David Brooks' Lies on Health Care Reform: An Incomplete List

David Brooks is very slick. His lies and deceptions are embedded into parenthetical asides or subordinate clauses, and frequently couched in the jargon of the social sciences. His affect on television is neither doctrinaire nor mean-spirited, like that of his former colleagues, Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes.  Brooks’ dishonesty is more subtle and insidious.

A lot of people buy in to Brooks’ pseudo-intellectual shtick for making grand pronouncements that presume to define reality. In the ultimate tribute to Washington’s groupthink, George Stephanopoulos invited Brooks on to his show to present a video clip of Katie Couric asking Barack Obama to respond to a Brooks column that could have been dictated by Roger Ailes: “The [Democratic] party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.”

Before he attacked Obama as a liberal elitist, Brooks touted Sarah Palin as the embodiment of reform. Brooks designated the Alaska governor as, “the rarest of creatures, an American politician who sees the world as [John McCain] does. Like McCain, Palin does not seem to have an explicit governing philosophy. Her background is socially conservative, but she has not pushed that as governor of Alaska. She seems to find it easier to work with liberal Democrats than the mandarins in her own party. Instead, she seems to get up in the morning to root out corruption.” Only a fool would believe that Brooks had scrutinized Palin’s record; he was simply parroting the same crap as Bill Kristol.

For a couple of months now, Brooks has been pushing two fraudulent claims lifted out straight out of the Republican playbook:

• Obama's proposals on health care reform do nothing to cut costs; and
• He wants to impose punitive taxation on the middle class.

 

His latest New York Times column encapsulates his disinformation campaign. True to form, Brooks opened on a positive note. “On Wednesday night, Barack Obama delivered the finest speech of his presidency,” he wrote, and began his deceptions a few paragraphs later:

First, Obama rested the credibility of his presidency on what you might call the Dime Standard. He was flexible about many things, but not this: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. Period.”

This sound bite kills the House health care bill. That bill would add $220 billion (that’s 2.2 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the first 10 years and another $1 trillion (10 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the next 10 years.

Brooks turned the President’s rhetorical device into a bogus financial analysis. No one can measure the financial impact of new federal legislation within one dime, or within $1 billion, over the span of one year, much less one decade. Of the $39 trillion spent by the federal government over the next decade, per C.B.O. estimates, the purported $220 billion cost equals less than half of one percent of that amount, a rounding error. Brooks keeps insinuating that the 10-year forecast can be tallied with the precision of a balanced checkbook.

[For some context, consider what the Bush White House budgeted for the cost of keeping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in years 2010 and later. The C.B.O. revealed the exact dollar amount to be zero. Of course, didn’t stop Brooks’ guy, presidential candidate John McCain, from proposing that we double down on the Bush tax cuts.] 

There are a number of ways to tweak the House bill to reduce the $220 billion cost, but Brooks, like most Republican shills, seeks to preempt an honest give-and-take discussion. He writes:

There is no way to get from the House bill to deficit neutrality. The president’s speech guarantees that the more moderate Senate Finance Committee bill will be the basis for the negotiations to come.

No, Brooks is pulling out the stops to preclude a reasoned consideration of the public option.

To back up his points, Brooks makes a pretty audacious lie – in the subordinate clause - about C.B.O. estimates.  He writes:

Since the Congressional Budget Office is the universally accepted arbiter in such matters, the Democrats have to produce a bill that the C.B.O. says is deficit-neutral, now and forever.

Brooks knows that the opposite is true. The C.B.O. is not the universally accepted arbiter, because its forecasting methodology on cost savings benefits has been shown to be highly arbitrary. The C.B.O. contends that cost savings from Obama’s proposals, which are hard to estimate, must be assumed to equal zero.

Paul Krugman explained this point directly to Brooks as they sat across the table with Stephanopolous. If you assume that the actual costs savings in the first year are slightly less than $20 billion - below the cost of two months of  the Iraq/Afghanistan occupations - then the current House bill is deficit-neutral. (The 10 years add to up $220 billion because of inflation.) You can argue whether the potential cost savings of Obama’s proposals total $220 billion over the next decade.  But no one can honestly assert, like Brooks does, that the C.B.O. approach is the only legitimate method for estimating the net impact on the budget, and no one can honestly say that the C.B.O. methodology is manifestly more precise.

