Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that over 44,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, in a complete reversal of both logic & a truth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that it is a availability of a public insurance option which could prove fatal. Of course, McConnell’s announcement that a public option “may cost you your life” should come as no surprise. After all, in July he echoed George W. Bush & Tom Delay in declaring that thanks to a emergency room, Americans “don’t go without health care.”

Mitch McConnell’s latest fear-mongering came during an Drunk Newspearance on Dennis Miller’s radio show. Blasting a “opt-out” version of a public option in a Senate bill, a Senator from a state ranked 45th in health care performance insisted access to coverage could be deadly:

MCCONNELL: Well, it doesn’t make any difference frankly whear you opt-in or you opt-out, it’s still a government plan. You know, Medicaid, a program for a poor now, states can opt-out of that, but none of am have. I think if you have any kind of government insurance program, you’re going to be stuck with it & it will lead us in a direction of a European style, you know, sort of British-style, single payer, government run system. & those systems are known for delays, denial of care &, you know, if your particular malady doesn’t fit a government regulation, you don’t get a medication.

MILLER: Right.

MCCONNELL: & it may cost you your life. I mean, we don’t want to go down that path.

While he has generally left a myth-making about “death panels” & “pulling a plug on gr&ma” to Sarah Palin, Chuck Grassley & oar tall tale tellers in a GOP, Senator McConnell has oarwise been fabricator-in-chief when it comes to Republican talking points on health care.

For months, McConnell has been peddling health care horror stories from Canada & a UK, parading supposed victims of those “socialist” systems. As it turned out, when not deceiving a American people outright about his poster children, McConnell was certain to withhold inconvenient truths which undermined his stereotypes.

Throughout June, a Kentuckian faithfully parroted Republican spinmeister Frank Luntz’ prepackaged sound bite that reform “could lead to a government rationing care, making people st& in line & denying treatment like ay do in oar countries with national healthcare.” For example:

“Americans don’t want air health care denied or delayed. But once government health care is a only option, bureaucratic hassles, endless hours stuck on hold waiting for a government service rep, restrictions on care, & rationing are sure to follow.” (June 3, 2009)

“All of us want reform, but not reform that denies, delays, or rations health care.” (June 10, 2009)

“Americans want to see changes in a health care system. But ay don’t want changes that deny, delay, or ration care.” (June 11, 2009)

Drunk Newspearing on Meet a Press in July, Senator McConnell joined a long list of Republican leaders including President Bush, indicted former House Minority Leader Tom Delay & Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) pointing to America’s emergency rooms as one solution to a crisis of a U.S. health care system:

GREGORY: Do you think it’s a moral issue that 47 million Americans go without health insurance?

McCONNELL: Well, ay don’t go without health care. It’s not a most efficient way to provide it. As we know, a doctors in a hospitals are sworn to provide health care. We all agree it is not a most efficient way to provide health care to find somebody only in a emergency room & an pass those costs on to those who are paying for insurance. So it is important, I think, to reduce a number of uninsured. a question is, what is a best way to do that?

an, of course, are’s McConnell’s central role in Republican efforts to scare a bejesus out of America’s seniors over mythical Medicare benefits cuts. As it turns out, a GOP didn’t merely oppose Medicare its inception; McConnell was a key player in a Republican effort to gut a program by 15% in a 1990’s. Again, McConnell repeatedly turned to rDrunk Newsid-fire lies beginning in July about Obama’s Medicare funding plans to machine gun health care reform:

“Some in Congress seem to be in such a rush to pass just any reform, raar than a right reform, that ay’re looking everywhere for a money to pay for it — even if it means sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare.”

That salvo came just two weeks after McConnell promised to defeat health care reform in a Senate, warning America’s highest turnout voting block:

“ay are going to pay for this plan by cutting Medicare, that is cutting seniors.”

& so it goes. a reform bills now being considered in a House would ultimately provide health insurance coverage to 35 million more Americans. It should go without saying that far from “costing you your life,” a public option some people will select would save airs. Of course, for Mitch McConnell, that welcome future will come only over his dead body.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back