On Wednesday, the President Has to Move the Health Care Debate from a Marketplace of Lies to a Marketplace of Ideas
- John Boehner has a fetish that only allows him to become aroused when he wears 1950s women's housecoats with curlers in his hair.
- Rush Limbaugh eats pudding made from the rats that infest his home.
- Charles Grassley calls in sick to the Senate once a week to stay home and watch a DVD of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants over and over again.
Are these statements true? Of course not. (Or, to give the Republicans a taste of their own medicine relative to how they generally answer questions about the president's place of birth, I should say, to the best of my knowledge, those statements are not true.) But why shouldn't I write them anyway? After all, the Republican opposition to health care reform has been built on lies nearly as egregious as the ones I set out above.
As President Obama gets ready to lay out his vision of health care reform on Wednesday, it is important to note that the debate on the issue to this point has been, in reality, nonexistent. Yes, there has been a lot of talk about health care, but there has not been an honest exchange of ideas. Rather, Republicans (and some Democrats) opposed to health care reform have flooded the marketplace of ideas with outright lies, and defenders of health care reform have been forced to rebut those lies, distracting them from the simple job of laying out the case for reform, which, given the financial numbers involved, is stark (you can click here to see some of the figures I cited in July).
I am all for a debate on any important issue facing the country. Even though I consider myself a progressive and generally support progressive proposals, I don't think the left has a monopoly on good ideas, and I certainly don't have full faith in the Democrats in Congress to lead on any issue. I think that reasonable conservatives can make completely fair arguments opposing health care reform (even if I don't personally agree with them), ranging from an idea that the nation can't afford the expenditure to an honest admission that under the conservative point of view, the people who have earned (or inherited) money shouldn't be forced to subsidize health care for those who have not has been as successful or fortunate. I would especially respect any Republican (or Democratic, for that matter, since many, unfortunately, fall into this category) lawmaker who would stand up and say, "Look, I get millions in donations from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, so I have to support their positions, or I won't have any money and won't get re-elected." It would be the most honest enunciation yet of the real reasons for members of Congress to oppose health care reform, and it would allow us to move past the lies and misdirections employed by these legislators. (Well, for the Republicans, it's also about the political gamesmanship, since they would rather see the country suffer under the current health care environment than give the president a "win" on the issue. Remember Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina proudly saying that health care will be "Obama's Waterloo.")
But the elected Republicans (and Democrats) opposing health care reform are not standing up for their principles. Rather, they are using fear and lies to try and kill progress on health care reform. (Back in June, I wrote about the specific lies and leaps in logic employed by the right to oppose health care reform.) And seizing on the inattentiveness and/or selfishness of the American people, the opposition has had some success.
Rather than arguing finances or moral obligations, or copping to being captured by the health and pharmaceutical companies, Republicans (and some Democrats) are lying. They are stoking loony right-wing charges that the president is a socialist and that health care reform is a method by which he is trying to initiate a government takeover of American business. They talk of death panels and mandatory abortions. They accuse Obama of trying to institute a Canadian-style single-payer system and point to (largely incorrect) figures on how damaging such a system is to the health of individuals under such a regime. Hell, they even had a breakdown when the president decided to address American school children.
(As an aside, what do you think these Republicans would have said if parents protested George W. Bush addressing kids? You can be sure there would have been charges that these parents lacked respect for the president and, of course, were not suitably patriotic. But when the president is a Democrat -- and African American, to boot -- suddenly words like "indoctrination" and "socialism" are thrown out by the right. Conservatives' treatment of Barack Obama in this instance has been insanely hypocritical, and yet that issue is never addressed in the media's coverage of the opposition to the president's planned address.)
But here's the thing: Whatever you believe about socialism, Obama is not in any way, shape or form a socialist. Even with the government's forays into the financial, auto and, now, hopefully, the health care industries, it is only touching a slight fraction of American business. Calling Obama a socialist is a lie, every bit as ridiculous as my opening statements about Boehner, Limbaugh and Grassley. Same goes for death panels, mandatory abortions and the attempt to move the U.S. to a single-payer health care system.
If the media refuses to present the opposition to health care for what it is, instead pretending that an honest debate is going on, and if the American people seem unwilling or unable to recognize what the Republicans (and some Democrats) are doing to manipulate them with lies, then what is the president to do? After running a pitch-perfect campaign, we have become accustomed to Obama finding a way to counter any problem in perception, like his Philadelphia speech on race in March 2008, after the surfacing of incendiary comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Things may be much harder for the president to control now. But one thing he can do is take over leadership on the issue from the Democrats in Congress, who have less credibility with the American people and who, to date, have not shown the strength and leadership necessary to shepherd health care reform through the legislative process.
