The War on Facts
In the debate on health-care reform, misinformation is the GOP's primary weapon.
by Joe ConasonArticle Tools
Within hours after the House of Representatives approved health-care reform by a narrow margin, Republicans predicted retribution at the polls next fall. They promised to make every Democrat regret that historic vote as the first step toward the reversal of power in Washington. And as the current debate has proved, they aren't going to let honesty become an obstacle.
For a preview of coming attractions, simply turn on Fox News or any right-wing radio talker, where the falsehoods of the 2010 midterm campaign are being field-tested today.
You can watch Dick Morris blather about the "death panels" that will terminate your mother and father while illegal immigrants are provided lavish care and about how you will be put in jail for failing to purchase health insurance. You can hear Karl Rove complain that we will "beggar ourselves" by adding more than $1.4 trillion to the federal debt. You can listen to Frank Luntz claim that voters disdain reform because of "the cost to the deficit."
These gentlemen have little expertise in health or economics but much experience in distracting, misinforming, and frightening the public. Aside from talking on television, that is their job. How little do they know — and how much do they simply fabricate?
It is safe to assume that Morris knows very well there are no death panels in any of the health-reform bills; that those bills expressly forbid coverage of illegal immigrants; and that none of them includes any provision to incarcerate citizens who lack insurance coverage. It is also reasonable to assume, based solely on the fiscal record of the Bush administration in which he served, that Rove never worries about budget deficits, government waste, or gross corruption unless Democrats are in charge.
As for Luntz, he specializes in political prophecies that are self-fulfilling. When he says voters are infuriated by the cost of health-care reform, for instance, that merely indicates he is trying to make them feel that way. He will succeed — all three will succeed — only by drawing attention away from actual facts and figures.
So perhaps voters ought to listen instead to the Congressional Budget Office, which by contrast has earned a reputation for candor, accuracy, and nonpartisan truthfulness. After painstaking analysis, the CBO estimated that the House health-care reform bill, known as the Affordable Health Care for America Act, would reduce the federal deficit by about $109 billion during its first 10 years. To repeat: The bill passed by the House Democrats on the evening of Saturday, November 7th, "would yield a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2010-2019 period." The CBO experts also costed out the Senate Finance Committee bill and found that it would cut the federal deficit by more than $80 billion during that first decade.
Those reassuring conclusions derive from other basic facts about reform that tend to be ignored or concealed. Reform will reduce wasteful spending by hundreds of billions of dollars annually and will depend for financing on excise taxes imposed on the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.
Much of the misinformation about the costs of reform comes from the belief — fostered by conservatives — that the government-run health plan known as the "public option" would impose a huge burden on the federal budget. So says Joseph Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut who has threatened to filibuster the bill.
Section 322 of the Affordable Health Care for America Act says clearly and concisely that people insured under the public option will pay premium rates "at a level sufficient to fully finance the costs of health benefits provided by the public health insurance option; and administrative costs related to operating the public health insurance option." In short, the public option will involve no new federal expenditure.
Any bill that reaches the president's desk will leave much to be desired, especially with respect to cost containment, preventive care, and new systems of compensation to encourage improved results. But it should be judged according to real merits and defects — not the delusions and distortions that now dominate the debate.
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Let's see: we add more people on the health care roles and not the same amount of doctors...this equals....'rationed care'! Can't this writer do the math?
The following is a media statement by the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Gregg (R-NH):
Senator Gregg: Updated CBO Estimate of House Bill Pulls Back the Curtain on Majority’s Intent to Grow Government by $3 Trillion
“The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.
“Additionally, this bill cuts critical Medicare and Medicaid funding by $628 billion, accounts for nearly $1.2 trillion in tax and fee increases and will explode the scope of government by putting the nation’s health care system in the hands of Washington bureaucrats. The $3 trillion price tag defies common sense – we simply cannot add all this new spending to the government rolls and claim to control the deficit.
