Misinformation

At his town hall yesterday President Obama stated that there is a lot of misinformation floating around about health care reform and this is why support for the plan is dropping. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated this today and blamed the press for the misinformation; but what is the misinformation?

I'm going to do a series of blogs on these issues to delve into them in more detail, but here is an overview of what they are calling misinformation and I call deductive reasoning.

We will go to a single payor system - the leadership keeps telling us that there will not be a single payor system but there will be a public option. However, many of the leaders, Obama included, have previously said that the public option will be the lead to a single payor system. In March 2007 Obama stated that he would not be able to do away with employer paid health benefits immediately but believed we could accomplish a single payor system within ten years. -- Is believing the plan is to get us to a single payor system really misinformation?

The reform will explode the deficit or increase taxes - Obama says it will be deficit neutral but the Congressional Budget Office said it will cost $1 trillion just for start-up. So who is putting out the misinformation? Is it Obama or the CBO?

The Public Option will eliminate private insurance - The leadership says this will be a plan to compete with private insurance and they can work together, however private insurance will have to make a profit while the public option can operate at a loss subsidized by tax-payor dollars. If Medicare was working like private insurance now and not operatiing at a loss then it would cost the government nothing. By expanding a Medicare type benefit to all it is an acknowledgement that it will be subsidized where private insurance will not.

There will be rationing of care - Obama says there will be no rationing and yet his advisors have written papers on who should take priority in the case of a shortage. Also, a government board will be created to determine benefits and what to do when adding 40 million patients to already overloaded physicians.

Abortions will be covered under the government plan - Leadership says this will not happen while other leaders are insisting it will.

Robert Gibbs said this is all a case of he said / she said and this is how the misinformation is getting out there, but considering there is no final bill to work from isn't all we have to go on what people are saying?

What I think I object to most is applying deductive reasoning to the situation and coming to a conclusion and then being told that I'm wrong - that I'm spreading misinformation - and given no facts to back it up.

Term Limits - But That's Unconstitutional

At the townhall Senator Specter was asked to vote for term limits. He sluffed it off saying that the people can subject him to term limits by voting him out, but the usual response to this is that they are unconstitutional. Government takeover of industry is good but term limits are bad. Here are a few things that were unconstitutional until we amended the Constitution to include them.

Amendment XVI - Federal income tax
Amendement XXII - Term limits for the President

I find it interesting that they can amend the constitution to take a third of my paycheck, and they can amend the consititution to limit the term of the president, but limiting their own terms is so sacred that no constitutional amendment could even be considered.

We also have issues that are covered under the Constitution that are ignored. We've been acting as if the 10th amendment was repealed without ever voting to do so. The Legislative and Judicial branches just pretend it doesn't exist. The 10th amendment has very simple wording, perfectly clear and uncomplicated, but we can't seem to understand it.

Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

If we are going to follow the Constitution, as I absolutely believe we should, then we must follow it all and not pick and choose what we will follow and what we will ignore. By picking and choosing we compromise the document as a whole and that is something we cannot afford to happen.

The Tone of Debate

I have been away from the blog for a while writing a novel, but the draft is done, the document sent out for a critique and a literary agent obtained. So now my mind and my time are free to return to the blogosphere which I enjoy so much, and what do I find when I turn my mind back to current events, that people who oppose the Congressional plan for universal health care are unamerican.

The town halls on the subect of health care have become a bit heated; people seeking to be heard screaming down or talking over the hosts and speakers, but is this really unamerican as Nancy Pelosi suggests?

The right to peacably assemble and request a redress of our differences is a protected right under the first amemndment so how can that be unamerican? As long as the protests remain peaceful, they are as American as applie pie and baseball. I believe that people should be polite and respectful during these discussions, but that only works if the other side will listen. When you have been polite, when you have been speaking respectfully and when you have been totally ignored, the need to raise your voice may become your last option so it appears the opposition has two choices before them.

1)speak softly and respectfully and be completely ignored.
2)shout loud and long and be labeled a nut, a nazi or unamerican.

Not much of a choice there is it?

There's something else that really bothers about this whole situation and that is why it is wrong for people of like minded opposition to band together. Why is it a great thing for one side to be organized but wrong for the opposing side to do the same? Why is one side praised for their organization but the other side reviled for theirs? Why does the organization of one side validate their information while the orgnaization of the opposing side discredit theirs?

Discrediting anyone who does not agree appears to be a major theme within the current leadership of both the white house and congress. Both the executive and legislative branches of our government appear to forget that they represent ALL American citizens and that the voices of all of us count.

What purpose is possibly served by claiming that anybody who disagrees is unreasonable and unamerican? What does that do to smooth the ruffled feathers of the descenters? And what is actually being done to address the concerns of the dissenters? Oh, right, what's being done is to disregard their concerns and call them names. Good plan.