That’s what the GOP must mean. The GOP doesn’t want our health care bill to allocate money to help the youth in Asia. Why should we? Asia can take care of its own youth.
Uh oh. The GOP is talking about euthanasia. The health care bill doesn’t promote euthanasia. That’s wrong and stupid and a scare tactic. If only the GOP were only against helping the youth in Asia, I would feel bad for them. Now, I hate them.
(My sister guest-blogged with me on this entry. Thanks, sis.)
SO, scare tactics abound. I have lots of questions:
Ok, ok, ok.
IT WILL COST A LOT. BUT DOING NOTHING WILL COST MORE.
See excerpts of article from the Associated Press — August 2, 2009
WASHINGTON – Confusing claims and outright distortions have animated the national debate over changes in the health care system. Opponents of proposals by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats falsely claim that government agents will force elderly people to discuss end-of-life wishes. Obama has played down the possibility that a health care overhaul would cause large numbers of people to change doctors and insurers.
A look at some claims being made about health care proposals:
CLAIM: The House bill “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia,” House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said July 23.
Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey said in a July 17 article: “One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years … about alternatives for end-of-life care.”
THE FACTS: The bill would require Medicare to pay for advance directive consultations with health care professionals. But it would not require anyone to use the benefit.
Advance directives lay out a patient’s wishes for life-extending measures under various scenarios involving terminal illness, severe brain damage and situations. Patients and their families would consult with health professionals, not government agents, if they used the proposed benefit.
CLAIM: Health care revisions would lead to government-funded abortions.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says in a video, “Unless Congress states otherwise, under a government takeover of health care, taxpayers will be forced to fund abortions for the first time in over three decades.”
THE FACTS: The proposed bills would not undo the Hyde Amendment, which bars paying for abortions through Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor. But a health care overhaul could create a government-run insurance program, or insurance “exchanges,” that would not involve Medicaid and whose abortion guidelines are not yet clear.
Obama recently told CBS that the nation should continue a tradition of “not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care.”
The House Energy and Commerce Committee amended the House bill Thursday to state that health insurance plans have the option of covering abortion, but no public money can be used to fund abortions. The bill says health plans in a new purchasing exchange would not be required to cover abortion but that each region of the country should have at least one plan that does.
Congressional action this fall will determine whether such language is in the final bill.
CLAIM: Americans won’t have to change doctors or insurance companies.
“If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won’t have to do a thing,” Obama said on June 23. “You keep your plan; you keep your doctor.”
THE FACTS: The proposed legislation would not require people to drop their doctor or insurer. But some tax provisions, depending on how they are written, might make it cheaper for some employers to pay a fee to end their health coverage. Their workers presumably would move to a public insurance plan that might not include their current doctors.
CLAIM: The Democrats’ plans will lead to rationing, or the government determining which medical procedures a patient can have.
“Expanding government health programs will hasten the day that government rations medical care to seniors,” conservative writer Michael Cannon said in the Washington Times.
THE FACTS: Millions of Americans already face rationing, as insurance companies rule on procedures they will cover.
Denying coverage for certain procedures might increase under proposals to have a government-appointed agency identify medicines and procedures best suited for various conditions.
Obama says the goal is to identify the most effective and efficient medical practices, and to steer patients and providers to them. He recently told a forum: “We don’t want to ration by dictating to somebody, ‘OK, you know what? We don’t think that this senior should get a hip replacement.’ What we do want to be able to do is to provide information to that senior and to her doctor about, you know, this is the thing that is going to be most helpful to you in dealing with your condition.”
CLAIM: Overhauling health care will not expand the federal deficit over the long term.
Obama has pledged that “health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it.”
THE FACTS: Obama’s pledge does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase Medicare fees for doctors. The White House says the extra payment, designed to prevent a scheduled cut of about 21 percent in doctor fees, already was part of the administration’s policy.
Beyond that, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the House bill lacks mechanisms to bring health care costs under control. In response, the White House and Democratic lawmakers are talking about creating a powerful new board to root out waste in government health programs. But it’s unclear how that would work.
Budget experts also warn of accounting gimmicks that can mask true burdens on the deficit. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says they include back-loading the heaviest costs at the end of the 10-year period and beyond.
********************************************************************************************
GOP, your move.
In another blog entry, I begged the news outlets to talk about the news. Not that anyone is listening to me, but Wolf Blitzer did start talking about the health care debate.
His guest pundit: Bill Maher.
We need to make some distinctions, here:
SCHNEWS — a program that focuses more on the interpersonal relationship of the newscasters. Example: AC 360
ENTERNEWSMENT — is a show that starts out as comedy show, reality show and ACTUALLY provides news: Example: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
DRIVEL — everything else.
Just like Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, the Second 100 Days is a creation of the 24-hour news RE-cycle.
The challenges we face as a nation cannot be meaningfully calibrated to a 100-day meter. Life is not a 2 hour action movie, during which the hero and heroine vanquish the menacing threat to our planet and have a steamy sex scene to celebrate a hard day’s work of keeping us safe.
