Lying Works In The Fight Against Health Care Reform

Any serious talk about nationalizing the American health care system has long since ended, but to hear conservatives and the media that’s what the entire debate is about. The Frank Luntz inspired focus group tested tag line from congressional republicans is “stop the government takeover of health care.” Why is that the case? Nowhere in the bill is there any mention of making any doctor a government employee. There is no page that can be referenced showing that the federal government will take ownership nor possession of any kind of any health care facility. Yet over and over you hear the “government run health care” line repeatedly used. Those against health care reform seem unwilling to argue against the bill with matters that are actually in the bill.

There is much in the bill that is up for legitimate criticism and debate. The individual mandate requiring all purchase health care is somewhat troubling, but that rarely comes into the discussion for most publicly against the bill. The main arguments center on not “taking away” someone’s health insurance. Republicans comically bring large reams of paper to the podium for debate as if the bill is in any way unique based purely on its size. They even feign interest in actually participating in the reform process by saying we should start over, despite not contributing to the process nor offering a counter bill for 10 months. Senator Jim DeMint was honest earlier this year about the true nature of the opposition in this debate with his Waterloo comment. This is about preventing a signature Obama achievement and nothing more. The only way to achieve that has been to lie, pure and simple, about the public option.

The public option, as it is written in the bill doesn’t resemble what conservatives seem to be arguing against. The public option would provide a low cost alternative for those at a certain poverty level. Estimates provide for about 5 percent of the population even qualifying for the option. Congressional republicans continue to argue against a British nationalized model even though that’s not being proposed. The truth is public satisfaction with government health care is very high, so the only way to win the debate is with outright falsehood. Politicians claim that opinion is against the public option, but according to this 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll a majority of Americans can’t even describe what the public option is.

Republicans on Twitter and Facebook will continue to claim that there is a jail penalty for not purchasing health insurance when there isn’t, and they will continue to warn of death panels and pulling the plug on grandma without being able to point to any page of the bill. They will continue to do so because lying works, and the American people are too easily bullshitted. The republicans see the political landscape and have learned from the experience of democrats from the Bush administration. Working together with the other party doesn’t win elections, and republicans are more concerned with winning the next election.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 11:17 am and is filed under Health Care Reform, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.