The public knows the GOP is fibbing

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/24/healthcare/

The public knows the GOP is fibbing

Only Republicans really buy the anti-healthcare reform lies. So why are some Dems settling for such an awful bill?

By Gene Lyons


Sept. 24, 2009 | "I can't tell you how many foreign leaders who are heads of center-right governments say to me, I don't understand why people would call you socialist. In my country, you'd be considered a conservative." -- President Obama, Sept. 20, 2009


There have always been two basic arguments for health insurance reform: one based in morality, the other self-interest. For a documented 45,000 persons to die prematurely in America each year because they can't afford proper care is a national disgrace. Almost everybody apart from "conservatives" whose moral imagination is limited to judging other people's sex lives understands that.

The current cruel, wasteful system is indefensible. Surely that's why almost three-quarters of physicians polled by the New England Journal of Medicine favor genuine reform. About 63 percent of doctors surveyed nationwide support a public option; 10 percent would prefer a single-payer system, basically Medicare for everybody.

For all the hullabaloo, it appears alarmist rhetoric hasn't scared ordinary people as much as it has cable TV anchors. A Bloomberg poll asked which right-wing objections people found legitimate, and which were "scare tactics." Basically, voters rejected GOP rhetoric almost 2-to-1. About 63 percent think Sarah Palin's "death panels" are a distortion, versus 30 percent who fear them. It's 61 to 33 percent on the claim that health reform means government-paid abortions, 58 to 37 percent on the false claim that illegal aliens will get subsidized insurance, etc.

In short, hardcore opposition is mainly confined to the Republican "base," itself increasingly confined to the South. Why has Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, started making conciliatory noises? Consider these remarkable statistics from a Research 2000 poll: Voters in the Northeast overwhelmingly dislike congressional Republicans. The party's favorability rating there is a minuscule 7, yes 7, percent. Moreover, it's a paltry 13 percent in the Midwest; 14 percent in the West. Only in the South is the GOP politically relevant, with a 50 to 37 percent advantage over Democrats.

snip//

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean insists that the bill simply must include a competitive public insurance plan: "Because it's the only thing that works ... If controlling costs, which is part of the president's agenda, is going to happen, you have to have a public option. If you want to get some people insured by 2010, which I think is essential for the future of the Democratic Party, you have to have a public option."

Is that because Dean's a left-wing ideologue?

No, it's because he's a doctor.

[drm604]

1. K&R

:kick:

[appamado amata padam]

2. Haha; love the quote from the President at top of OP - and

hope that maybe our brains will figure out how to drag the rest of our sorry asses into the 21st century.

[tavalon]

3. I don't

That Obama is aware of how conservative he is gives me no comfort.

[appamado amata padam]

6. What I liked about it

was that he seemed to be saying, in an indirect way, that people calling him "Socialist" don't know what they're talking about.

Our President seems to have a very nuanced intellect, in some ways liberal, in some ways conservative. I don't think that's a bad thing. History has shown that any ideology, left or right, can be clung too rigidly to, perverted, and taken to distorted extremes. Maybe a more subtle and varied approach is in order.

[myrna minx]

4. K&R n/t

[unblock]

5. most people understand that they lie. it's not about the truth, it's about the party line.

they understand and value LOYALTY above all else. so if the republicans said "one plus one equals three", their rank and file would repeated it and insist it's true because it's the party line and repeating it shows loyalty to the party. to them "the truth" is whatever their authority figures tell them is true, and is not a subject for experimental verification, reality checks, whatever.

and it's not necessarily that they don't understand the way the rest of us think, or that they don't believe in reality or science. it's that they believe that loyalty is more important. they'll be happy to repeat something contrary to fact if it's the party line.

i think many of them knew, even back in early reagan days, when they were talking about tax cuts bringing in more revenue, that that was a pile of crap. but that didn't matter. it was the party line, and repeating the party line helped them get the tax cut they wanted. supporting their party and getting the tax cut they wanted was more important than being "correct" in an academic sense.

[2Design]

7. I know someone with 4.0 college scores who believes this crap -- it

is beyond me how someone who book learning gives a 4.0 can be so ignorant