Right Wing Noise Machine – Page 2 – The Moral Healthcare Blog

PolitiFact | Mitt Romney says ‘Obamacare’ adds trillions to the deficit

Here, we’re fact-checking Romney’s claim that “Obamacare adds trillions to our deficits and to our national debt.” It’s a topic we’ve researched before.

We asked the Romney campaign for their evidence for this statement, but we didn’t hear back.

For claims about laws that are not yet fully enacted, our go-to source is the Congressional Budget Office. It’s a nonpartisan, widely respected agency with an expert staff that generates projections and reports about how proposed laws affect the federal budget.

The Congressional Budget Office is not always right in its projections. In recent years, for example, it overestimated how much it would cost to cover prescription drugs for seniors in Medicare. The program actually came in under projections.

But for claims about deficits, we consider the Congressional Budget Office, often called the CBO, to be the standard by which we fact-check claims.

The CBO said this about the health care law back in 2010: It lowers the deficit, by about $124 billion over 10 years.

And in 2011, when Republicans offered a bill to repeal the health care law, the CBO said that increased the deficit, by about $210 billion over 10 years.

Now, is the CBO infallible? Certainly not. And good questions have been raised about some of the CBO’s methods in accounting for the health care law’s effects. We reported on some those concerns in great detail in a fact-check of statement from U.S. Rep Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. He said the law was “accelerating our country toward bankruptcy.” We rated that Mostly False.

The CBO itself acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding its estimates. Its reports regularly warn that uncertainty increases as it makes projections farther into the future.

Incivility Is a Partner in Health Care Reform Indicates Benepath CEO | Jul 23, 2012

There is another glitch looming large in the health care system. It is called incivility. “Incivility is the latest, but not the newest, issue to come to the fore in the health care system,” Clelland Green, RHU, CEO, and president of Benepath, Pennsylvania, indicated. “It is not new, but it does seem to be getting worse over time. Medical health professionals hand it out and conversely, put up with it, so it’s a two-way street with a dead end if this keeps escalating.”

Most know incivility to be intimidating, rude, disruptive or unwanted behavior aimed at someone else. It is typically an offensive, hostile or intimidating action that charges the environment in a highly negative manner. It has always been around, but seems to be getting worse. Victims of the potshots taken at them suffer real and distressing symptoms that may include humiliation, stress, depression, anger and an inability to sleep. “Call it what you want, incivility, relational aggression, lateral violence, or call a spade a spade and say that incivility is really bullying, by a slightly nicer name, but not by much,” Green added.

Bullies exist in every walk of life and for those who have the misfortune to run across them, they find themselves on the receiving end of abnormally aggressive actions and behavior that allows the individual to get control and power over others. Bullying exits in the workplace, in groups and in individual interactions. In a medical setting, it may be one nurse bullying another, management bullying a nurse, a nurse bullying a patient and vice versa, and the list goes on.

The hard, cold fact of incivility is that it shreds workplace morale and interferes with patient safety. This type of behavior in a medical setting is far more widespread than we may imagine. The end result of working in this kind of hostile atmosphere is lower productivity, less inclination to take the initiative and fear, anger and stress and an increase in medical malpractice.

The statistics that show that bullying in workplaces across the nation is highly prevalent, with roughly 37 percent affected by it, at least 12 percent who have seen it transpire, 45 percent whose health has been impacted by bullying and a disturbing number of 40 percent who are subjected to it, but do not report it. “As it relates to the medical health profession,” said Green, “the bottom line is civility must be present for there to be professionalism. It is just that simple. Patients do not go to hospital to be subjected to this kind of behavior or attitude. Medical professionals need to get a grip.”

The Conservative Misinformation Campaign About Obamacare Has Worked Really, Really Well | Mother Jones

Andrew Sprung draws my attention to a Kaiser quiz about Obamacare from a few months ago, and you’ll be unsurprised to learn that most Americans don’t know much about it. I put the responses into graphical form, and what’s most interesting, I think, is to look at the right side of the chart: the questions that were most frequently gotten wrong.

All of them are tied together by a single thread: they’ve been the main targets of the conservative misinformation campaign against the Affordable Care Act. The tea party folks have never spent much time talking about low-income subsidies or tax credits or Medicaid expansion or pre-existing conditions. And guess what? Most people know how the law works in those areas.¹

But conservatives do spend a lot of time rabble-rousing about death panels and illegal immigrants and Medicare cuts. And they also spend a lot of time bewailing the “government takeover” of healthcare, which includes things like the public option (“a new government run insurance plan”) and a supposed mandate that small businesses will all be required to offer health insurance for their employees. Sure enough, those are the areas where misunderstanding is highest.

