Here's Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Chairman of the House Republican Conference, appearing on Andrea Mitchell’s MSNBC show earlier today:
Transcript:
PENCE: This is not a deal that will go over well with the American people. They understand what a governmentment run insurance plan will mean.
PENCE: A government run insurance option that the President’s insisted on is going to amount to a government takeover of our health care economy.
PENCE (challenged by Andrea Mitchell on support for Medicare): Oh, no, I support Medicare, and have supported the program.
Do the Republicans have any idea just how stupid they sound when they simultaneously attack the idea of government health insurance and lavish praise on the largest government health insurance program in the nation? (And do the BaucuCon Dems have any idea how futile it is to try and negotiate with these fools?)
John Cole: Anyone Moves, and My Constituents Get It in the Head
Here is what I don’t understand about the blue dog coalition- aren’t they from predominantly rural areas where poverty is generally deeper and there are far more uninsured?
- from the comments ...
MikeJ
These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know, morons.
If conservatives have real arguments against health care reform, then why do they have to lie about it so much?
Bill Kristol on the Daily Show:
“One reason the price of health care is going up so fast is because of government programs. The price of Medicare and Medicaid have gone up faster than private insurance. That’s well-documented.”Ezra Klein corrects him (with supporting evidence):
It is true that the growth rates of Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance are well-documented. But the documentation shows the opposite of what Bill Kristol says it shows. The price of Medicare and Medicaid have gone up much more slowly than private insurance.Marty Feldstein in WaPo yesterday:
Obama has said that he would favor a British-style “single payer” system in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried but that he recognizes that such a shift would be too disruptive to the health-care industry.Obama has never said that he favors a British-style health care system. Britain does not have a single-payer system. It has a socialized system, where the government directly employs all health care providers. Indeed, if you follow the link in Feldstein’s own column, it says, “A single-payer system would eliminate private insurance companies and put a Medicare-like system into place where the government pays all health-care bills with tax dollars.” Does Medicare own hospitals and pay doctors government salaries? No. Professor Feldstein, please stop writing about topics you know nothing about.It’s no coincidence that Feldstein and Kristol both publish regularly on the Washington Post opinion page.
I can’t think of anything that troubles me more than the fact that there is no consequence, no correction for outrageous lies and that our most prestigious media outlets sanction these lies. It’s hard for me to see how this all ends well for American civilization.
- Benen adds AN EASY-TO-CORRECT ERROR...
In a Washington Post op-ed yesterday, Martin Feldstein argued, "Obama has said that he would favor a British-style 'single payer' system in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried but that he recognizes that such a shift would be too disruptive to the health-care industry."
That is plainly false. As Jon Chait explained yesterday:
Obama has never said that he favors a British-style health care system. Britain does not have a single-payer system. It has a socialized system, where the government directly employs all health care providers. Indeed, if you follow the link in Feldstein's own column, it says, "A single-payer system would eliminate private insurance companies and put a Medicare-like system into place where the government pays all health-care bills with tax dollars." Does Medicare own hospitals and pay doctors government salaries? No. Professor Feldstein, please stop writing about topics you know nothing about.
I naively expected the Post to run a correction. It was a mistake for the paper to publish the bogus claim in the first place, but it's an error that's easy enough to correct. Especially in the middle of a heated debate over health care policy, it only makes sense that D.C.'s newspaper would want readers to know that Feldstein's claim is demonstrably untrue.
After all, as Paul Krugman explained, "Single-payer, as anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to the health care debate knows, means a system like Medicare, in which the government pays the bills. It absolutely does not mean a British-style system -- and Obama definitely didn't advocate anything of the sort.... [I]f I misstated the facts like this in the Times, I'd be required to publish a correction."
As of this afternoon, there's been no correction or clarification.
It was a glaring and obvious falsehood based on Feldstein's incorrect definition of the phrase 'single-payer.' The kind of thing that is so obviously false, it shouldn't have taken the Post more than 30 seconds to write up a correction once the mistake was pointed out.... But the Washington Post has not yet run a correction, online or in print.... Correcting this obvious falsehood as soon as possible is the only responsible thing to do.
This seems to have come up quite a bit lately, most notably with a couple of George Will columns on environmental policy. It's unclear why factual errors keep appearing in WaPo opinion pieces, what kind of fact-checking process they're subjected to, and why the paper seems so reluctant to set the record straight.
