Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!
The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill." What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.
Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!
The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama's reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options. Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.
If you're happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.8 But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can't afford health care now.
Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!
The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.
Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage. And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation.
Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!
The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits. Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.
Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!
The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy.
Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care. The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade13—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.We're closer to real health care reform than we've ever been—and the next few weeks will decide whether it happens. We need to make sure the truth about health care reform is spread far and wide to combat right wing lies.
(All above in quoted from email I received today from an organization called MoveOn.org who is trying to fight some of the negativity being thrown out there towards health care reform. Cindy)
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28 comments:
Cindy,
I'm with you and I love you but I cannot realistically see how this does not add to the deficit.
Practically every government funded program now on the books, the entire US treasury, is flat broke to the tune of many trillions of dollars. Our president has a proven track record of bending the truth. I'm having a hard time believing anything he says about government run health care. I'm sorry, but I can feel it in my gut. He may have the best intentions, but I see dark consequences on the horizon. I could be wrong, but that is my opinion.
Yes, Doug hardly seems possible. More of what is being said can be found here And I love you too!
I have to agree with Dave. While the President may be well intentioned, I will NEVER accept more government intervention in our lives...NEVER. Nor do I believe that this will NOT add to our deficit.
But more important than what I think is what I know...I have not read the bill and even if I did, I'm not sure I would understand it (1,000 pages). :( Nor do I believe everything that is written about it (on either side).
The reality is the government couldn't run the post office, how in the hell do I expect them to run our healthcare system.
But I love you and appreciate your passion.
When people make the argument that they don't want government to run healthcare, I say why not?, We let insurance companies do it now and their only goal is to make money..they dictate what doctors and hospitals you can go to, what treatments they will pay for, what medication you can get...I see people denied care EVERY day because they have pre-existing conditions or they need a procedure that their insurance does not pay for. I don't think we can do any worse than what we have now. It's my passion because it's been my LIFE for the past 30 years...we can't keep doing things the way we have been doing them..there HAS to be reform.
Saying that healthcare won't "add to the deficit" is like saying "we won't go broke any faster". If you make $2000 a month, but you spend $2500 a month - you have a deficit and each month you will be another $500 in the hole. How long can you keep doing that?
The talk should not be about the maintaining the same (unsustainable) deficit, but rather about driving us to prosperity again.
There are many insurance companies. With the right sort of reform we, as private citizens, could pick and choose which insurance companies to buy from. We would own our policies and take them wherever we decide to work or live. THAT is competition and THAT is what drives costs down. It happens all the time, everywhere competition is allowed to thrive.
There is only one federal government and simply no choice.
People have a basic nature. Most are good but there are a few bad apples. This is true in private business as well as government. Why do you think that government run healthcare would have only "angels" running it?
Be careful of the powers you cede to the government you like. Sooner or later, it will be replaced by a government you don't like (after all we still have term limits) and OOPS now you are in the position of fighting against "the other side" having all that power. Much simpler to limit their power in the first place (as set forth in our constitution).
I kind of like the idea of picking and choosing your own insurance company. The problem is most of us get our insurance through our employer who gets a steep discount because they buy in bulk. As an individual I would lose that buying power. Also, the insurance provided by my employer is part of my compensation package. If I am force to go it alone then shouldn't my employer compensate me in cold hard cash?
Lastly, if we are to discuss health care reform it is important we pull hair and throw wild punches at each other. Otherwise it's just not a good health care debate.
RAC - yes - we normally think of our salary as what companies pay us for our labor. That is only part of the cost - it also includes benefits (health, dental, vision, etc.), contributions to our pension, contributions to our 401K, contributions to our unemployment insurance.
All of these things add up to the cost of labor and all of them represent choices we (as workers) no longer have. We don't get to choose which insurance companies to use (although I have a choice between two where I work), we don't decide whicn investment houses to use, etc. etc. etc. All of these choices are removed from us because "government" has decided we aren't smart enough or disciplined enough to be trusted with the freedom to make these choices and the responsibility to take care of ourselves and put something away for our futures.
Don't throw away your freedom! Embrace personal responsibility!
(next on tap? "SmartGrid" technology that will take away your freedom to manage your own power consumption. This means that your appliances will be turned off based on some remote decision).
So...they're going to cut the power to my grow chamber?!
Bastards.
I agree with Cindy And RAC on this one:)Juliet also with her thoughts regarding the health care.I think we look too much at the U.S. and don't realize that it works in many,many places outside of the borders.
so does despotism, fascism, stoning. Lots of things happen outside of the United States - it doesn't mean we should adopt them here.
I embrace American Exceptionalism. We are the exception to the rule. We didn't create this great country out of nothing by waiting for the rest of the world to decide how we should live. We must continue to lead.
And, by the way, I don't know how you would say socialized, single payer healthcare "works" in other countries.
