Phyllis Schlafly: Government Telling Seniors To "Hurry Up And Die"

Today, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute honored anti-feminist hero Phyllis Schlafly with a lifetime achievement award.  After accepting the award, Schlafly took questions from the audience of young conservative women, one of whom asked about health insurance reform.  Schlafly responded with a series of outrageous attacks on reform proposals and President Obama, including the fear-mongering claim that the government is going to tell seniors to "hurry up and die."  Watch it:

It is a government takeover of the tremendous health care industry.  It is complete paying for abortion on demand -- any time, any place.  We have recently learned about these counseling sessions they're going to give the old people.  And, basically, they are sessions -- why don't you hurry up and die? Take a pain killer because you're costing us too much money.  And anybody who thinks that health care is going to cost less if the government runs it must believe in the tooth fairy.  It isn't going to happen.  And the idea of letting the government run all of our health care industry is simply unacceptable.  And I think we would be better off if we defeated the whole thing that is proposed and then if there's some particular remedies we can work on, we can try that. 

But everything Obama is promoting on the health care industry is bad.  It's government control, which is what he wants.  You know, he never had a real job before he got in politics.  He was a community organizer.  And this is a process of making people believe that they live in an unjust and discriminatory society and they should organize to protest and demand to take money away from the taxpayers. 

Schlafly closed by saying, "I am hopeful that we can defeat the health care bill," drawing loud applause from the audience. 

However, there are many problems with Schlafly's "analysis." For starters, her claim that reforms being considered will pay for "abortion on demand -- any time, any place" is a lie.  So is the suggestion that the government is going to encourage euthanasia, a fantasy made popular by anti-reformer Betsy McCaughey.  Indeed, the nonpartisan website PolitiFact.com called the rumor an "outright distortion" and gave McCaughey a "Pants on Fire" rating for spreading it.

And it doesn't end there.  While Schlafly mocks the notion that a public option could produce savings, government-run Medicare is already more efficient than private insurance.  Finally, none of the bills floating around Congress would let "the government run all of our health care industry."  That's something that President Obama -- who had a "real job" as a lawyer at the firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland before seeking public office -- has repeatedly made clear. 

So, basically, Schlafly's case against reform consists of a bunch of falsehoods...and the tooth fairy.