AARP Scolds Grayson

The AARP, which is pushing for changes to the health care system, says Congressman Alan Grayson’s remarks that Republicans want sick people to die quickly go too far and have added to a “summer of political heat, not light.”

Grayson, a Democrat from the Orlando area, suggested in a speech earlier this week that the GOP health care plan was for sick people to “die quickly,” and after calls from Republicans for an apology not only refused, but attacked further.

“Even if one grants that Rep. Grayson has reason to be frustrated over the inability of our health system to provide coverage to all Americans, his remarks are anything but productive,” AARP Florida Director Lori Parham said in a statement. “Bitter attacks provoke angry responses, which in turn will provoke further attacks. So our national discourse spirals downward into futility….. It’s time for all of us, of whatever political persuasion, to focus on what really matters in the health-reform debate: Our health system costs too much, delivers too little in results, leaves millions of Americans without health coverage and cannot be sustained.”

Grayson shows no signs of backing down. On CNN’s The Situation Room on Wednesday night, Grayson called Republicans “foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.”