Top Five Health Care Reform Lies
From MoveOn.org:
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.”4 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.5
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.6 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.7
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.9 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.10 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.11
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.12 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.14 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.15
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.
Sources and substantiation for the above:
Sources:
1. “More ‘Town Halls Gone Wild’: Angry Far Right Protesters Disrupt Events With ‘Incomprehensible’ Yelling,” Think Progress, August 4, 2009.
2. “Fight the smears,” Health Care for America NOW,” accessed August 10, 2009.
3. “Palin Paints Picture of ‘Obama Death Panel’ Giving Thumbs Down to Trig,” ABC News, August 7, 2009.
4. “No ‘death panel’ in health care bill,” The Associated Press, August 10, 2009.
5. “Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care,” The Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.
6. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.
7. “Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan,” The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.
8. “Obama: ‘If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,’” The Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.
9. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
10. “Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform,” CNN, July 28, 2009.
11. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
12. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
13. “Premiums Run Amok,” Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.
14. “Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies,” CNN, June 5, 2009.
15. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009
Sources for the Five Lies:
#1: “A euthanasia mandate,” The Washington Times, July 29, 2009.
#2: “It’s Not An Option,” Investor’s Business Daily, July 15, 2009.
#3: “Rationing Health Care,” The Washington Times, April 21, 2009.
#4: “60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation,” Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009.
#5: “Obama’s ‘Public’ Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation,” The National Review, May 13, 2009.
1. Obama yesterday said he wants a group of experts to help you decide what care is best for you. Certainly you can understand the worries that some bureaucrats will be looking, helping, or forcing you with certain care.
2. No they wont outlaw, but they will regulate it to death. For proof check out the monorail systems and postal service. No doubt it will greatly change the way the game is played.
3. true care is rationed already. It is rationed in tough cases like pre existing conditions, people who cant pay for it, and life time caps. But the problem is obama care will ration even more…. by simple math you cannot add 40 million people into the system and expect the same care. how can you argue that?
4. Well obama may not be… but someone will as we all no medicare is just a few years from going bankrupt and something (rationing,cutting) will have to be done to maintain it.
5. This is your worst point by far. Obviously the CBO says it will cost us over a trillion for the next 10 years. There is no disputing that… obamas numbers and the ones you cite are by his own admission hopeful. The CBO is a nonpartisan group put together specifically to projects the budget for the president and congress. You cannot argue with that….. and by the way he says he hopefully can cut waste to pay for 2/3s of it… the other 1/3 is still undetermined even by him.
Timmy K
12 August 2009 at 1:31 pm
1. I would be relieved to have medical experts review my medical care. Right now, the reviewers are underpaid and overworked clerks in health insurance offices. My experience with them has been not very good.
2. Private health insurance clearly needs regulation. Have you read about the recission practices? Do you think they should not be regulated?
3. Very simply: I look at how other nations handle their healthcare and see that rationing if needed can be done on a much fairer and more reasonable basis than by selling the wealthy all the care you can and denying care to the poor.
4. We can readily afford Medicare—especially when the government can once again negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. All we have to do is cut military spending to, say, equal the total military spending of all other nations combined, instead of twice that. Take a look. Moreover, if we move to rational single-payer universal healthcare model, which all other advanced nations use, we can expect our per-capita cost for healthcare to drop to about half what it is now: that’s their experience, and their life expectancy rates are better than that of US. (And they have lower infant mortality and a higher percentage of children reaching the age of 5.)
5. Have you ever considered raising the marginal tax rates back to a reasonable level: say 45% at the highest brackets? That’s less than it has been in more prosperous times. That and the military cuts will more than pay for it, and universal healthcare is very much in the nation’s interest.
Thanks for commenting.
LeisureGuy
12 August 2009 at 2:01 pm
1. “My experience with them has been not very good.” not sure what your getting at… right now you and your doctor make decisions. Right? The government run health care reform will want to make that process more efficient by using panels.