That’s why I disagree with Andrew that misinformation about small businesses amounts to a “foot fault” by current standards of public discourse. In a way, he’s right, of course: it’s not a major flash point and it hasn’t gotten a lot of news coverage. But there’s a reason it’s the single most misunderstood issue. The Rush/Fox/Drudge axis has been screaming about the government takeover of healthcare for three years now, and it’s sunk in. Most people believe it. That’s why, faced with a question most of them really have no idea about, their immediate reaction is to believe that, in fact, government is once again planting its jackboot directly on the necks of America’s small businesses. It’s a small issue, but it’s also a bellwether that the broader conservative misinformation campaign has burrowed very deeply into the American psyche.

AlterNet: 10 Reasons Most People Like Obamacare Once They Know What’s Really In It

There are two Affordable Care Acts. There’s the legislation passed by Congress in 2009, and then there’s the mythical Affordable Care Act – the perfidious “government takeover” decried and demagogued by so many conservatives (and quite a few liberals). The former is quite popular, the latter gets decidedly mixed reviews.

Don’t take my word for it. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found Americans split down the middle, with 41 percent approving of the law, and 40 percent saying they didn’t like it (PDF). But then Kaiser asked about 12 specific provisions in the legislation, and found that, on average, 63 percent of respondents approved of the nuts and bolts of Obamacare. Of the 12 measures they tested, only one – the controversial mandate to carry health insurance or pay a penalty – received the approval of less than half of Americans (35 percent).

Or consider this divide: while only 12 percent of Republicans had a positive view of the law overall, 47 percent, on average, viewed its specifics favorably.

Follow the link to read the ten reasons…

The Ryan proposal compels Americans to buy insurance—just like Obamacare does. – Slate Magazine

Ryan’s roadmap would reshape Americans’ access to health insurance mainly through two provisions, both of which pressure people to purchase private health insurance to an extent and through mechanisms that are materially indistinguishable from the supposedly toxic Obamacare mandate. One of these Ryan proposals—as yet little noticed by pundits or politicians—is almost an exact copy of a provision in the Affordable Care Act. * It would repeal the current exclusion from employees’ income of employer contributions to their health insurance premiums, thus terminating the subsidized employer-sponsored group health regime that covers nearly 60 percent of all Americans. In its place, the Republican plan would substitute a refundable tax credit, to be provided to individuals who purchase health insurance (or to employers who purchase health insurance for their employees). When this new arrangement takes effect in 2022, the tax credit would be set at $2,300 per adult and $1,700 per child, not to exceed $5,700 per family.

Like this Ryancare tax incentive, the “individual mandate” section of the ACA, which the White House calls the “individual responsibility” provision, constitutes a pay-or-play option. Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, when the ACA provision takes effect, individuals who do not qualify for exemption on hardship or other specified grounds, must either carry health insurance or pay a tax penalty as part of their annual income tax filing. The ACA caps individuals’ penalty liability at 2.5 percent of household income above the filing threshold, or a flat dollar amount ranging from $695 to $2,085, depending on family size.

Under both provisions, the result is the same: People who choose to carry health insurance have a lower tax bill than they would if they chose not to. In terms of their respective potential impact on individuals’ bank accounts and tax liability, the manner in which they affect individuals’ financial incentives, and hence the constraining effect on individuals’ financial choices to either buy or forgo health insurance, the two “mandate” provisions are identical. (Indeed, in most cases, the financial difference for the individual taxpayer made by the Republican tax credit would be greater—i.e., more “coercive”—than the ACA tax penalty.)

Sorry, The CBO Did Not Say Health Reform Kills 800,000 Jobs | The New Republic

From Jonathon Chait on the “job killing” myth:

Other provisions in the legislation are also likely to diminish people’s incentives to work. Changes to the insurance market, including provisions that prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people because of preexisting conditions and that restrict how much prices can vary with an individual’s age or health status, will increase the appeal of health insurance plans offered outside the workplace for older workers. As a result, some older workers will choose to retire earlier than they otherwise would. (CBO)

In other words, people who are only working because they desperately need employer-sponsored health insurance will no longer do so. They’re not going on the public dole — they’re just people who have the means not to work full-time and will be free to make employment decisions that aren’t premised upon an individual health insurance market that shuts them out. Some workers will choose to retire early because they now have the ability to buy their own health insurance. This is what Republicans call “destroying jobs.”

