(Some) Opponents of health reform have abandoned all pretext of honesty, and instead have embarked on a campaign of fear, intimidation, and outright lies in an effort to halt Congressional action.
That’s not to say advocates of reform haven’t stretched the truth from time to time, but to date opponents’ behavior is by far the more egregious. If you sense a tone of anger here, you’re perceptive. These people are scum.
Exhibit One – The Death-ers
Last week, Betsy McCaughey said on Fred Thompson’s show that the House health care bill contained a provision requiring counseling sessions for seniors on how “to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R OH) also said the same provision “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law.”
In reality, the provision in question simply requires Medicare pay for voluntary counseling sessions to help seniors plan for end-of-life medical care, including designating a health care proxy, hospice options, and advice on deciding on life-sustaining treatment.
Boehner and McCaughey’s characterization is fear mongering at its worst. And puts them in league with blowhard Rush Limbaugh, who recently claimed Correspondent Helen Thomas would be “soon to be put out to pasture at Statist Farm…first time she gets sick it will be judged not worth it…”
It’s also patently stupid – why would the Democrats seek to kill off a demographic that favors them?
Exhibit Two – The disrupters
God forbid opponents of reform actually let Congressfolk hear their constituents’ opinions on this critical issue. No, they want to shout their Representatives and Senators down, intimidate them, and threaten those who disagree with physical violence.
News flash to the disrupters who are so blindly willing to be manipulated by the health insurance and medical device industries – this is a democracy, and the majority rules. You aren’t the majority, you lost, get over it. Now you know how the other side felt for the last eight years, yet they didn’t find it necessary to engage in brown-shirt tactics to vent their spleen.
Exhibit Three – Congress’ plan to Canadian-ize our health system
False false false. Canada has a single payer system – which is not under serious consideration here in the US. There is no single payer option in any bill under review, and single payer has been specifically rejected by the President, Secretary Sibelius, the Senate Finance Committee, and most of the House. Committed liberals aren’t happy with this, either.
Exhibit Four – The Canadian system almost killed me
Shona Holmes contends that she had to cross the border to get a brain tumor removed because the Canadian system would have forced her to wait over a year, and she would have died.
Highly unlikely. According to FactCheck; “CBC News (the Canadian Broadcasting Centre) aired a story July 31 quoting a top neurosurgeon in Canada saying that the claim that she would have died is “an exaggeration.” Holmes was diagnosed with Rathke’s cleft cyst, a rare, benign cyst that forms near the pituitary gland. It’s not known to be fatal. [emphasis added] Another neurosurgeon told CBC News that he’d never heard of someone dying from the condition.”
Yet the anti-reform forces persist in publicizing this nonsense.
When you confront these liars about the inaccuracy of these statements, they respond with allegations about the Democrats’ secret agenda to move everyone to single payer, ration care with waiting lines, and cover illegal immigrants (again, why would a politician provide services to folks who can’t vote?).
Ohhhh, here’s why…
Aug
7
When you assert that health insurers are blindly maipulating the public, and when others claim that the health insurers are behind the disruptions at town meeting, you(they) are sadly mistaken. Health insurers have been solidly behind meaningful health care reform since 2006. That’s a fact.
Mickey – thanks for the comment. I’m afraid your information is inaccurate. This from an article in Politico: “the insurers have played the inside game, spending about $40 million on an army of lobbyists and lavishing campaign contributions on Democrats and Republicans to kill the public option. In all, the health industry spent $133 million in the second quarter alone, more than a million bucks a day.
And over the weekend, the association, which represents 1,300 insurers and HMOs across the country, told POLITICO’s Mike Allen that it was stepping up its activity, advising members to confront representatives critical of the industry at August town hall meetings.”
