LIES ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM REPUBLICANS HAVE TOLD ME

As the healthcare debate continues to heat up the one thing that has become apparent is that the opponents of sweeping reform ,specifically opponents of the public option, and those showing up at the town hall meetings to oppose it, feel that in order to defeat the kind of reform being proposed, their best and only weapon is to simply lie.

This isnt new. Republicans and conservatives have consistently resorted to telling "the big lie" as a tactic to achieve a political aim. The idea if you tell a lie that's big enough and often enough, many gullible people, especially those submissive to authority as most conservatives are, will believe it for a variety of reasons. But it always reeks of hypocrisy.

As one opponent of healthcare reform, a self proclaimed conservative told Arlen Specter at a town hall meeting, healthcare reform is "systematically dismantling what this country is about", and that healthcare reform would turn the country into a "socialized" country. Presumable she would have no problem with her socialized fire department showing up to put out a fire to keep her house from burning down.

We saw the lies in 2002 when Bush and Cheney tried to promote the lie that Saddaam had a connection to Al-Qaeda, a lie they needed to justify the invasion of Iraq. Many conservatives swallowed it whole even though there was not a shred of proof and in fact proof that proved it was a lie. But to true believers proof never matters.

We hear a lot of talk about the deficit, but conservatives and Republicans had no problem blowing a balanced budget and creating record deficits when Bush instigated and unnecessary war and became the first President to take the country to war and cut taxes at the same time.

The lies they tell at the town halls are either in the name of their ideology or they are simply dupes of the organizers, people willing to believe anything they are told, like the man who held the sign that said " Health care reform genocide for seniors". A dupe or a dope?.

Here are some of the lies the opposition has been spreading. They have all been repudiated:

Health care will be rationed especially for the elderly( the rationing as everyone knows is being done now by the insurance companies who deny care, drop coverage or wont insure for pre-existing conditions. There is no rationing of any kind in the bill and AARP is planning an extensive ad campaign to deal with the lie).

A government run option has death panel provisions that would be tantamount to, in Senator Charles Grassley words, "pulling the plug on grandma".(The AARP has also said this is a lie and the Associated Press. proved it)

Its a government take over of health care. ( a public option is just that -- an option for people who want it. Its no more of a government take over than Medicare and right now between medicare, medicaid and veterans hospitals 47% of the country are already on a government paid for system.)

The government will have access to your bank account. (it states clearly in the bill that the provision opponents are citing involves electronic money transfers applying only to insurance companies and not individuals)

It's socialism ( presumably none of these conservatives would have a problem with the socialized fire department showing up to keep their house from burning down).

The majority of Americans are against it (a CNN poll showed 66% were in favor of a government paid option and 60% in favor of higher taxes to pay for it. A CBS News poll showed 72% support a government paid for health plan and 57% would pay higher taxes to get it only two months ago This was before the opposition started lying and Obama was weak in refuting the lies.)

Medicare is a failed government system ( a recent poll showed 92% of people on Medicare felt their healthcare was good to excellent. Only 8% were dissatisfied)

The public option would be so bad, such a boondoggle, so terrible, that everyone will want it and it put the insurance companies out of business. ( Even Yogi Berra can''t figure that one out).

The biggest problem has been, not the Republicans and conservatives lying which is nothing new, but Obama's complete mismanaging the debate and his total ineffectiveness in combating the lies of the opposition.

With Ted Kennedy's death, it's possible that Obama may find both some inspiration and a backbone to take on the Republican lies, lies which so far he has been completely ineffective in addressing.

What Obama could be doing is letting people know the next time they hear a Republican or conservative talk about all the bad things about health care reform, consider the source. Its a source that has been proved wrong about every single thing important to the country for more than 20 years. And that's no lie.