Krugman’s explanation did not stop Brooks from doubling down on his lies or on smearing Obama’s veracity. Here’s his little riff on The NewsHour:

The other thing is, [Obama] just tells a lot of whoppers now. Now, believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are saying some things that are extremely off the charts untrue about the plan, but I just wrote down some of the things Obama said today which are whoppers.

He said everyone can keep their health care plan. Well, the CBO doesn't say that. Six million people are going to lose their plan. Preventive care saves money. That's not true. It's going to cost $90 billion a year. That's not true. It's probably going to cost twice as much when it's fully implemented. Government will be out of health care decisions.

He tells one thing after another, making it seem so easy. Well, believe me: This is not easy. It's going to take some sacrifices and some really painful cuts for people to get this system under control.

In other words, Brooks is a lot like the congressman who, when he yells out, “You lie!” is actually lying.

Let’s go through Brooks’ lies about what the C.B.O. actually said.

First: “He said everyone can keep their health care plan. Well, the CBO doesn't say that. Six million people are going to lose their plan.”

Obama said that the proposal would compel no one - no individual, no employer, no employee - to change his insurance coverage arrangements. The C.B.O. never suggested otherwise. Instead, it estimated there would be a rational response to a “significant feature of the insurance exchanges [which] is that they would include a public plan that largely pays Medicare-based rates for medical goods and services. CBO estimates that the premiums for that plan would generally be lower than the premiums of the private plans against which it would be competing.”

As a result, the C.B.O. estimates that about three million people, including large numbers of part-time workers who would be eligible for subsidies in the exchanges, would choose to leave the plan offered by employers. In addition, the C.B.O. estimates that employers who currently offer coverage to about three million employees may elect to stop offering coverage. “Firms that would choose not to offer coverage as a result of the proposal would tend to be smaller employers and those that predominantly employ lower-wage workers.” In other words, those who can least afford to pay for private insurance will very likely have a better alternative.

Second: "Preventive care saves money. That's not true."

The C.B.O. said something else entirely. It said that the scorekeeping rules prohibit it from measuring cost savings in Medicaid and Medicare until Congress passes specific legislation with designating specific appropriations for such cost saving measures. 

The C.B.O. also expressed skepticism about the cost benefits of preventative medical care, but it relied heavily on a study that has been slammed for its flawed sampling and methodology. The study's authors claimed that, "opportunities for efficient investment in health care programs are roughly equal for prevention and treatment.” But, as other experts have noted, “The flaw in this argument is that what the authors classified as preventive services included not only recommended practices but also interventions that no major guideline recommends." Whereas a broad array of economic studies, "consistently report that evidence-based clinical preventive services offer high economic value."

Third: “It's going to cost $90 billion a year. That's not true. It's probably going to cost twice as much when it's fully implemented. Government will be out of health care decisions. He tells one thing after another, making it seem so easy.”

I have no idea what Brooks is referring to here, though I know the effect he was going for. He wants viewers to come away with a general impression, that Obama and proponents of health care reform are less than honest, and not much better than the Republicans who lie about death panels.

It’s a favorite stunt of Brooks, setting up a specious equivalency to absolve Republicans of blame. He opened his column on Obama’s liberal elitism with a comparison to the Republicans’ right-wing insularity. Here he is on a different NewsHour, making the same bogus claims that Obama’s plan does nothing about costs, and also claiming that the pull-the-plug-on-granny stuff is no less mendacious than the criticism of the neocons who scammed us into the Iraq war.

BROOKS: There's a lot of misinformation out there...that they're going to cut off Granny and all that stuff, which is mystifying to me. I mean, there's a real -- I mean, my concern is, which is backed up by the CBO and everything else, that we need health care reform. This does nothing to reduce costs. That is not the argument they're making, maybe because it's not an emotional hot-button argument, "They're going to kill your granny." So there's a ton of misinformation going out there…Let's not pretend this just started. I mean, every time we have a major issue, this happens. I mean, just go back to the Iraq war. There were people claiming there was the Project for the New American Century and Richard Perle was part of a big neocon conspiracy. There's ugliness that goes on. There's ugliness that went on in those rallies. And...

JUDY WOODRUFF: You're saying it's the same kind of thing?