Pundits think that the citizens of our great country don’t have the attention span to consider the issues. That we can only think in sound bites. That scare tactics will taint our thinking. That we believe that a government can plausibly be measured in 100-day increments. That the media is keeping government honest as opposed to creating high ratings.
I know we are smarter.
Obama hit the BIG KUMBAYA with Officer Crowley and Professor Gates.
Even those commentators who rail against Obama actually complimented him. I don’t really know how I feel about it because the president cannot settle every dispute and he is not the Referee-In-Chief. So, maybe it was a teachable moment in do-it-yourself mediation, preferably with some form of social lubricant or liquid confidence.
So, here is the lesson. IT WASN’T ABOUT OBAMA. It is about two people who need and WANT a forum to work things out. And that makes Officer Crowley and Professor Gates the true stars of this summit. This was a racially/socially/politically charged event and the two in the middle reached across the divide and set an example for a nation.
So, in that vein, Rosie O’Donnell made an overture to the Donald, which he turned down in a way in his typical fashion. He was offensive. Rosie, nice gesture, but don’t wait for Donald. He doesn’t have the right stuff.
Ann Coulter, please go back under the rock where you’ve been hiding. On Larry King just now, your claim that racial profiling is a hoax is based on two unfortunate episodes of two black kids trying to avoid punishment by saying they were assaulted by whites. Ok, setting aside the history of whites falsely accusing non-whites of assault, etc., what you’ve said has nothing to do with racial profiling. What irks me the most about you is that you make no sense. I am guessing that you can’t the argument on the merits, on facts and on logic. So, instead you deflect and divert attention from these shortcomings.
But, this is America, Ann, so talk. I just turned off the TV. But you caused me to rant and so you’ve won — for now. I am the ultimate winner, because I will never have to wake up and be Ann Coulter. That is your punishment.
I don’t drink beer. After four years of smelling mung beer in fraternity basements in college, the mere suggestion of beer makes my nose hair curl.
Have a beer with the President? You bet. What, my strong aversion to beer? Nah, dude. If that is my ticket to have a sit down with the most powerful man in the nation (who happens to have the cutest ears in the nation), then, what me, an anti-beerist? I’d even drink a rusty can of Rheingold circa 1969 if it gets me on the patio in the Rose Garden.
So, as I see it, here is how I need to orchestrate my 45 minutes with the Big Guy. I have to do something outrageous that actually sparks outrage. (I do outrageous stuff all the time, but no one seems to care.) It has to threaten the kumbaya veneer of society in a menacing, yet ultimately not physically harmful, way. Then it has to be on the 24-hour news RE-cycle, just in time for a Presidential press conference where the President is tired and talking about really important things critical to the nation’s future. Then, with seconds to go before he gets to leave the press room, have his make-up washed off and kick back with Michelle, a friend with press credentials has to ask about my incident. Hopefully, he will be annoyed and the incident will touch a chord in him and he will have an authentic, I-am-human-and-I-have-unscripted-opinions moment. POUNCE!! I got my beer.
So, here is my checklist to close this deal:
Of course Obama’s ratings are going down. The real issues facing our nation are complicated and the choices are hard. And good compromise means no person or constituency gets everything he or it wanted. Including the President and the Republicans.
The debate should be about facts. Not scare tactics. Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist. Why, because he had a visceral reaction to an incident involving Professor Gates? Glenn Beck had a visceral reaction to President Obama’s statement. Let’s look at this: Obama’s reaction caused him to say that police acted “stupidly”. Glenn Beck’s reaction is to call Obama a racist. Who over-reacted? Hmmmmm.
But all this did was divert attention from the issues. We don’t have time for this nonsense. But at least Glenn Beck’s reaction shows that the right can’t counter President Obama’s plans and policies on the facts.
The 24 hour news REcycle needs information to feed the machine it created. If there is no news, then the machine requires that the hosts “dig deeper” to create news or to raise ancillary issues to the level of important news. Michael Jackson and Jon and Kate are not as important as (although they are very important to those who love them) news items as are the recent North Korean alleged shipment of arms to Myanmar, the election issues in Iran, the health care bill, the economy and about ten other issues that have fallen into the news black hole.
True, the newspapers are not necessarily heroic purveyors of important information — they were complacent about the Iraq war.
But the pressures of a 24-hour newsday does not encourage in-depth journalism. Just because a headline ran over cable the night before doesn’t mean that the news is stale the next day. Headlines do not contain all of the information one needs to know. News is not like an iPod or a Nintendo game — good until the next version comes out. A news story evolves as people and movements weigh in and complicate the issues.
I prefer newspapers. I prefer articles that have taken a week in creation. They are more informative, more textured and better considered than the regurgitation of the same pat phrases heard on television journalism. But they are not gospel. So, one needs to read many sources, including some representing the opposite side of one’s general political leanings.
If independent newspapers become obsolete, the free flow of information will be drastically curtailed in our society and that is a threat to our freedoms and liberty. And if it happens, I will get my news from Jon Stewart.