As the debate over national health care reform has grown increasingly heated, it's become more and more difficult to separate fact from fiction based on newspaper accounts alone, despite journalists' best efforts. In that spirit, here are a few points people should know the truth about before reform comes up for final votes in Congress.
When you or a loved one is incapacitated near the end of life and unable to make decisions, would you like to have your family involved in making the relevant decisions about your care or making sure your wishes are carried out? Some versions of health care reform bills encourage doctors to offer counseling to help you prepare for this type of situation. If you support that, you should support health care reform - and you should definitely ignore disingenuous or misinformed opponents of reform who try to scare you with bogus stories about so-called "death panels."
Next time you're choosing an insurance plan, would you like to be restricted to private plans that may or may not keep your best interests above their profit interests? Or would you rather add in the option of a public health insurance plan with a government mandate to cut your costs? With a public option, you can't lose - you can have that public plan, or you can have your same choice of private plans, only now they re competing with the public plan. The choice would be yours.
Some versions of health care reform contain language about eligibility for health care that is similar to language found in George W. Bush s Medicare Part D bill from 2003. As any reasonable person would expect, this language restricts eligibility to U.S. citizens and those living in America legally. Yet many of the very same Republicans who voted for Bush s Medicare bill now oppose Obama s health care reform because they wrongly claim it would give benefits to people who are in America without proper legal paperwork. These claims don't add up, and they deserve to be ignored.
A number of the misconceptions out there about health care reform can be traced to the powerful lobbying and misinformation campaigns of the very industry with the most to lose when the system gets fixed - the private insurance companies who are taking advantage of current holes in regulations. If it sounds too bad to be true, it probably isn't true.
Polls show that most people who find out the truth about these myths support health care reform, and I'm confident the readers of your newspaper will be no different. Please make sure everyone knows the truth.
Dr. C.M. Hair
Kennesaw
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Since we have both identified each other's source of talking points, (me: Kos and Huffington ), you:
Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh, I think we have identified the problem..we are both to polar in opinions and ideas. I am for cost containment, but how does that happen under the current mode?..how do small business stay in business when healthcare costs are doubling for employees every few years?, and thats under the free market system. A public option would provide competition where there is none...and yes, let insurance companies compete across state lines, and how about tort reform, capping malpractice suits so obgyn's don't have to shutter their doors for fear of lawyers and practice ending lawsuits?
There's a lot to be done for the good, because it ain't working the way it is..maybe we can all stop the divisive nature of the discussion and work towards a set of solutions/
When the Palin Good Squad insists there is something in the bill, tell them SHOW ME WHERE.
Pull up the bill from the Congress website, not some nutty right winger website. Then have them SHOW ME WHERE.
Accusations without citations are baseless!
You think something EVIL is in the bill?
SHOW ME WHERE
You list 4 points, but offer no proof just conservative based talking points gleaned from the last Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh tirade.
Did you know the average American ( and his employer ) pay 13 thousand a year for health care coverage?, and that is predicted to rise to over 24 thousand within a decade?..who is paying for that?..no wonder jobs are moving overseas, and wages are static. The current crisis is strangling employers.
The record in other health care nationalized programs?, look at Japan, Norway, Sweden..all citizens are provided with great healthcare, with the total healthcare cost to the economy about 30 percent less per capita.