BROOKS: I'm saying -- I think every time, if you look through American history, every time there's a major issue -- and this a major issue -- you get people who are totally over the line and spreading misinformation. And that doesn't justify it -- believe me -- but we shouldn't pretend it just started from one group.

Brooks never stops lying about the origins of the Iraq war. Frequently, as he did above, he injects these falsehoods as a digression from the topic at hand. Here are few other examples, from an earlier NewsHour:

"Larry Wilkerson himself said that everything that was in Colin Powell's speech, he believed, the French believed, the Germans believed, the British believed. These were things that were believed." 

In fact, the French and the Germans rejected everything in Colin Powell's speech, and three weeks afterward wrote that "no evidence [not inconculsive evidence or fragmentary evidence, but no evidence] has been given that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction or capabilities in this field."

"Are they guilty of manipulating intelligence on WMD? That, I think, is the thing they are least guilty of. .. the Robb report, which showed there was no political pressure; there was a Senate intelligence report; there was a Butler report. There were all of these reports. None of them found manipulation of intelligence." 

Actually, all of those investigations were circumscribed to avoid looking at the political pressure brought to bear.  The bottom line is that after the inspectors revealed there was no evidence of WMD, the flawed U.S. intelligence no longer remained as a valid excuse. Yet Bush ignored the evidence and invaded anyway.

But getting back to Brooks' latest Times column, where he continues to imputes the Republican agenda onto Congress and the President:

Fourth, the president introduced the public option to its own exclusive Death Panel. As Max Baucus has said, the public option cannot pass the Senate. On Wednesday, the president praised it, then effectively buried it. White House officials no longer mask their exasperation with the liberal obsession on this issue.

Fifth, the president also buried the soak-the-rich approach. The House Ways and Means Committee came up with a plan to raise taxes on the rich to pay for health reform. That’s dead, too. Health reform will be paid for by changes within the health care system. The president underlined his resolve to cut $500 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. This is a courageous move that moderates appreciate.

Brooks' "soak the rich" scam is a polite version of the teabagging nonsense. A 5.4% surcharge on someone's second million in annual income hardly brings tax burden of the rich back to the socialist days of the Clinton adminsnitration.  He's already misrepresented the tax proposals on yet another Sunday morning talk show. On The NewsHour he said that health care reform would trigger tax increases, "And not only on the top 2 percent, further down."

Comments

[Susan60]

Wow, this is funny, because just yesterday while watching the panel on This Week, Brooks said some grand sweeping statement (i forget what he said now) but he uttered it as if it were the truth. I turned to my husband and said, where are his facts to back this up? how does he get away with just saying those things and not being asked to back it up with facts? So when I saw this post I was glad I wasn't the only one thinking that Brooks just pulls things out of his rearend and no one calls him on it. He is what you would call a psuedo intellectual.

[LaurenMarie984]

Thank you for this piece on Brooks - he has been really irritating me lately to the point where I was wondering if he's trying to fill the void Kristol left. And his writing is appalling .

[Slapmewhenitsover]

As one who decided that this Sunday morning spewfest was a ridiculous waste of time 20 years ago, I can only say that rarely does a journalist report anything fairly anymore because they feel it is their obligation to use each individual opportunity as a soapbox to shout their beliefs, not report the news.
Brooks has had his moments, but he is the ultimate example of the Bandwagon effect. He always jumps on the popular bus and rides it until he he sees his next populist cause. He reminds me of a fly.

[maxfax]

And like the other Sunday morning programs, this host is no different, Stephanopoulos allows the lying liars to get away with it.

[Slapmewhenitsover]

Agreed. It happens from all perspectives of the political spectrum and from all moral and ethical angles. I will not waste my time with any of these so-called experts or the equally ineffective hosts.
It is very difficult to root out the actual truth, but it can be accomplished through reading a wide variety of publications and using some basic critical analysis. Then, you still might be wrong anyway, but at least you have a fighting chance.

[howeverfaraway]

Read the column- also noted that he didn't leave it open for comment the way he usually does. Guess he knew he'd be one of those "called out" by the Times' own readers.

[Weirdwriter]

Thank you for this excellent rebuttal to the posturing Brooks' piece ofdisinformation.

