It is simply the politics of cognitive dissonance.
I don’t think his comments were “sick” at all, but I do find it ironic that he criticized the dems for using his death for a rhetorical device, and then in the same comment used his death in the same manner. Not good form. Still love huck.
August 29th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Former Gov. Huckabee presents himself as a man of God. I cannnot imagine that the God I serve would be happy with the timing of Gov. Huckabee’s comments let alone the content. I also guess that as usual, as a Republican, he is taking the traditional stance of the republicans…do as I say not as I do in politicizing the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Could you have at least waited, in respect to the family ,until after the funeral? Do you really believe that President Obama would have sent Senator Kennedy home to take a pill so that he would die sooner…..and you call yourself a Christian. Shame on you!
August 30th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Either Mr. Huckabee is a very stupid man or he knows he is deliberately lying to score political points, but lacks the personal integrity to care that he’s not telling the truth. There is no other explanation that doesn’t defy logic. And this from a man who used to be a preacher. It never ceases to amaze me how people like Huckabee never seem to remember the commandment about “not bearing false witness against thy neighbor.”
August 30th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Huck is just telling it like it is.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
OH boy of boy. I absolutely loath it when a person chooses to attack character rather than talk facts. If he is intentionally distorting the truth…how?
August 30th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Jason, I hope that you will post Huckabee’s monologue from his Huckabee show on 8/30. He does a great job addressing the criticism he received for these statements he made on his radio show. Since you have many people reading your blog, and many sites link to it, such as gop12.com, it would be a service to Huckabee to post it once it is available.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:33 am
I am not an American but have a great deal of interest in American affairs especially because I am America educated.I have listened to Huckabee on Fox and gets the impression that he is an intelligent man and I am surprised that he will say what he said knowing that people know the truth! You get the feeling that opponents of universal health care will do ANYTHING to kill it! America must know that lack of health care for all is the hallmark of underdeveloped countries run by primitive men and women.It is thought provoking that a country that will sacrifice its young men and women for democracy in foreign lands spending billions of dollars as well starts worrying about deficits when it comes to taking care of its people! All this does is question
the sincererity of the noble activities of America all over the world.And that is very sad.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:25 am
Texasconserv – I don’t have that monologue. If you want to send it to me, I will take a look.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Once again Huck has shown his ignorance. Why dosen’t he just come
out & say he supports Palin’s “death camp” statement.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Let me correct my previous statement Palin & Huckabee both want
“death panels”.
August 31st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
[...] Kennedy’s death by using it to push the health care bill through and he also pointed out that the Senator was a “shining example” of why the bill was a bad idea. This statement outraged the left even though Huckabee honored the Senator’s fight for life [...]