Looks like John Thune took to the Senate floor yesterday to warn that the House health care bill’s surtax—a measure that would only effect 1.3 percent of the population—would lead to “most Americans and most small businesses” paying “fifty cents of every dollar in taxes.”
Pat Garofalo observes that this is all kinds of wrong. The highest-tax country in the world at the moment seems to be Denmark, where government revenue equals 50 percent of GDP. Even there if we assume the tax code is even a little bit progressive, most people will be paying less than 50 percent of their income in taxes.
Meanwhile, Denmark is also a great place! It’s one of the richest countries on earth, and thanks to its much more egalitarian distribution of wealth and income, median living standards are higher than in the United States. Indeed, notwithstanding its high taxes Denmark always rates high on right-wing metrics of “economic freedom” as well as on things like the UN’s Human Development Index. The Danes also happen to be the happiest people on earth and are operating what’s probably the most ecologically sustainable of all the developed economies. I wouldn’t say they owe it all to their high tax rates, but certainly the fact that Danes are willing to to fund public services and public infrastructure at adequate levels is helping them.
Think Progress: Flashback: Republicans Opposed Medicare In 1960s By Warning Of Rationing, ‘Socialized Medicine’
Tomorrow is the the 44th anniversary of Medicare, an essential government-sponsored health care program that provides coverage to virtually all of the nation’s elderly and a large share of people with disabilities.
At the time of its creation, conservatives strongly opposed Medicare, warning that a government-run program would lead to socialism in America:
Ronald Reagan: “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961]
George H.W. Bush: Described Medicare in 1964 as “socialized medicine.” [1964]
Barry Goldwater: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” [1964]
Bob Dole: In 1996, while running for the Presidency, Dole openly bragged that he was one of 12 House members who voted against creating Medicare in 1965. “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare . . . because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” [1965]
Republicans are of course recycling the same fear-mongering rhetoric today in an effort to defeat the public option. As Igor Volsky notes on the Wonk Room, conservatives have attempted in the decades since Medicare’s creation to kill it and force it to “wither on the vine.” While Medicare is not without its problems, it has dramatically improved access to health care, allowed seniors to live longer and healthier lives, helped greatly reduce poverty amongst the elderly, contributed to the desegregation of southern hospitals, and has become one of the most popular government programs.
Obama vs. "Deathers" July 29: Many Republicans are continuing to push the idea that President Obama's healthcare plan is going to "kill people." Is there any lower political tactic than trying to terrify the elderly with death? Democratic National Committee chairman Gov. Tim Kaine, D-VA, joins Rachel Maddow.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Benen: SHOULD WE CALL IT 'REPUBLICAN-ENCOURAGED EUTHANASIA'?...
A provision in the health care reform bill would, as the NYT put it, "provide Medicare coverage for the work of doctors who advise patients on life-sustaining treatment and 'end-of-life services,' including hospice care." It doesn't seem especially controversial.Unless your goal is to deceive the public, that is. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said the provision "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia." Other Republican leaders, including Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Eric Cantor, have repeated the argument, and a wide variety of right-wing lawmakers have told voters the provision might compel the government to kill senior citizens.
Even by conservative standards, the argument is insane. It's extremely common, and has even "made its way into the standard conservative critique of the Democrats' reforms," but it's not in any way grounded in reality.
Those on the right pushing this may not care about the facts, but maybe they care about partisanship?
[I]t turns out a GOP Senator, Susan Collins, sponsored a virtually identical initiative this spring, before this became an anti-reform GOP talking point -- and praised it as necessary to improving our health care system's "care for patients at the end of their lives."
This sharply undercuts the GOP and conservative claim — unless, of course, you believe Collins backed an initiative she thinks could lead to mass government extermination of the elderly. Though this talking point has been debunked multiple times, conservatives and GOP leaders like John Boehner continue to employ it with abandon.
Yes, the not-so-radical idea Republicans hope to exploit was crafted, sponsored, and touted by a sitting Republican senator.
Of course, this only matters if those who want to shamelessly mislead the country care about getting caught. Given the rhetoric from opponents of reform, it's safe to assume they'll keep repeating the "euthanasia" talking point, regardless of it being wrong, and regardless of its Republican origins.
No comments:
Post a Comment