[Rmath]

Patricia, I watched the same "Meet the Press" program you described. What on earth were you watching?

[Patricia013]

Rmath - its all over the internet too:

Many seniors also worry about a provision that would cut $177 billion in federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans over the next decade. The plans, which cover one in five seniors, are offered through some of the nation's largest insurers. They typically offer no monthly premiums and low co-pays.

In his speech Wednesday to Congress, President Barack Obama said reform would eliminate such "unwarranted subsidies." (right from the horses mouth!)

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/09/13/20090913healthcare-cook0913.html

http://www.newsday.com/columnists/other-columnists/gray-matters-a-way-to-fix-medicare-advantage-disparities-1.1436965

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/02/26/obama-budget-cuts-medicare-advantage-helps-generic-biotech/

[17ladyslippers]

Patricia - I watched that show too. Respectfully, the information you took from it isn't correct. You can watch the show again by going to:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

Double click the Full Broadcast button under David Gregory's picture to watch the entire program. If you don't have a computer with sound, you can download the transcript and read it yourself.

[Patricia013]

I'm retired and a lifelong registered democrat. I was squarely behind the President's healthcare plans until this morning while watching "Meet the Press" at that time it became clear to me that the president intends to pay for part of his plan by removing the subsidies to insurance companies that provide us retired people with Medicare Advantage! This is WRONG! Relying solely on medicare would leave a gap as to how much coverage we can afford. I remember my dad always needed a supplemental policy that he paid for out of his own pocket just to fill the gap left by medicare! Medicare recipients - don't be fooled - the president is going to make US old folks pay for his new healthcare plan. They have already knocked out the tiny cost of living raise we will get for the next TWO YEARS now they want to meddle with our medicare HMO's. DON'T FALL FOR IT!

[Patricia013]

@Rmath - both republicans - Gingrich and the other fellow (forget his name) mentioned Medicare Advantage and its cost of 500 billion a year. I'm sure the program is already on the net...please go and watch it again. They were not adequately disputed by Dr. Dean or anyone else on the panel. If I misunderstood I'd be happy and relieved to have someone correct me. The part about losing our tiny 2 or 3 percent cost of living raise for the next two years was not in that program but is common knowledge. Right now I'm feeling that the fellow I voted for intends to pass healthcare revision on the backs of us elderly - its just not right!

[Elle Bach]

Patricia,

Those of us who can’t get the “cheap” HMO (Medicare Advantage) coverage you enjoy (because we’re actually sick – I have MS) are subsidizing your coverage out of our pocketbooks. Your coverage is a cash cow to the insurance companies. It basically only covers relatively healthy seniors.

In addition to my monthly premium for my Medicare Part B and D, I pay $194 mo. for a medigap policy (that covers anything in the “gap” – the 20% - of everything Medicare doesn’t pay).

One of two things are going to happen to your "cheap"coverage eventually.

Your plan will drop your whole group if the group as a whole becomes too costly (too much money going to pay healthcare claims and not into shareholder or CEO’s pockets).
Or
You will get some illness that your advantage plan will not cover adequately and it will a) bankrupt you, b) kill you.

I don’t know how much you’re paying mo in co-pays – may not add up to $194 a month - but I’d recommend you prepare yourself to one day be buying a medigap policy, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing whatever happens, you’ve got decent coverage.

[Patricia013]

Elle - paying for a medigap policy is not going to happen because there is no money coming in to pay for a medigap policy. That means thousands and thousands of elderly will be in emergency rooms just as illegals are in them now and you and the rest of the taxpayers will still pay for it. I don't know what the answer is but dropping seniors and expecting them to pick up medigap policies isn't going to work. Most are below the poverty line now - as am I - so that the burden will again land on the taxpayer. In California we were faced with insurance companies moving out on us years ago - only that was car insurance instead of health insurance. I can tell you they adjusted and they are ALL still here. I doubt very much if any of the big insurance companies will drop us because even if they have to adhere to new laws there is still profit to be made.

[17ladyslippers]

Patricia - I watched that show too. Respectfully, the information you took from it isn't correct. You can watch the show again by going to:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

Double click the Full Broadcast button under David Gregory's picture to watch the entire program. If you don't have a computer with sound, you can download the transcript and read it yourself.