Paduda
Your assertions are blatantly false and misleading. You state “the provision in question simply requires Medicare pay for voluntary counseling sessions to help seniors plan for end-of-life medical care.” Anyone who read the full legislation found that it makes counseling a pay for performance measure – which means failure to comply = financial penalties for the physician and professional discredited rating for failing to comply with “quality” guidelines. Your claims may be believed by lay readers, but not by any medical professional.
odlo6
odlo 6 – no, my statements were not false or misleading.
the ‘legislation’ I refer to was passed twenty years ago after being introduced by a Republican. It is a good idea, had bipartisan support, and now along with many other components of care may be part of the P4P calculus. And medical professionals should be providing this type of service, just as they should be giving aspirin in the ER to patients presenting with chest pain, yet hospitals/physicians often fail to do so.
If physicians were providing universally excellent care, we wouldn’t have to do P4P.
Moreover, my use of this example was to illustrate how Limbaugh and his ilk are distorting it to imply Obama wants to kill off old people, a bald-faced lie. I did not need to get into any details about P4P as that was outside the context of the post.
Paduda
The democrats do not want Health Care “REFORM” as you state in your post. They are attempting to “CHANGE” the system. As for whose attempting to hide their motives, consider that they have now relabeled this as…
“Health Insurance Reform”.
As to the Death-ers, research Mr. Obama’s three top guns on the Health care debate and you will find statements that back up these claims. Once you ‘rig’ the system, your demographic changes dramatically. You now have a large pool of voters with a vested interest in keeping your political party in office, to continue to dole out the ‘free’ goodies.
There is a three prong reason for allowing the elderly to ‘experience’ ‘End Of Life’. First, they typically do not pay income tax. Second, they are the largest users of ‘expensive’ health care in America and receive Social Security for sometimes decades. Third, some have aquired wealth over their lives and the death tax would help to ‘relieve’ relatives of this burden, ie, the government gets it’s take.
Mr. Obama himself stated that, ‘instead of’ grandma ‘getting a pacemaker, maybe she should take a pain-pill instead….’
Just because Obama won, that does not give him or his party the right to destroy this country and steal our freedom sir. King George represented a legally seated government that discovered it lacked the ability to bully the colonies and her citizens once they decided not to take it anymore. Mr. Obama and your side should take note of that and decide where that line is before you cross it.
As for the “false assertions”… your allegations are laughable sir. Mr. Obama himself, along with Barney Frank and other high ranking Democrats have expressed their desire for a single payer system in multiple venues…. any google search for these statements is easy to find if you wantto see the truth….
From my prospective in the medical industry, everyone I have talked with wants reform, but does not want all of the control being taken by the government. Reform can be accomplished by other means. Yes, I listen and read Rush Limbaugh almost everyday, and that is all the point that he has made. Conservatism is about the people’s individual right, and less government control.
A T.S. Eliot quote, from The Cocktail Party comes to mind.
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it becuase they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
I heard Obama this morning talking about the public option, saying “let the people decide. If they don’t like it, then they won’t choose it.” All fine and dandy in la-la land, but I don’t know of anyone who gets to choose the insurance options that their Employer offers. They choose from them. Many Employers will simply make the cheapest choice and drop the Cignas, the Aetnas the UnitedHealths and only offer the cheaper public option. Where’s the consumer choice in that!?
Medicare’s P4P system is really “pay for reporting,” not performance. And it exists because Medicare is searching for a way to move to “value-based purchasing” and away from fee-for-service. It’s not a valid point to throw into the deather mix.
TTUEagle – you assume the public option will be less expensive. As I’ve pointed out previously, that is a doubtful assumption. As one of Ayn Rand’s protagonists said ” Always check your assumptions”.
KK – I disagree; P4P has to start with reporting and evolve from there. The current P4P scheme has been acknowledged as the first iteration.
Cherilyn – if you listen to and believe Limbaugh you likely believe in supply side economics. And no, that isn’t all that blowhard said. and if conservatism is about less government control, what happened to civil rights under Bush?
William – Your assertions are not credible; in fact they’re delusional. Question – where are you going to get coverage if you lose your job and have a pre-ex condition and your next employer doesn’t offer coverage because it is too expensive?
Paduda (per your reply to TTUEagle): What would be the purpose of providing a public option if it cost more than private health coverage (i mean, other than sheer stupidity???)