Thread: Misinformation, mayhem mar debate on health care

Misinformation, mayhem mar debate on health care

There's an old proverb that says a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on. That's surely true when the lie instills deep personal fears, and lies appear to be in full sprint as the nation's health care debate goes local.

Some August town hall meetings around the country have degenerated into furious shouting matches, driven by outrageous misinformation borne of many sources.

The Internet spreads anonymous chain e-mails to a public that is both vulnerable and gullible. Groups with a financial or ideological interest give the rumors a boost. Talk radio provides an echo chamber for the demonizers. Most outrageously, political leaders who know better and could oppose legislation in a more credible way, engage in their own hyperbole or simply remain silent. One Republican senator, South Carolina's Jim DeMint, simply bypassed the substance of the discussion, saying it was a chance to "break" a popular Democratic president. He has plenty of company that isn't quite as blunt.


As we've said before in this space, there are valid reasons to oppose some of the ideas percolating in Congress — chiefly the lack of a credible financing mechanism — but the distortions have become so numerous that they've often won Politifact.org's "pants on fire" award (as in "liar, liar, pants on fire").

So in the interest of correcting some of the misinformation, here are a few truths that need to get moving:

-- Euthanasia. Critics have mastered the art of plucking a single piece of bill language and wildly distorting it. In this case it's a section of a House bill inserted by members of both parties to allow Medicare to pay doctors for optional end-of-life counseling, something that's already covered in a new patient's first Medicare visit. Anyone who has struggled with the decisions patients and family members must make as death approaches knows the value of having thought this through ahead of time and having made their wishes clear. Millions already do that.

But critics have twisted this into a sinister, cost-saving plot by the government to force seniors to end their lives early. First aired on the radio show of former Tennessee GOP senator Fred Thompson, the notion was picked up by House Republican Leader John Boehner, who said the provision was a precursor to "government-encouraged euthanasia." Former Alaska GOP governor Sarah Palin has now weighed in with a Facebook posting that claims that Obama would create a government-run "death panel."

Neutral arbiters have rightly demolished this. FactCheck.org labels the claim "nonsense" and says calling this forced euthanasia is like saying "a bill making retirement planning easier would force Americans to quit their jobs." Terrifying seniors over this provision is shameless.

-- Socialism. It's hard not to smile when critics warn darkly that health care reform means "socialism" or a "government takeover" of health care, since these same critics are usually staunch supporters of government-run Medicare, one of the closest things to socialism in the USA. Despite charges that President Obama and the Democrats really want the sort of single-payer, government-run systems in Canada or Britain, nothing in the legislation even comes close.

In fact, to the disgust of single-payer advocates, Obama and Democrats have all but frozen them out of the debate in an effort to build reform on top of the current employer-based system. What they have proposed that gives the fear life is a "public option," which would indeed be a government-run health care plan very much like Medicare. But in every version of the plan, it would just be one more choice competing with private insurers.


-- Keep what you've got. The president says that if you like your health coverage, you can keep it. Well, maybe. Nothing in the bills would force people to give up their coverage, but depending on how the final legislation is written, it might not be up to them.

The employer-provided insurance millions of Americans have is a voluntary benefit; employers could drop it if the bill made it easier and cheaper for them to let employees move to a private plan or a public alternative. That would be less likely to happen if an employer mandate required all but the smallest businesses to cover their employees and levied a tax or a fee if they did not.

-- Illegal immigrants will be covered. In fact, no bill says this, and a key House bill explicitly forbids it. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, claims that the Congressional Budget Office says 5.6 million illegal immigrants would be covered. FactCheck.org says King is distorting CBO's findings, which say no such thing.

The Internet can spread misinformation like wildfire, but it can also be a powerful tool for discovering the truth, as fact-checking sites are proving. It might help dial down the fear and anger if Americans reacted to claims about health reform from either side by logging on and looking them up.

