Brewer denied AZ Death Panels before she acknowledged them

by David Safier

Brewer's I'll-say-whatever-fits-the-moment style of politics is well known. Here's an example that bears repeating on inauguration day. (I'm not the first to blog about this. Craig was all over it weeks ago).

The Capitol Times laid this out clearly. When Brewer was questioned about her decision to deny transplants to Arizonans, she called them "an optional treatment that we can't afford." Well, yeah, I guess they're optional, if you want to take the position that trying to save someone's life is one option, and letting that person die is another. The term for that, in Republican parlance, is Death Panels.

But she also said, the transplants really don't save lives, quoting a bogus statistic about 13 of 14 transplant patients dying, when the survival rate is more like 40%.

But then there was Brewer's letter to John Boehner begging the feds to bend the rules and give Arizona Medicaid money without the requirement for the state to match funds. She changed her tune to make her case, calling those optional procedures that don't work "potentially life-saving organ transplantions."

Which is it, Jan? Are they optional and virtually worthless, or are they life saving? Are you just cutting out wasted funds, or are you creating Brewercare, complete with Death Panels?

In the same Capitol Times article, Democrat David Shapira pointed out the inconsistency.

"That's the first time I've heard them call the transplants potentially life-saving," he said. "This governor is a political opportunist. When she finds an opportune time to label something one way versus the way that she's labeled it in the past, it just proves to the rest of the state that her only priority is to play politics."