The 111 GOP Lies About Health Care Reform – Yes!

My title is meant to be provocative, but after you’ve read it, I’m sure you’ll agree its on point. As to the health care bill itself, yes, it is flawed.  If we can’t admit that, then we are fooling ourselves.

Oh, the Video – it’s now a few months old, and maybe a bit over the top, but still worth hearing.  And unlike what opponents have said, this one is earnest, and mostly in the service of truth.

So, on the the reform bill, having looked forward to genuine reform, I am sorely disappointed.  But even in my dismay, I still support the bill because I believe that once it is passed and becomes law, that it will be improved over time, as real Americans (who vote!) react to it.  A few of our more important social programs have been improved over time – Social Security for one, and Medicare for another.  But as much as I believe that the bill is the best we can get right now, I also believe that honest opposition is reasonable.  An example of honest opposition is the concern that we can’t afford reform right now.  I disagree – but it is a reasonable fear.  But Republican opposition has not been honest, instead, the attacks have ranged from misleading to being outright lies.  And yes, I know that’s politics, but if that’s all it is, let’s stop the “god and country” tone that colors the GOP’s line of bullshit, and recognize demagoguery for what it is.

The pile of GOP bullshit is so large now that to comment about its overall quality would first require a team to process the data and then run down the facts, though “Fact Checking” would be easier, since most of the misstatements are brazen.  An example is the flap about death panels – it was simply untrue that the bill created death panels.  Sadly, even generally honest senators, like Chuck Grassley allowed the lie to grow by crafting careful statements that were “true” in the strictest sense, but had a deceitful purpose.

With so much to review, I decided to highlight just one, the recent claim that the Democrats plan would create “111 new boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs.”   It’s a strong criticism and suggests a Washington DC chock full of bureaucrats with their fingers in every slice of the health care pie.  And where will they work?  I imagine a Washington DC building boom.

So what is the real story?

I selected a sampling of 10% of the list of offending items – selected without editing from the GOP’s own website, gop.gov.  I also picked items in succession, so that anyone could see that I wasn’t cherry picking.  It turns out the list is simply a highlight of the sorts of details one might see in any complex contract or business deal.  For example, items 8 through 13 are devoted to Health Insurance Exchanges:

• Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 155)
• Program for technical assistance to employees of small businesses buying Exchange coverage (Section 305(h), p. 191)
• Mechanism for insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194)
• Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 307, p. 195)
• State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 308, p. 197)
• Grant program for health insurance cooperatives (Section 310, p. 206)

Items 27 to 31 are concerned with skilled nursing:

• Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1412(b)(1), p. 784)
• Quality assurance and performance improvement program for nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(2), p. 786
• Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1413(a)(3), p. 796)
• Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 1413(b)(3), p. 804)
• National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 1422, p. 859)

A complex bill like the health care reform act is one will need to include definitions for all of the various eligible providers whose services are covered in insurance plans that meet the federal guidelines – additional provisions will be required to specify covered procedures.  And naturally, funding would need to be detailed.

The claim that the bill creates 111 new bureaucracies etc is an outright lie under any reasonable system of critical judgment.  That’s too bad.  Many of the GOP’s congressmen and senators have years of experience in crafting legislation, and their reasonable voices would have been useful.  They opted instead to lay down a smokescreen that has but one object, to destroy any chance that the bill would pass.  We will soon find out if they will succeed.  But if the bill is defeated, it will not be an honorable victory.

Oh, one more thing, yes,  the GOP has created a health care alternative.  But its a fraud.  It does almost nothing but helps spend federal money to assist states in assembling websites to aggregate information about available insurers. The intention of the bill is that somehow state average health insurance premiums may go down, and if they do, (I think) some federal money is available.  But how premiums go down – is not specified, and after skimming through it, I can see that this little bill does not do the job.
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