Instead, it's time for Obama to take the lead on the issue. His attempts in his first year in office to enunciate key principles but leave the nuts-and-bolts drafting of legislation to Congress were understandable, but such an approach hasn't worked with health care. On Wednesday, Obama needs to cut through the lies and lay out for the American people exactly where the country stands with regard to health care. He needs to explain that we are on financially untenable ground, with health care costs for the country exploding at alarming rates, and with tens of millions of Americans without health insurance coverage. He has to say exactly, in painstaking detail, what he wants to do. And, as importantly, he has to enunciate clearly what he is not asking that the government be allowed to do. He should even use graphs and illustrations if they'll help. Whatever it takes.
(In an ideal world, I would be in favor of a single-payer, Canadian-style system, but if such an approach is not realistic in the current U.S. political climate, and if opponents of health care reform are lying and calling the current proposal an attempt to move the country to a single-payer system, then Obama has to delineate how these charges are lies, and what exactly he is proposing the government do under a reformed health care system, which is short of a single-payer approach.)
In short, Obama has to use Wednesday's speech to move the health care debate from a marketplace of lies to a marketplace of ideas. It's a huge task, and it may be too late, but it's the best chance the president has to save true health care reform this year. The stakes are high. If outright lies end up killing health care reform, the Republicans will have won, but, more importantly, the American people will have lost.
Mitchell Bard: Baucus Debacle Shows Why Democrats Have to Stop Trying to Woo Republican Lawmakers
What Democrats have to realize is some exceptionally simple math: 60 seats in the Senate + 256 seats in the House + 365 electoral votes = They get to do what they said they would do during the campaign.
Rep. Keith Ellison: Do We Want Health Care or Do We Not ?
Maybe it's us, and not opponents of reform, who have failed to grasp the magnitude of this moment. We are on the verge of bringing about health care reform 60 years in waiting. Yes, we're going to have to fight for it.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
The time for jawing about "ideas" on healthcare has passed. There will be no meaningful public option because the Dems and the GOP are the same -- both are chock full of Enthusiastic Piggies fed at the trough of Big Pharma/Healthcare. Don’t waste your time anymore voting for either; it’s like deck chairs on the Titanic.
What you should work for, IMHO, is:
1) implementation of proportional voting (what they have in Europe that has allowed the Green Party to get some modicum of power). Proportional voting does away with winner take all, so a party that gets, say, 30% of the vote will have 30% of the representatives rather than nothing. Proportional voting is the main thing that will help third parties get power; and
2) stronger control of campaign finance.
3) The big media outlets must be pressured to allow third party candidates access to the debates (they kept Nader out, and will do so with any third candidate).
If you keep voting for the same two parties, you will continue to be GAMED. The Dems talk a more progressive game, but watch the RESULTS.
WAKE UP, AMERICA.
Another good article by Matt Taibbi on this very subject from 9/3/2009 Rolling Stone:
http://www
Let President Obama start with ending the lies and telling the truth.
"if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan." Some will buy different coverage, or drop coverage pay a penalty, leaving workers to buy their own coverage or go on the federal plan.
"The Census Bureau estimates that 45.7 million lacked health insurance in 2007." 11.9 million uninsured are eligible for public coverage but do not use of it. 9.6 million are illegal immigrants. 9.1 million have family incomes of greater than $75,000 per year, according to the Census Bureau. That leaves 15 million Americans without access to health care not 45.7 million.
He said "the average family pays a thousand dollars to pay for people going to the emergency room who don’t have insurance.
The president said the estimated $1 trillion cost of his proposals is "less than we are projected to have spent on the war in Iraq." so far, Iraq war costs are around $642 billion.
He said that the U.S. spends 50 percent more per capita on health care than the next most expensive country. We spend 20 percent more than the second most expensive country,
The President needs to start telling the truth.
See Factcheck.
I think you are missing the bigger picture. Sure the US spends only 20% more on healthcare than the next most expensive country, but then that country is Luxembourg which has a population of less than half a million people. A more reasonable comparison might be with France, which spends less than 50% of the US spend per capita, covers all it's people, is rated by WHO as No. 1 for healthcare provision and has better infant mortality and maternal mortality records than the US, which is rated by the WHO as 37th in the world.
Why do you think it is acceptable that any citizen of the US should not be covered? The stats on costs are being misused, the 1 trillion is over 10 years in any case. The only cost stat that is clear is that the current system is financially unsustainable and delivers poor value for money. American citizens deserve better.