“If we continue to pile more and more debt on the next generation, they will never be able to get out from under it. The health care system needs reform, but this massive expansion of government, financed by our children and grandchildren, is the wrong way to proceed.”
and this writer is an economist....yeah right! I'd settle for a non-biased reporter.
Cigna, United Healthcare, Aetna will all profit from this bill. And they are the problem to begin with. It really sucks. It is lame. The democrats aren't sharing one backbone between them all.
Throw the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and all of their lackeys off of capital hill and pass some true reform. The only "change" with this administration is in who is getting rich. We've traded Halliburton for Big Insurance.
Let me see if I can explain this for you Charles...
We have equal access to health care in this country right now. You, or anyone else, can walk in to any hospital ER and request to see a doctor. And guess what? You will be able to, no matter what your insurance status is. That's the law. Period.
Now what happens when Joe Blow doesn't have insurance and can not afford the astronomical cost of going to the ER? He may attempt to pay part of his bill, he may not. That portion of his bill which is not paid by him, is passed on to those that can pay, ie people with insurance. This is done by hospitals and doctors raising their fees in order to collect more from insurance companies. Of course when the insurance companies margin begins to slip a little, guess what happens next? That's right, your and my insurance premiums and co pays go up.
So when people like you scream that you don't want to pay for other peoples health care, realize that you already are. If everyone that went to the doctor or hospital paid for the services they received, then cost of said care would stop rising so fast. Another point to consider is that if people took more preventative steps towards their health, then in turn there would be fewer emergent visits to ERs which cost substantially more. So giving people the means to access preventative and routine medical care will help to lower the overall cost as well.
Take your insurance premiums, add in your co-pays and potential out of pocket expenses and subtract that from your income. It comes out to quite a large percentage. Much larger than would be the cost of a single payer system if everyone contributed.
Merc - that number, in my case, and depending on the accidents of fate, is anywhere between 1/5 and 1/4 of gross income. I pay more in health care than I do in taxes. And I, and my family, are healthy.
Take, on the other hand, a woman I know of (friend of a coworker). She requires a monthly shot that costs a couple grand. That's per shot. Without that montly shot, she siezes up and dies. A couple of years ago, her husband's insurance company said, sorry, you're costing us too much, we're dropping your coverage. If it hadn't been for a free clinic stepping up and offering her these shots, which she needs to stay alive, she would be dead today and her three children would not have a mother.
No one at the insurance company is going to be charged with murder, should she die as a result of not having health insurance. Though they certainly should.
Just to bring a bit of balance to the equation - $1.7 trillion is the amount of money the Pentagon loses between the cushions of the couch every year. If we scaled back our military a reasonable amount, say, by 50%, and with the other 50% required strict accounting of every dollar spent, we'd have enough spare change to provide free healthcare and education to every single American. The current cost of the war in Afganistan, according to some estimates, is $1 million dollars per soldier per year. That's a million bucks PER SOLDIER. Per year. For what? I defy even Charles to tell us why.
Despite the rotten economy, despite everything, we are an extremely wealthy nation. We can afford health care. We can afford to educate our children and our out-of-work adults. We can afford to build the infrastruture we need and repair that already built. We can afford to invest in the technologies of the future that will release us from dependance on foreign sources of energy (and thus our need for a huge military to secure them). We can afford to explore space, support science, encourage art. We can afford all these things by stepping away from our outrageous support of all things military. We starve our children to buy tanks. We let our own babies and their mothers die so we can bomb babies and mothers in foreign lands to secure natural resources so our billionaire merchants can make yet another billion.
In times of economic hardship, what is a reasonable budgetary plan? To sell off the fleet of Escalades to pay for food and medicine for our family, or to sell our food and medicine to buy more Escalades to sit in the garage? People who otherwise advise us all to roll up our sleeves, work hard, and live within our means, tell us we must also cash in our IRAs to buy fireworks for the Fourth of July.
Want to find the money to pay for healthcare? End the useless wars in Afganistan and Iraq.
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