[Patricia013]

Thank you ladyslippers - I will do just that. I hope I heard wrong too. Thanks.

[noaxe397]

The real danger to the country from people like David Brooks is that they are like Trojan Horses. They sound rational and reasonable, so real Americans let them into the ddialogue, where they then take over the dialogue and eventually open the gates for the real crazies to rush in.

Another dangerous one like Brooks is Joe Scarborough. He was, and still is, one of the radical extremisits who was elected to Congress in the 1994 Gingrich revolution and his ideas are as dangerous today as they were 15 years ago, it's just that he tones down the inflammatory rhetoric.

[schatsie]

Love you, I have been thinking the same thing about Brooks (Bruchs) for the last couple of years...But he is just like Rush Limpall...Remember a broken clock is right 2 times a day (unless of course it is military time and then it is only right once a day)....

It was funny, but sad that the media has ignored the MIDDLE CLASS effect of the McCain/Repug plan...It is WRONG that the middle class who get their insurance from their employer should pay no taxes on that, but it is OK if McCain gets a pension and 3 healthcare plans and pays no taxes on that... Frankly,,, it is WRONG THAT OUR HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS PAY FOR FACE LIFTS for EXECUTIVES WIVES and denies health care for the grunts....

[no body]

A simple public,private open-source IT solution to save 1.2 quadrillion dimes year.

[no body]

An excellent explanation of WHAT we need to accomplish in Healthcare Reform can be found here http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2009/0901_btc.aspx. HOW do we do this? By using the finest physicians, best scientists and evidence-b­ased-medic­ine from around the country and the world to come up with “Best Medical Practices” interactive electronic medical workbooks using:
XML (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML) ,
XML schema (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_schema) ,
XForms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xforms) and
web-services (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service)
(savings Director Orszag's 700b, no medical errors) which are IETM Class V compliant documents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETM) that when filled out are checked for accuracy and completeness in real-time and saved to a third-party (savings malpractice 100b). The workbooks are created, maintained and continuously updated (always learning) by the regional Health Information Technology Research Centers, CDC, FDA and HHS in conjunction with the Health care Industry to provide an effectivity rating for the different treatments, the ability to produce a prognosis and cost of treatment in real-time. In addition, Senator Sanders 400b in administration costs would be greatly reduced because we would only have one set of forms country-wide and they can be easily automated. Because IBM (http://dita.xml.org/sites/dita.xml.org/files/IDCMSBlue.pdf) and the DOD for their interactive electronic training manuals are already using these technologies the CBO can score the savings.

[schatsie]

I wish ORZAG has a cabinet position, Obama could really use a spokesman of his caliber instead of the soft core dems....

[no body]

sorry, over ten years.

[no body]

Ok, it's early yet .12 quadrillion over ten years.

[Patrician]

I've watched, when I can stomach, David Brooks. I rarely read him. He has something in him as best I can tell that leads him to a terrible stench of lying while trying to be a bit above lying. He is bright enough, knows the truth, but a bit over-bright in the sense that he uses his intelligence to bend and twist the truth. However, when it is Republican politicians in the limelight, he can be blind as a bat to their faults.

He seems unable to rip Obama in a direct way. I would guess that with truth serum you would find he admires our President. But the twisting he does with truth comes out of Brooks' lack of character, I think. He simply can't be straight. And all the time he has to look straight, and seem straight. The effort must be exhausting, always trying to look better on the outside than you are inside.

[Rogan]

You say that like you don't know any such people personally. (If you don't, you're very lucky.)

[Cye]

Obama needs to publish a pop-up book setting out his entire health care reform plan so that these m*rons can understand it.

Its painful to watch the mindless hatred, willful distortion of facts and rampant hatred that the Right is contributed to public debate at present.

[newleaf]

it's pretty comical that Brooks, who disdains the ability of the government, suddenly has the faith of the gospel in the GOVERNMENTAL CBO! Especially when he can distort all the facts, invoke the name of the CBO, and suddenly everybody is supposed to believe it. Seems to me the CBO becomes the convenient pawn of conservabots who know by throwing out such an official-sounding name, that's all the batwingers need to hear to assume it's written in stone.

[realpolitic]

Yes, very true!

[Miyake]

Brooks is not worth listening to or reading. Move on.