10 More "You Lie" Moments On Health Care

The aftermath of Joe Wilson shouting out "You lie" at a shameless liar in the midst of a shameless lie about health care has turned out to be one of the most Orwellian moments in recent memory.

After Wilson's outburst, liberals, in and out of the mainstream media, rushed to tell us that it was Wilson, not Obama who was wrong. Why, there was simply no way that illegals would be covered!

But then, a funny thing happened: the Senate started working to close the loophole that Wilson pointed out. You know, the one that allowed illegal aliens to get coverage. Soon thereafter, the White House quietly followed the Senate's lead and started backing that provision.

Meanwhile, the liberal netroots, which had almost unanimously said Joe Wilson was the liar, started yelling at the top of their lungs that the bill shouldn't be changed to fix a problem they claimed didn't exist 24 hours earlier.

Unfortunately, this sort of deception has been the rule, not the exception in the Democrats' health care push. In fact, Barack Obama has sold health care by saying, in effect, "Anybody who has anything negative to say about health care reform is just spreading myths."

It's a shame that Barack Obama has chosen to go this way, because our health care system does desperately need to be reformed and conservatives would be very willing to work with the Democrats to do it. In fact, in a recent poll of 74 conservative bloggers, every single one of them said that they'd be "willing to support health care reform that primarily emphasized market based reforms." If Obama were to take that approach or even if he were to simply focus on helping the 8-10 million Americans who want health insurance but can't afford it, I suspect he'd have no trouble at all getting strong bipartisan support for a bill.

Instead, we're being fed a steady diet of deception by the very same politicians who are telling us to "trust them" while they take over 1/6th of the US economy. So, if there are any other Republicans in Congress who can take the heat, there are a lot of other lies about health care that still need to be addressed.

1) The President is working with Republicans: Obama has refused to meet with Republican leaders on health care since April.

2) Republicans haven't suggested a plan for health care: Republicans have actually submitted 35 plans.

3) The public option won't put the insurance industry out of business and lead to a government takeover of health care: Of course, it will. That's the whole purpose of putting it in the bill. Don't take my word for it, listen to Barney Frank explain it in his own words.

4) Medicare won't be cut to fund this health care bill: Actually, there are $500 billion in cuts to Medicare planned to help pay for this bill.

5) The health care plan won't add "one dime to our deficits either now or in the future." There is simply no bill that fits that description winding its way through Congress. According to the neutral Congressional Budget Office, the House bill adds $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years -- and even those numbers rely on very unlikely streams of revenue coming into the program. Moreover, the CBO only estimates numbers 10 years out. Over the long haul, all evidence points to costs skyrocketing into the stratosphere just as Social Security and Medicare have over time.

6) Preventative care will be required in these bills and it'll save money: Studies show that preventative care increases, not decreases costs. That's not only because of the cost of the tests, but because it leads to large numbers of people being treated for potential problems that would never end up coming to fruition.

7) Health care reform will help create more jobs: That's simply not true. According to the Natural Federation of Independent Businesses, this health care bill would wipe out 1.6 million jobs.

8) Abortion won't be covered under the bill: Unless the bill specifically says abortion isn't covered, it's covered by default. Abortion is not mentioned in the House bill and thus, is covered.

9) This bill won't lead to rationing of health care and people being denied life saving operations: Of course, it will. Barack Obama himself has even alluded to it with his famous, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller" quip. In nations like Canada and Britain, long waits for surgeries and people being denied proven life saving operations for financial reasons is commonplace. How can anyone believe that we're going to copy their system and not have the same result?

10) Obama's "Plan" doesn't have these problems you're talking about: Obama hasn't submitted any sort of plan to Congress. In other words, there is no special Obama plan. His only "plan" is to sign anything that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can push through Congress.

At the end of the day, there's only one question you need to ask yourself to decide whether you should support health care reform: Do you trust Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and the army of bureaucrats in DC enough to allow them to make life altering medical decisions for you and your children? If not, then it's time to stand up, speak out, and take action before this bill is passed and irrevocably changes our country.

Herein lies the problem with this debate :

“...if Obama were to take that approach or even if he were to simply focus on helping the 8-10 million Americans who want health insurance but can’t afford it, ...”

