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.
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.
From Progressive Review:
ReplyDeleteAugust 27, 2009
HEALTH CARE BILLS ORDER RELEASE OF INCOME TAX INFO
CBS News - One of the problems with any proposed law that's over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats' proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as "Obamacare." Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits." Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a "low-income prescription drug subsidy" but has not applied for it.
posted by TPR | 4:16 PM
Barb just beat me to it, I was going to cite the same thing.
ReplyDeleteWe 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.
What about the lies that Obama and the Dems are telling? Listen, I'm not a Republican, never was. I was a life-long Democrat who is now Independent. But I know a dirty bill when I see it and when they are trying to pass off 1,000 pages in a bill that could easily have been written in a hundred, you know the thing is riddled with shit like Barb cited. These aren't lies...read section 431(a).
1,000 pages can bury a lot of crap like this. This bill needs to be scrapped and done right.
"Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation."
ReplyDeleteMedicaid already does this and if they pass a bill where free medical insurance is going to be offered based on income, its the only way to verify income. And no one has to take it. Secondly, this is only one of 3 bills and no one knows what the final will be.
Personally I'd like to see a universal single payer system, like Medicare for all. But as for release of income information if it bothers someone that much then just keep what you have, dont choose a public option if thats what the final bill has in it, and nothing changes for you. What is the big deal?
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
ReplyDeleteIf it failed in Massachusetts, why would a very similar plan succeed if we simply make it bigger? Seems logical to me, it will simply be an even larger failure.
If Medicare is failing, if Social Security is failing, why should we trust the government with something as important as our lives? Fix those two first, and we might consider trusting the government with our life.
OH...WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL????
"If it failed in Massachusetts, why would a very similar plan succeed if we simply make it bigger? "
ReplyDeleteMassachusetts? Are you kidding? Ever hear of Medicare?
And what does that have to do with Republicans lying about everything? The answer is nothing.
I can not believe you are so fond of such a corporate friendly bill. Public option? Yeah right. The CBO expects at best 10 million enrolled by 2019 under HR 3200, under HELP that number dwindles to...ZERO. This is nothing but a huge fantastic gift to the insurers. The American people deserve better than this. The American people deserve public insurance. HR 676 is the ONLY bill that reduces health care costs for 95% of Americans, rather than this big ole corporate bill that promises to maybe slow the growth of health inflation. My Lawd, this is the best the Democrats can do with super majorities and a Dem in the WH. The right wing is a convenient scape goat for Obama and his cohorts to continue making bad faith concessions to industry, like the laughable promise not to negotiate drug prices for Medicare. That's not even good intentions. The Democrats in office clearly do not support social insurance. Pity. FDR, Truman, LBJ spin in their graves.
ReplyDeleteThere is NO health care bill.
ReplyDeleteThere are proposals, and that is all.
Just now we are hearing Obama will dump the "public option," so anyone who spoke "knowingly" about the bill's provision for a "public option" was blowing bubbles.
That is one of the problems right now: NO ONE KNOWS what will be in the final bill.
So far, the one thing Obama and Max Baucus are holding firm on is that everyone will be REQUIRED to buy health insurance from a PRIVATE, profit-making health insurance corporation.
Everything else in the proposed House bill is up for grabs to the highest corporate bidder.
I am a Democrat, just in case you think only Republicans have a problem with the current proposed health care legislation (in its many incarnations).
But, as I said, there is NO health care bill -- there are only proposals at this time and many of those proposals may vanish in thin air before this gets through the lobbyist mill in Congress and at the White House.
Obama has already made a deal with the pharmaceutical corporations NOT to bargain for lower drug prices.
And, he (Obama) has secretly also made a deal with the hospitals NOT to interfere with their plan to make humongous profits over the next ten years . . .
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Hospitals will be allowed to hike their prices and revenues by six trillion dollars ($5,853 billion) over the next ten years, only $155 billion less than they had projected before the Obama "reform." In all, the Obama back-room deal will "reduce" our $26 trillion total hospital bill over the next decade by one-half of one percent.
http://www.gregpalast.com/obama-on-drugs-98-cheney/
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