Sean what do you really know about Health Care in say Germany? I have been exposed to it for a good 20 years now. But I would really like to know what you base your opinions on. Many Germans also add private insurance, they still go to the same hospitals but could opt for a private room, instead of having to pay a minimal difference in price.
"American Exceptionalism", well there's a new one.
When it comes to health care we're exceptional all right.
Throwing in references to stoning, despotism etc. is little more than jingoism and attempts to absolve the user of even considering that there may be a better option.
Embracing the American way as the best simply because it is just that, the American way condemns our society to an inability to adapt.
We have one of the shortest life expectancies in the industrialized world. We also have a comparatively high rate of infant mortality. Our current system of health care is rated 37th in the world, Morocco is 36th.
I will admit it could be worse. I choose to embrace the concept that it also possibly could be better.
If Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy".[1] In practice, it refers to the advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safe guard what they perceive as their country's national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism.
The Obamanism would seem to indicate that we are no better than anyone else, that all cultures are equal, that there is no reason for America to lead. Essentially, let's cut down the top performers to make us all equal with the average (or even below averatge).
So scrape all the pros and cons aside. Better than, worse than, foreign, domestic.. whatever! The fact remains.. you have to be able to pay for it. Our country is going bankrupt. We do not have the money to pay for universal health care. End of story. That's where Doug's sinister plot comes in. The feds don't seem to give a crap how far they drive the US into the hole financially. Sooner or later it's all going to come crashing down on us.
How curious. On the one hand you proclaim American exceptionalism" and yet you choose to use a dictionary of British origin for your definition.
From the Websters New College Dictionary:
Jingoism: (noun) Extreme nationalism or chauvinism marked esp. by a belligerent foreign policy. Root word Jingo as in one who vociferously supports his or her own country.
Good one Doug!
So now it's MY sinister plot? No my friend.
Doug's sinister plot would entail waaayyy more sinisterness.
Give me a little credit.
Juliet - how do you grant coverage to anyone with pre-existing conditions, not make any determination about what treatments should or should not be covered and add 47 million* new clients to the system without increasing the cost?
I heard promises yesterday to cover all of these; promises made with complete disregard to reality.
Find out what that 47 million really means.
Find out what our healthcare spending really means.
Find out what Obama and the rest of his team have been saying all along about healthcare plans.
Hi Becki (and everyone),
Actually the Government doesn't run the Post Office. In any event here's an interesting link on that subject.
http://postalreporternews.com/2009/08/13/house-republican-conference-smears-americas-most-trusted-agency/
As for American Exceptionalism, This great country was not created by sitting back and hoping that the Government or Capitalists would always do the right thing for the country and our society. The same unions and malcontents that so many here despise brought us our standard of living, wages, vacation time, current health care, labor laws
(including child labor laws) and much more that we enjoy and brag about.
I wish I knew who said it first but..."true progress has never been made by contented people".
Juliet - how do you grant coverage to anyone with pre-existing conditions, not make any determination about what treatments should or should not be covered and add 47 million* new clients to the system without increasing the cost?
You get out of the Iraq and Afghanistan and tax everyone for health care and with the extra income from those two things you improve the school system so we never end up in this shit again.
Sean how can you not want to offer coverage to people with pre-ex conditions. That means someone with a family history of say cancer could be excluded. Our country is all about equality.
Juliet - Do you wreck your car, tow it to State Farm and say "cover me. now fix it"? That is essentially the proposal that Obama is making.
Insurance is managing your risk by pooling it with others. But, you can't get a policy after the risk has already come true.
You may have noticed that (like global warming became "climate change") the terms have shifted from healthcare reform to health insurance reform... But, what Obama is proposing isn't really insurance at all, is it?
OK, so back to my original point. How does insurance work?
Many pay in to a risk pool.
Cost for a policy is set based
on the risk.
The more risk, the higher the
price.
For some, the risk may come true
and the policy must pay out.
By "mandating" that companies cover everyone for the same price without regard to the actual risks, they are turning insurance into something else.
Men and women are charged differently for auto insurance - especially teen agers.
Home owners in flod zones or hurricane zones are charged differently for homeowners insurance.
Why should healthcare be any different.
Instead, shouldn't it behoove each of us to maintain continuous coverage so that no condition can "pre-exist" a policy?
Our country is not about "equal results for everyone, without regard to their actual contribution, effort, talent, ability, etc.".
All people are created equanl. What we choose to do without lives results in what we get out of our lives.
Sean you said "THAT is competition and THAT is what drives costs down. It happens all the time, everywhere competition is allowed to thrive."
and that is part of the problem with health care in America. (The lack of real competition.) I doubt if anyone here would defend the CEOs of our health care companies even if one believes in unregulated capitalism. I admit I haven't looked for the opposing arguments to this link though.
http://sickforprofit.com/ceos/
Are you suggesting the the competition should come from the government?
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