“health insurance” ... but can’t afford it VERSUS health care but can’t afford it.

INSURANCE is a substitute for cash covered by someone else deciding how much your risk is worth. i.e., can they cover the risks of providing you service and not lose money on that risk. INSURANCE makes a profit on covering risks. When it comes to health care, the RISKS of covering you may be quite high, so your PREMIUMS AND DEDUCTIBLES MUST be high to make the business proposition work. So one cannot reform health care by asking insurers to accept unacceptable risks. OR, you are telling them to go out of business.

*IF* you MUST (or choose to) consume a lot of health care, or expensive aspects of health care, you indeed may not be able to afford health care. Regardless of whether you are insured or not. Sometimes you just don’t have the money for ‘care’. If you own five cars and money is tight, you might have to forgo the oil change at the right interval, or let that falling headliner repair wait. Health care is the same way. If that car breaks down and you cannot afford health care or towing, then sadly, you cannot afford car care.

As a nation we ought to be having a debate about whether or not health CARE is publicly subsidized or not; ie should SOCIETY bear the burden of collective health care. THAT is a rational debate. It is just fundamentally absurd to discuss whether or not insurance companies (risk coverers) MUST or MUST NOT provide all health care at an affordable price.

harrumph. flame suit on. ;-)

Just so you know, it takes me a bit to get to answering your biggest point, so please bear with me as I go from the trivial to the important.

I have to disagree with how you have re-stated the question ... “whether health care and the drug industries are and/or should be the same”

There are four primary players in US health care —
(1) patients and their families/caregivers,
(2) health care providers, primary and secondary,
(3) therapeutics creators and sellers [ pharmas, device manuf., diagnostics, and similar] and
(4) regulators/influencers (FDA, legislatures, courts/lawyers and similar).

To believe that BIG PHARMA and BIG HEALTH CARE are in cahoots in the same industry is a naive and media-driven position (IMHO). I encourage you to read “Saving Lives; Saving Money” by Newt Gingrich. The first half of that book will tell why our health care SYSTEM is broken, and also why you can’t point THE finger of blame at BIG anything. But enough on that for a second.

BTW, the fact that you do not get all the health care you want due to costs/budgets reinforces my point about consumption. While not trivial like bon bons, a great deal of our US health care consumer spend IS discretionary spend. But that is not the major point here either.

Now, to the big point - to your real question, ‘cuz I think it gets to the heart of the matter: “... but what happens one night if suddenly I get acute appendicitis, a life threatening event, and am forced to choose between death or going to the emergency room.. this one event can bankrupt some people...what is your suggestion there?”

THIS question *IS* the core question — does our society have the moral and fiscal obligation to provide health CARE for individuals who cannot afford it? Whether it is ‘providing’ a pediatric office visit and a prescription of Amoxicillin for a three year old’s otitis media, or emergency appendectomies, or diagnosising and repairing an abdominal aortic aneurysm, or transporting and treating TIA or stroke victims correctly within the golden hour, or MRIs for brain tumors, or experimental cancer therapy to keep a 15 year old girl alive for another two years, or heart transplants, or EVERYTHING.

Where do you draw the line? If you draw a line, you ARE effectively assigning the ‘indigent’ to death! You are effectively rationing! I don’t have the answer alone. *WE* have to decide what we want to do as a society and a culture. THAT to me is THE health care debate. We should not try to ‘fix’ or reform health care unless and until we address that.

As an aside - if you really did have a septic appendix and needed an appendectomy, you CANNOT be denied emergency, life-saving care, regardless of your ability to pay at the time. You will get the bills, and you’d have to work out an eventual agreement (likely negotiated) on what you’ll pay, but US emergency departments are covered up in indigent care — for real emergencies, sure, but mostly for doc-in-a-box issues for those unable to pay or those willing to take advantage of our societal largess.

[Urban hospitals ‘fail’ financially because their patient portfolio is skewed by legislation to be unsustainable — think of any urban public hospital— they are ground zero for this question. Rural hospitals/ secondary care and access to care there is a different issue, but we won’t go there today. ]

So to a point, our society has already codified its desire to varying degrees, to provide care whether you can pay or not. We have drawn certain lines. We cannot afford to have no lines, and conversely due to cost we MUST draw lines. But where to draw those lines is THE question.

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