2.recission practices?, No…. Do you think they should not be regulated? I do think they should be regulated… that is the governments job, and i think regulating the deficiencies with preexisting conditions, lifetime caps, and dropped coverage would do wonders. Regulation may also be the key to lowering prescription drug prices. What i don’t want is them regulating and competing.
3″fairer and more reasonable basis than by selling the wealthy all the care you can and denying care to the poor”
We should be able to agree to disagree here… i can see that people think everyone should be entitled to health care but i think it is unamerican. I think america is the land of the free and home of the brave… where everyone has a equal shot at success. I don’t believe you are entitled to anything and i believe there will be losers. What i fear in general is to many entitlements to people and driving out competition. (bailouts, etc)
That is fine differing opinions on what the “losers” should receive or be entitled to.
4. Hmm funny how you change the subject to military spending. If you want to go that route and cut wasteful government spending i agree with you. But because we waste money on other things (military, amtrak, nasa, usps,) doesnt mean we should spend the money on health care.
please look at my webpage to explain life expectancy and infant mortality rates…. like the stretch of death panels on the right you have fallen victim on the left of those bad arguments.
5. Fair enough.. but you didnt say that in your post raising taxes and cutting military is a whole new discussion..very much in the nation’s interest, not by latest polls but certainly in the interest of the poor and believers of big government.
Timmy K
12 August 2009 at 7:05 pm
1. No, the point is that the insurers make the decisions—not on whether I need the treatment, but on whether they will cover the treatment. Sorry it wasn’t clear. I would be delighted to have doctors deciding. Insurers can refuse to pay for a treatment ordered by a doctor, and they will so decide if the treatment is expensive and they can find a way to wiggle out of paying. That’s part of what the recissions are about.
2. Well, certainly the insurers should be regulated. That’s what I said in my comment, in response to your comment that they would be regulated to death. The only deaths to date in the current situation have been the insured patients for whose treatment the insurers refuse to pay. I’m glad to see that we agree on the need for greater regulation and closer watching of the health insurance industry. They are, of course, fighting that tooth and nail. They also don’t want competition. In most regions only one health insurer dominates, so they effectively have no competition. That’s why the government option is so important.
3. If you truly believe that every baby born in the US grows up with equal opportunities, you will believe anything. In fact, if you look around, opportunities are NOT equal, nor are resources. In a modern nation, no citizen should starve to death nor should any citizen be deprived of medical care, a good education, and protection of their civil rights. I see that you don’t think the poor deserve anything. That’s a common attitude among the GOP, which acts very much as though it hates the poor.
4. I wasn’t changing the subject to military spending, I was pointing out that the money to support universal healthcare is readily available by simply changing a few priorities—like, for example, spending on the military an amount equal to just the combined spending of all other nations, not twice that. I was responding to your point 4 on how Medicare is insufficiently funded. Keep track. Life expectancy and infant mortality is a common measure of how well a nation cares for its citizens.
5. My point 5 was in response to your point 5, in which you said (in effect) that we cannot afford universal healthcare when obviously we can.
LeisureGuy
13 August 2009 at 9:03 am
On recission, from this post:
LeisureGuy
13 August 2009 at 9:07 am
I suggest that you read this post as well.
LeisureGuy
13 August 2009 at 9:16 am
1 & 2 agreed there are some problems with dropped coverage and what not and something should be changed so those specific instances don’t happen.
3. “If you truly believe that every baby born in the US grows up with equal opportunities, you will believe anything” Don’t know where this idea came from… of course there are inequalities. NOBODY deserves anything! I don’t oppose to the many entitlements the “poor” already are using. But your going to a whole new level of relying on the government if they are providing food and medical care to all.
4. “Life expectancy and infant mortality is a common measure of how well a nation cares for its citizens.”
you are badly misinformed… in fact these two measures have very little to do with health care. please look at my post on world health rankings.