(Speaking out: A rally against government-run health care Thursday in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Nationwide, town hall meetings on health care have been disrupted by protesters. / By Hans Pennink, AP)

Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, August 10, 2009 in USA TODAY editorial
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Read the bill for yourself at:

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Intersting look at FACTS on Health Care at:

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Excuse me, what does UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE mean but socalism The fact that we don't have it makes us special in the world because we ARE NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. Reform of health care does not mean government takeover. It means you make some improvements on what we now have. Sure people are afraid They have seen what this adminsitration does and says and it has socialism written all over it. When they mess with the free markets, they are messing with our values and way of life.

HAHAHA "misinformation, gotta love it. How many congresspersons have even bothered to read the bill?

-- Keep what you've got. The president says that if you like your health coverage, you can keep it. Well, maybe. Nothing in the bills would force people to give up their coverage, but depending on how the final legislation is written, it might not be up to them.

The employer-provided insurance millions of Americans have is a voluntary benefit; employers could drop it if the bill made it easier and cheaper for them to let employees move to a private plan or a public alternative. That would be less likely to happen if an employer mandate required all but the smallest businesses to cover their employees and levied a tax or a fee if they did not.

You bet the employers would drop the private plans employees now have. What would be left? Hmmm.

-- Illegal immigrants will be covered. In fact, no bill says this, and a key House bill explicitly forbids it. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, claims that the Congressional Budget Office says 5.6 million illegal immigrants would be covered. FactCheck.org says King is distorting CBO's findings, which say no such thing.

WHERE does it state that illegal aliens will not be covered? I don't believe anything on factcheck.org.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Misinformation, mayhem mar debate on health care





-- Euthanasia. Critics have mastered the art of plucking a single piece of bill language and wildly distorting it. In this case it's a section of a House bill inserted by members of both parties to allow Medicare to pay doctors for optional end-of-life counseling, something that's already covered in a new patient's first Medicare visit. Anyone who has struggled with the decisions patients and family members must make as death approaches knows the value of having thought this through ahead of time and having made their wishes clear. Millions already do that.

For the elderly to make sure their end of life wishes are known and respected they have to put those wishes into a legal format. The counseling is simply to help them protect their wishes so that later if they become incapacitated, their end of life wishes will still be protected. Many people fear that their final days could be spent hooked up to machinery and they dont want that. I know I dont want it. I want to be free to go on my own terms. This counseling can assure me that right.

If you oppose government health care remember to NOT sign up for Medicare when you turn 65 and the cost of your private health care goes thru the roof.

A Kaiser plan that is $331 a month at 64 goes to $893 the day you turn 65.

The $401 a month plan goes to $893 a month.

A $326 plan goes to $802 a month.

The $25 co-pay plan that is $415 a month at 64 goes to $893 the day you turn 65.

agrneydgrl wrote,

Excuse me, what does UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE mean but socalism The fact that we don't have it makes us special in the world because we ARE NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. Reform of health care does not mean government takeover. It means you make some improvements on what we now have. Sure people are afraid They have seen what this adminsitration does and says and it has socialism written all over it. When they mess with the free markets, they are messing with our values and way of life.

Well said! Why advocate for a larger federal government? Period. What have they taken over INCLUDING Medicare that has not been a boondoggle?


redpony353 wrote,
[/quote]For the elderly to make sure their end of life wishes are known and respected they have to put those wishes into a legal format. The counseling is simply to help them protect their wishes so that later if they become incapacitated, their end of life wishes will still be protected. Many people fear that their final days could be spent hooked up to machinery and they dont want that. I know I dont want it. I want to be free to go on my own terms. This counseling can assure me that right.[quote]

Do you not have those private options now?



Socialism. It's hard not to smile when critics warn darkly that health care reform means "socialism" or a "government takeover" of health care, since these same critics are usually staunch supporters of government-run Medicare, one of the closest things to socialism in the USA.

I for one have never hid from the fact that Medicare along with many other FDR type takeovers were not socialism! This insinuation as if it is a new revelation is disgusting! To hell with socialism! To hell with communism! To hell with facism! To hell with a takeover of health care by this collosal federal governmnet! To hell with those who think they are so smug! To hell with a large and ever more cumbersome federal government! Where is the tipping point between government activity in our economy and a total takeover of all aspects of life? Whatever the federal government takes over or infringes upon cost the private sector. When is the federal government going to be deemed to big too fail? What are you left with?

Sorry, my quote boxes are all messed up!