Health Care Reform Bullshit Repellent

FireDogLake has now put together a fact sheet for health care myths. It lists eighteen things people seem to think they know about the health care bill, but don't. I've seen a lot of comments repeating many of the myths in this table, often stating them as facts that are obvious to the casual observer. I think this just goes to show how often casual observers are wrong. The table includes links to articles and references that document or explain each point, although they are footnotes, not links embedded in the text itself.

In the text introducing it, Jane Hamsher dropped this bombshell, courtesy of The this Wall Street Journal article:

While details are limited, there is apparently a “Plan B” alternative that the White House was considering, which would evidently expand existing programs — Medicaid and SCHIP. It would cover half the people at a quarter of the price, but it would not force an unbearable financial burden to those who are already struggling to get by. Because it creates no new infrastructure for the purpose of funneling money to private insurance companies, there is no need for Bart Stupak’s or Ben Nelson’s language dealing with abortion — which satisfies the concerns of pro-life members of Congress, as well as women who are looking at the biggest blow to women’s reproductive rights in 35 years with the passage of this bill. Both programs are already covered under existing law, the Hyde amendment.

But perhaps most profoundly, the bill does not mandate that people pay 8% of their annual income to private insurance companies or face a penalty of up to 2% — which the IRS would collect. As Marcy Wheeler noted in an important post entitled “Health Care on the Road to NeoFeudalism,” we stand on the precipice of doing something truly radical in our government, by demanding that Americans pay almost as much money to private insurance companies as they do in federal taxes[.]

Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill

[emphasis added]

Yes, the Obama Administration could have covered half of us without making us a cash machine for the insurance industry, and it would have cost a lot less. The obvious implication is that they could have found a way to cover the remaining fifteen million who are being forced to buy insurance in some other way, too, and that would have cost perhaps half as much.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

There is also a PDF version, but the links in it don't work for me.

It's well worth the time.