Betsy McCaughey

via Tackling Myths, Lies About Health Care Reform and Older Americans to Get to the Truth – AARP Bulletin Today.
By: Patricia Barry | Source: AARP Bulletin Today | August 14, 2009

Deathers

It has been a wild and woolly August for President Obama and his herculean task of turning our already overburdened ship of state around toward a more sensible and fair health system. But he has not been entirely clear with the American public about specifics that must be included in the bill and has left it up to Congress to hash out the mechanics of the turnaround. This has opened the door for skepticism. Wild statements of fear have been promulgated from the top and down through the ranks by the insurance lobby, who stand the most to loose by a change in insurance regulations, and the talking points have quickly spread to the bottom where all the radical right-wing extremists shout things like “Obama is a socialist” and “kill him”.

It is important that we pause, take a breath, and think. We must stop spreading myths about health care reform and start disseminating some truth. From the above linked article in the AARP Bulletin, September 2009.

…But this summer something new has entered the political arena—a tsunami of rumors, myths, fear-mongering and misinformation about the proposals that surges around the Internet in nanoseconds. “I’m totally confused about what’s going on,” one reader wrote to the AARP Bulletin. “How do I know who to believe?”

“What we’re seeing is a flood of viral content that distorts the Obama effort to reform health care,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, who codirects www.FactCheck.org, a website that examines questionable claims from all sides of the political spectrum.

Since the  White House has not unequivocally itemized the tenants of what health care reform will be, as mentioned before, there has been an opportunity by the right-wing to define the much needed reform in their image. High powered lobby efforts from AHIP and others have spread vitriolic myths and rumors in an effort to stop the whole process. The right-wing, once again, decides to obstruct legislation rather than offer concrete ideas.

This fall will see the merging of two separate bills in the Senate, and a floor vote on the House bill, H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act. One Senate bill called the Affordable Health Choices Act produced by the HELP Committee includes the “public option” that can be defined as “government backed insurance” an option that would compete with private insurance to keep prices low. The other Senate bill which will be finalized soon by the Senate Finance Committee after the return from vacation on September 8th, is not expected to contain a public option. The House bill also contains a public option. It is important that the myths and fear-mongered rumors that have gone viral be compared to the actual language of these bills.

I applaud the AARP for tackling some of these wild myths and rumors, and am especially thankful that they are an organization that has the interests of our elderly and retired community at the core of their advocacy.

AARP has weighed in by debunking some of the myths in a Q & A format:

Q. Will the government take over health care so we end up with socialized medicine?

No. Neither the president nor the congressional committees have suggested anything remotely resembling a government takeover of health care.

Obama has specifically rejected the idea of a “single payer” system, like Canada’s, in which the government insures all citizens. None of the leading proposals in Congress even considers going down this road—a fact that has brought strong protests from some consumer and doctor groups that favor this approach. And although Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has long called for a “Medicare for All” program, this is not included in proposals from the Senate health committee that he chairs.

Where did this myth come from? Opponents of reform constantly use the term “government-run health care” to disparage the reform proposals, despite the popularity and success of existing government-run programs like Medicare.

What do the proposals say? Obama has proposed setting up a single “public plan”—available only to those without employer insurance—to provide a voluntary alternative to the many private plans that offer individual health insurance.

Q. Will private insurance be outlawed or wither on the vine?

No. Obama and the congressional committees say their objective is to build on the current system—keeping employer-sponsored group insurance and giving more consumer protections to people who are employed by small businesses or buy insurance as individuals.

Where did this myth come from? Currently 177 million people have employer or individual insurance. The issue caught fire after the Lewin Group, a research consulting firm owned by United Health Group, estimated that 119 million of them would switch to a public plan, if everybody were allowed to join it. But the proposals actually exclude those with employer insurance from the public plan.

What do the proposals say? Each of the proposals calls for national or regional heath insurance exchanges that would allow people without employer or public insurance and small employers to choose from a menu of private insurance plans (and a public option, if there is one), with online information to help compare them.

Q. Will the government encourage euthanasia to save costs?

No. This false but scary idea—now surging around the Internet in blogs and e-mails—claims that the House bill would require Medicare beneficiaries to have mandatory classes every five years to decide how to end their lives earlier. Typical e-mails add: “They’re going to push suicide to cut Medicare spending!” All identify page 425 of the bill as their source.

Where did this myth come from? On July 16, Betsy McCaughey, a former Republican lieutenant governor of New York [and a paid spokesperson of a health industry think tank] , appeared on a conservative radio show. Citing page 425, she said: “Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner … all to do what’s in society’s best interest.”

On July 23, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, leader of the House Republicans, issued a statement saying: “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law.” On Aug. 7, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin described the proposal as setting up a “death panel.”

What does the proposal say? The clause on page 424 (section 1233) would require Medicare to pay doctors for their time if beneficiaries chose to consult them for information on advance care planning, such as making a living will, appointing a health proxy, and hospice care (already covered by Medicare). Medicare would pay for these sessions only once every five years.

Q. Will Medicare be eliminated or gutted to pay for reform?

No. It’s inconceivable that any lawmaker would commit political suicide by proposing to get rid of Medicare. But the rumor has fast gained ground.

Where did this myth come from? Dick Morris, a political commentator, posted an article on his blog that began: “Obama’s health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it.”

What do the proposals say? It’s true they all seek to save billions from Medicare costs—not by cutting benefits, but by setting up new ways to pay doctors more fairly and to reward providers for quality of care instead of (as now) paying them a fee for each separate service; reducing waste and fraud; and reducing preventable hospital readmissions.

Q. Will the government ration care?

No. But the specter of “rationing” is the battle cry of reform opponents. They say people in their 90s, 80s or even 70s will be deemed “too old” for joint replacements and cancer care—and even, in one persistent rumor, that “Obama​care” would deny treatment to people going blind in one eye as long as their other eye still works.

Where did this myth come from? It’s part of the “government takeover” argument, playing on often inaccurate beliefs that countries with national health systems severely ration care. In a widely circulated memo, political consultant Frank Luntz offered Republicans language that he believed would most resonate with Americans to defeat the Democrats’ push for reform. He suggested they say: “In countries with government run healthcare, politicians make your healthcare decisions. They decide if you’ll get the procedure you need … We can’t have that in America.”

What do the proposals say? In fact, they seek to prevent denial of care. Under every proposal, insurance companies would no longer be able to deny coverage on the basis of current health or preexisting medical conditions.

Where to go for the facts on health care reform proposals:

The following websites are run by nonpartisan organizations with no stake in the proposals:

• The Kaiser Family Foundation’s side-by-side comparison of the details of the leading proposals
• The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s fact checker
• Politifact.com’s Truth-O-Meter