4. Well im commenting on the post… military spending is whole new discussion that involves all of the governments wasteful spending. If you want to go over the whole budget and decide what should be paid for, i am with you. until then it is not valid for you to say we can afford something because there is other wasteful spending. Agreed?
5. obviously we can… well yes if we take a look at the whole budget and strip out everything in efficient. But that is not what is proposed! Again take a look at the only reliable data from the CBO… We add a trillion over ten years. Can we afford that? well i guess that depends on your definition of afford.
Timmy K
13 August 2009 at 9:27 am
again i said there needs to be regulation… there are plenty of things wrong with the way the insurance companies are providing their coverage. That is the governments job to protect us and make sure they are operating reasonably. What the government shouldn’t do is try to take it over…. take at look at other examples of government trying to run like a business. social security, medicare, usps, amtrak, etc
Timmy K
13 August 2009 at 9:34 am
1&2: We’re in agreement. Good.
3. I can tell you where the idea came from. I got it from this statement in your comment: “[The US] where everyone has a equal shot at success.” I do not believe that everyone has an equal shot at success. There is too much variation in family wealth, quality of education, connections to the powerful, and so on. That fact should be absolutely evident. And for a modern nation to allow its citizens to starve or go without medical care or a good education makes on wonder why on earth we band together in communities. I thought it was for mutual support and benefit.
4 & 5. I see that we are in agreement that the nation can in fact afford the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
I have a fair amount of experience with Social Security and with the USPS, and both in my mind do a fine job. Social Security in particular is highly efficient, with administrative costs far below what you would find in the private sector.
LeisureGuy
13 August 2009 at 10:12 am
How can a nation be called “great” if it allows it citizens to starve, if it fails to see that all have access to medical care and education?
LeisureGuy
13 August 2009 at 10:29 am
Social Security and with the USPS, highly efficient…
Sure highly efficient at burning through tax dollars. Social security has worked out ok…. but it will not last much longer. USPS runs a deficit despite many advantages of federal regulation. That is not disputable.
Timmy K
13 August 2009 at 12:22 pm
Talk about deficits: look at the money spent on highways, with no return (except good highways). I don’t think you realize that the government is not a profit-making organization and instead provides essential services using tax revenue. The post office is a good example of a government service and it is not supposed to turn a profit.
Social Security will last for decades with minor adjustments. This has been thoroughly discussed by any number of economists, including Dean Baker and Paul Krugman.
I take it by “burning through” tax dollars, you mean spending tax dollars, as on roads, the military, the court system, Congress, and so on. Taxes are collected exactly so that they can be spent. The government is not supposed to store them up and get wealthy.
LeisureGuy
13 August 2009 at 1:20 pm
lol okay your right… the government isnt like a profit making organization. But they do have programs set up to run as such. They just do it very poorly. Amtrak, medicare, nasa, public schools, ans usps. None of those organizations are providing essential services, in fact they have replaced their previously competent private counterparts.
Paul krugman is no economists and they will have to be major adjustments.
Timmy K
13 August 2009 at 1:54 pm
Paul Krugman is not an economist? He won the Nobel Prize for economics. Are you thinking perhaps of a different Paul Krugman?
Medicare is doing a fine job and there was no private counterpart. NASA has fallen a bit in competency, but I don’t recall a private counterpart that NASA replaced. What was it? And I don’t recall a private counterpart to the US Postal Service, which dates back to Benjamin Franklin. Could you please let us know that private company?
Thanks.
LeisureGuy
13 August 2009 at 5:13 pm
The USPS is actually one of the few agencies that is explicitly authorized by the US Constitution. Just making note…
Also before Medicare the poverty rates for the elderly were around 36% and now, 11%. I know they’ve “projected” for it to go bankrupt in 2017, but they also projected the same thing would happen in 2001…
Margaret
24 December 2009 at 4:11 pm