You are right. The stats on cost are being misused, the $1 trillon over 10 years. The real cost is MUCH HIGHER.
The CBO estimates in year 10 ALONE the program will cost $245 billion and will insure about 12 million people. That is $20,417 PER PERSON. Almost THREE times what it currently costs to insure a person.
The proposed plan DOES NOT SAVE money. It costs an extra $13,703 per year.
Where are the savings? American citizens deserve better.
For Cost:
http://blo
For insured
"If outright lies end up killing health care reform, the Republicans will have won."
If so, it will be a pyrrhic victory. After another decade of out-of-control insurance and pharma companies driving the cost of health care ever higher, with fewer and fewer people covered, the demand for single-payer health care will become overwhelming. The next time the issue is addressed, there will be no talk of half-way measures -- co-ops, triggers, etc.
Of course by then, the US slide into third-world status may be irreversible and the very people now screaming about socialism will be demanding to know how that happened. And since reform of the public education system is likely to go the way of HCR, they and their off-spring will be clueless about their own role in destroying the country.
The distortions in this debate are destructive. Eventually we have to reform this wasteful system. Scaring people is always an effective political strategy. It doesn't help achieve real health insurance reform. The Grand Obstructionist Party is content to defeat reform and maintain the unsustainable status quo.
http://axi
Little off topic, but Obama said in a laborday speech yesterday in Ohio that he passed a stimulus bill that saved us from economic failure " without a single earmark". Now we all know thats an outright lie.
Around 8500 earmarks were in the stimulus. So how can we trust him on healthcare when he Lies right to our faces and we're suppose to gobble it up as truth?
"If outright lies end up killing health care reform, the Republicans will have won."
If so, it will be a pyrrhic victory. After another decade of out-of-control insurance and pharma companies driving the cost of health care ever higher, with fewer and fewer people covered, the demand for single-payer health care will become overwhelming. The next time the issue is addressed, there will be no talk of half-way measures -- co-ops, triggers, etc.
Of course by then, the US slide into third-world status may be irreversible and the very people now screaming about socialism will be demanding to know how that happened. And since reform of the public education system is likely to go the way of HCR, they and their off-spring will be clueless about their own role in destroying the country.
Excuse me, we don't need to hang out any longer in the "marketplace of ideas." We need a robust, well-funded public option. Period. Anything else is a waste of time and just another way to play kissy-face with the enemy. We need a leader to champion it and work tirelessly and relentlessly to get it done.
Are we trying to fix health care or get government run health care?
The proposed government plan does not reduce cost and will raise the cost if you look at a per patient cost.
The CBO estimates in year 10 ALONE the program will cost $245 billion and will insure about 12 million people. That is $20,417 PER PERSON. Almost THREE times what it currently costs per person to insure a person.
The proposed plan DOES NOT save money. It costs an extra $13,703 per year.
Where are the savings?
For Cost:
http://blo
For insured
http://www
TIME FOR PATRIOTIC ACTION.
Other leading countries spend no more then 11% on healthcare, covering everyone..
America - over 16%. ,,,For the few.
That means TRILLIONS$.
Many don't realize that government run Healthcare would be transparent and many-sided. It'd HAVE to be... Viewed from every side, its obvious because:
you CAN'T LIE about saving a person's life.
You CAN'T LIE about best treatments,
you CAN'T LIE about best illness preventions, after proven…
& you CAN'T LIE about COSTS, - constantly reviewed. Transparency's important information grows at greater speeds.... We have the best hospitals, the best Universities, the best technology
America’s single payer'd be the best in the world. Republicans compromised us to a public Option... Doesn't save as much, but it's the right direction.
Shame on ANYONE saying America can’t have the best, least expensive care in the world.
Saying the government can't run it is wrong, UN-AMERICAN, cowardly and UNPATRIOTIC! ! !.
It's a useless argument, defending the private insurers.
They've FAILED.
Over-run with greed, they've brought our economy to its knees. They don't deserve to remain as industry leaders.
In our present system, insurers are secretive and neurotically controlling.
Easy to see how government transparency would saveTrillions, but leaders knowing this have failed to highlight this.... Leaving room for idiots on the right, spreading their lies and misinformation.
Time for PATRIOTIC ACTION.
Maybe that's what needs to happen...a bed of blatant lies about Repubs to show them how ridiculous they are and how ridiculous will be their attempts will be to do NOTHING about our failed health system...a
Here's some good news...
