Healthcare reform: a useful summary of recent distortions and lies
Angie Drobnic Holan at Politifact.com:
The debate over health care reform has been defined by exaggerations and falsehoods. Republicans have falsely labeled the Democratic plan "government-run health care" and warned of death panels for the elderly and taxpayer subsidies for illegal immigrants. Democrats, meanwhile, have exaggerated the savings of their plan and made false claims about their favorite villains, the insurance companies.
Both sides have kept the Truth-O-Meter busy. PolitiFact has rated more than 80 health care claims since January, covering everything from the salary of insurance company executives to allegations about tax subsidies for abortion. As congressional leaders prepare to bring their health care bills to the House and Senate floors, we’ve assembled this guide to help you sort out the truth on the health care bills. We should emphasize that the bills are in flux and details can change, but these rulings can serve as a general guide for the proposals under discussion.
Distortions from the opponents
Critics have portrayed the Democratic plan as a government takeover of health care, as a system that would prey on the elderly, use tax dollars to pay for abortion, and expand health care coverage for illegal immigrants. But in many cases, they have misstated the facts, or taken a grain of truth and exaggerated it.
• Not a government takeover of health care. The Democratic plans would leave the current system of private insurance in place while increasing regulation for insurance companies, requiring everyone to buy health insurance, and providing more subsidies for low-income people. One aspect still up in the air is the public option, a health insurance plan that would be run by the government. People could choose whether to enroll in the public option. (An estimated 12 million would, according to the Congressional Budget Office.) But Republicans have consistently portrayed the entire plan as government-run. When Sen. Tom Coburn said that under Obama’s plan, "all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government," we rated it False.
• No death panels for Granny. The famous death panel rumor sprouted from a small clause in the health care bill involving Medicare. The new rule said Medicare would pay for a doctor’s visit for the purpose of end-of-life planning, such as discussions of living wills or hospice care. Opponents equated that with lessons in how to kill yourself, but every expert on health care for the elderly that we consulted said the idea was ridiculous. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said that seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care." We rated that Pants on Fire…
