Holy cow! Those “Death Panels” in Obamacare really do exist.

   
The "wingnuts" from the Tea Party movement dominated the mid-term elections and the main opposition most Americans felt about the Obama socialized medicine bill are now being revealed in spite of being labeled by the news media as false rumors. Today, the conservative news magazine Newsmax reported on their web site that NY Times columnist Paul Krugman has admitted that one of the most controversial aspects of Obamacare, the "Death Panels" not only exist but can be used to solve our debt crisis.

From Newmax:

Krugman: Death Panels, VAT Will Fix Debt Crisis
Sunday, 14 Nov 2010 05:31 PM

Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says the only way the U.S. will get its debt crisis under control is by the use of "death panels" and a national sales tax.

The national sales tax, referred to as value-added tax (VAT), which governments across Europe use widely, will help cut the U.S deficit, Krugman argues.

Krugman made his comments on ABC's “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” during a roundtable discussion about the economy and the recent findings of the U.S. Debt Reduction Commission.

Here's the key excerpt:

"Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now."

Apparently realizing his comments were inflammatory, Krugman took to his blog immediately Sunday afternoon to “clarify” his comments.

“I said something deliberately provocative on 'This Week,' so I think I’d better clarify what I meant, which I did on the show, but it can’t hurt to say it again,” he wrote. “So, what I said is that the eventual resolution of the deficit problem both will and should rely on “death panels and sales taxes.”

“What I meant is that:

"(a) health care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they’re willing to pay for — not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we’re willing to spend for extreme care

"(b) we’ll need more revenue — several percent of GDP — which might most plausibly come from a value-added tax

"And if we do those two things, we’re most of the way toward a sustainable budget."

He then provided a link to a June 20 column in which he also described “death panels,” but only in passing and in a mocking way. The column is actually about budget deficits.

What he doesn't say is that he has written at least half a dozen columns repeatedly referring to death panels the last year in an ongoing effort to malign Palin and other conservatives.

Krugman also conceded his solution may be “politically impossible.” But, he added, “I believe that some day — maybe in the first Chelsea Clinton administration — it will actually happen.”