"White House Overwhelmed with Requests for Obama to Meet with “Mad as Hell Doctors” about Single Payer"
"The “Mad As Hell Doctors” from Oregon are making themselves heard at the Obama Administration with an email campaign that threatened to shut down the White House inbox. The road-tripping, physician-activists from Oregon known as the “Mad As Hell Doctors” received a pressing call from the White House this week to demand they remove a letter on their website requesting a meeting with President Obama to discuss “the moral, social and fiscal imperative” of a single payer health care system. The reason for the call: too many emails from supporters have overwhelmed the White
House inbox."
"Adam Klugman, National Creative Director for the Mad As Hell Doctors campaign and the person who received the call, puts it this way. “Chris Whitty from the White House Office of Scheduling called me and said that he has been ‘besieged with emails’ from within the millions of single payer supporters in this country who feel that Congress and the President have completely turned their back on them. It told him that it’s not our campaign that’s applying pressure. It’s the people. I also told him that we’d be glad to take the letter down, just as soon as the President agrees to meet with us.”
http://www
I wish Obama would pause in the middle of his speech on Wednesday and take something out of his pocket:
"Here is my birth certificate. Feel free to examine it...."
"And over there," pointing at a mound of boxes, "Over there are 18,000 death certificates of people in our country who died this last year because they had no health insurance. What is your priority? Which is more important? Do you want to spend the next 12 months debating whether I am here, and your President? Or do you want to look at those boxes full of fathers, mothers, children..
Well said.
.
Nice. Please send it to the WH.
...and hopefully he would clearly state that his plan is not the reformation of health care,
rather the aim is to reform insurance policy. Insurance reform not healthcare reform.
What about the death certificates for cancer patients who died under government health care in Canada and Great Britian and would have survived under our system? Do we include them?
How do we know they would have survived under our system, or any system? Especially if they lacked health insurance.
As someone who has benefited immensely from the Canadian Health Care universal single-payer system; having had countless XRAYs, CT scans, MRI scans, full-body bone scans, bloodwork, oncology visits, lung surgery (twice), brain surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, countless visits and follow-up visits over the past 13 years - see my earlier post for additional details - it completely blows my mind how the Republicans and their proxys are so violently opposed to a heavily watered down version of what we enjoy in Canada!!! What would they say if it was as comprehensive as ours?
Does the "no govt in my life" camp conveniently forget (not know???) that the Police, FBI, Fire Dept., Bridges, Roads, Postal service, Customs, Public schools, Medicare, etc etc are all run by govt. Would they have govt. back out of these services???
Thankfully - Healthcare insurance is not something we worry about. I guess we must be an ignorant bunch up here. We fail to see how we are being oppressed by an evil socialist system providing govt. funded health care "against our will" - that's if we had any, I guess.
To you, my neighbours south of the 49th parallel, for whom I wish the very best, I leave you with this thought and hope it will prove to be true for you:
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident" - Arthur Schopenhauer
Police, fire, and schools are not run by the Federal Government in the US.
Bridges, roads, and postal service are specifically required services of the Federal Government under the US Constitution.
You don't hear the US clammering to change the Canadian System to match ours so please stay out of our debate.
Actually, many have spread disinformation about the Canadian Health Care services. That entitles me to set the record straight.
I guess we should send all those federal fire-fighters in Los Angeles home as they were not expressly identified in the US Constitution as a "specifically required service of the federal government
I agree with you, but Obama has actually already said all that you say he must say. All of the things everyone says he needs to make clear have already been made clear, but apparently we haven't been listening. I have heard explanations of all of those points, but the media jumps on one little piece and that is all anyone talks about. I don't know if him saying it all again on Wednesday is going to help because apparently we can only hear what we want to hear and we can't even determine for ourselves what we heard. We let someone like Glenn Beck or Sara Palin tell us what we heard. Or we listen to the loudest voices instead of the most sensible ones. I would like to think we have enough sense to do what needs to be done, but I'm afraid we don't.
If the TRUTH is hard to get people to understand then the Democrats have to be smarter at how they tell it.
Sound bites can be used by Democrats as well, and they have to make policy statements that are SHORT, CONCISE, SIMPLE, AND INTERESTING
The media is more likely to report such statements, and people are much more likely to listen to and understand such statements.
And then they must REPEAT these statements over and over, so that they are creating their own story in peoples minds about how the world does or should work.
Writers have a mantra for themselves that they follow called KISS...it stands for...
KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!!
How can he when he has spun so many of the former and has none of the latter?
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
