Glenn Beck, Nazis, and why the right is so wrong on “death panels”

Crooks and Liars has an interesting video of Glenn Beck jumping on the right-wing “dems are Nazis” bandwagons.

Beck does a good job of talking out of both sides of his mouth for the duration of the video- he even starts out saying that there is “so much anger and hatred in this country right now,” conveniently forgetting that he’s spurred a frick-ton of it with his nightly fearmongering. He launches into a speech about how no one is saying Eugenics are coming to this country, before spending the next few minutes crying about how OMG, Eugenics are coming to this country!! Eleventy!

Beck draws parallels between economic collapse in Nazi Germany and modern-day America and posits that we will no longer be able to pay for healthcare for everyone, and we will begin to make “tough decisions.” What is so bothersome about this rhetoric is that those who spout it continually completely ignore the fact that the much feared “death panels” already exist in this country. And they’re scarier now, when they operate for profit and behind the bottom-line focused facades of corporations, executing last minute deadly decisions and moving the goalposts in such a way that access to care is not a right and something that can be yanked from beneath the feet of anyone suffering a life-threatening condition when it is determined to be “pre-existing” or “experimental.” Or in other words, “too expensive.”

Anyone who doubts “death panels” exist today need look no further than the case of Nataline Sarkisyan, a teenager who fell victim to insurance company games when they had all the time in the world and she did not. Nataline succumbed to a form of recurrent leukemia while she waited for Cigna to decide her fate- UCLA’s hospitals declined two available livers while waiting for Cigna to approve treatment.

Video below of a tearful Glenn Beck and his Nazi posters.