A lot of talking gets done on the Sunday morning shows, so it’s no surprise that a verbal mishap or two might turn up. For instance, yesterday on CNN’s "State of the Union with John King," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky dissed the Democratic health care overhaul bills, saying the American people don’t like them either. McConnell, Jan. 31: We know the public is overwhelmingly against the bill. In the NPR poll last week, 20-point difference. Twenty... Click to Read the Full Post
Summary Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop claims that the United Kingdom’s health care system would consider seniors "too old" to qualify for the artificial joints, heart pacemakers and coronary stent that he’s received in the U.S. U.K. guidelines make clear that patients of "any age" may receive pacemakers, for example. And in fact, official statistics show 47 patients aged 100 or older got new or replacement pacemakers in a single recent year. Koop,... Click to Read the Full Post
Summary President Obama peppered his State of the Union address to Congress and the nation with facts, which were mostly right but sometimes cherry-picked, strained or otherwise misleading. He said “there are about 2 million Americans working right now” because of last year’s stimulus bill. But his own economic advisers say the total could be as little as 1.5 million, and independent estimates range down to as low as 800,000. He quoted the Congressional Budget Office as saying... Click to Read the Full Post
Q: How does health care legislation propose to enforce the individual mandate? A: The Internal Revenue Service would verify whether individuals meet the requirement to have health insurance, and collect a tax if they don’t. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Q: Does the health care bill specifically exempt members of Congress and their staffs from its provisions? A: No. This twisted claim is based on misrepresentations of the House and Senate bills, neither of which exempts lawmakers. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Q: Does the Senate’s health bill contain a provision that can’t be repealed? A: No. It would create an Independent Medicare Advisory Board that could be repealed by a vote of three-fifths of the Senate. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Expect January to be dominated by House-Senate wrangling over the final shape of the gargantuan bill to overhaul the nation’s health insurance system. Some opponents of the measures, though, are readying themselves for another potential fight, this one in the courts. An Arkansas group called the Conservative Action Project says it believes the overhaul is unconstitutional, and it is preparing to sue to stop it from taking effect, according to several conservative blogs (we attempted to reach... Click to Read the Full Post
Summary Although 2009 was not an election year, it kept us exceptionally busy, and led to millions of visits to our site. In this year-end summary, we offer some of the worst examples of the falsehoods we encountered during the first year of the Obama administration. The list of howlers includes the false claim that the stimulus bill would dictate to doctors what procedures they can and can’t perform, and assertions that health care legislation would require seniors to get advice on how to... Click to Read the Full Post
Our latest edition of Extras features doctors going to court to stop a conservative group’s ad, googly eyes and Catholic abortion attacks. Says Who? A television ad from the conservative Rethink Reform, a recently created advocacy arm of the Employment Policies Institute, uses doctors’ opposition to the Senate health care bill to attack the proposed plan. "Many doctors fear new government plans to change our health care system," the ad says. "They understand that... Click to Read the Full Post
Q: What is the difference between a "public option" and a single-payer plan? A: Single-payer is a complete government-run health insurance system under which everyone is covered, e.g., Canada’s system. The "public option" is a single federal insurance plan that would compete with private insurance companies. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