Now, CBO does show a very minor effect of higher taxes discouraging the work incentive. But this is a very small portion of what is a fairly small effect to begin with. Basically the analysis shows the effect of giving workers with preexisting conditions access to a health care system that doesn’t lock them into the employer-provided system. Apparently, in the conservative view, being chained to your desk at some big company until you’re 65 and unable to retire or start your own business because the individual market is rife with adverse selection is defined as “freedom.”

George Lakoff: The Wisconsin Blues

Scott Walker was just carrying out general conservative moral policies, taking the next step along a well-worn path.
What progressives need to do is clear. To people who have mixed values — partly progressive, partly conservative — talk progressive values in progressive language, thus strengthening progressive moral views in their brains. Never move to the right thinking you’ll get more cooperation that way.
Start telling deep truths out loud all day every day: Democracy is about citizens caring about each other. The Public is necessary for The Private. Pensions are delayed earnings for work already done; eliminating them is theft. Unions protect workers from corporate exploitation — low salaries, no job security, managerial threats, and inhumane working conditions. Public schools are essential to opportunity, and not just financially: they provide the opportunity to make the most of students’ skills and interests. They are also essential to democracy, since democracy requires an educated citizenry at large, as well as trained professionals in every community. Without education of the public, there can be no freedom.
At issue is the future of progressive morality, democracy, freedom, and every aspect of the Public — and hence the viability of private life and private enterprise in America on a mass scale. The conservative goal is to impose rule by conservative morality on the entire country, and beyond. Eliminating unions and public education are just steps along the way. Only progressive moral force can stop them.
The Little Blue Book is a guide to how to express your moral views and how to reveal hidden truths that undermine conservative claims. And it explains why this has to be done constantly, not just during election campaigns. It is the cumulative effect that matters, as conservatives well know.

Be wary of ad claims about health care law and brace for a wave of more: PolitiFact Ohio | cleveland.com

An independent payment advisory board created by the health care reform law “can ration care and deny certain Medicare treatments.”
Pat Boone makes this claim as the front man for an ad from the 60 Plus Association that aired this spring and targets five Democratic senators, including Ohio’s Sherrod Brown. The law creates a 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board to suggest ways to limit Medicare’s spending growth, but the board may be overruled by Congress, and it makes no decisions about individual care. It is specifically forbidden from making any recommendations that would ration care, reduce benefits, raise premiums or cost-sharing or alter eligibility for Medicare. The 60 Plus Association was spending $720,000 on a campaign in Ohio aimed at Brown when PolitiFact Ohio ran the claim through the Truth-O-Meter and called it Pants On Fire.
The national health care reform is “a government takeover of health care.”
We’ve heard it before — so often that PolitiFact national named it the 2010 Lie of the Year — and we’ll surely hear it again. It has come recently from third-party advocacy ads. While the law gives the federal government a larger role in the health insurance industry, it relies overwhelmingly on the private market. In fact, the reform is projected to increase the number of citizens with private health insurance. PolitiFact has noted that the claim has been proven wrong over and over again. The rating: Pants On Fire.
The Affordable Care Act contains “a series of slush funds, set up to stay on the books automatically, with little or no oversight.”
So said House Speaker John Boehner in a news release and video, and again during debate on college student loan rates. PolitiFact Ohio found that the health care bill provides several pools of money that the secretary of health and human services can disburse for purposes designated by the legislation. But slush funds? Merriam-Webster defines a “slush fund” as “an unregulated fund often used for illicit purposes.” The money in question is designated for programs specifically defined by the law. Congress also has the power to oversee the bill’s implementation. The rating: Pants On Fire.
The health care law “slapped Ohio small businesses with a $500 billion tax increase.”
This statement came from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. PolitiFact Ohio found that the $500 billion figure was a fair number for total revenue raised nationally by the 2010 health care law, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at the time of the December 2009 vote on it. But the number for just taxes is lower, probably between $400 billion and $465 billion. The rest was for various other fees and revenue enhancements, and for all new revenue nationwide — not just for the share to be paid in taxes by small businesses in Ohio. To pick a national number and apply it to one segment of one state is not accurate, simply ridiculous and gets a rating of Pants on Fire.
“Preventive care . . . saves money for families, for businesses, for government, for everybody.” Ad claims in support of the health care law have been exponentially fewer than attacks, but this sweeping claim came from President Obama. Is preventive care a good idea? It can often save lives and keep patients healthier, and certain preventive measures may save money as well. But the findings of the Congressional Budget Office and physicians who have studied the medical literature say otherwise, including a Feb. 14, 2008, article in the New England Journal of Medicine that noted that “the vast majority” of preventive health measures that were “reviewed in the health economics literature do not” save money. The rating: False.
“Obamacare . . . will kill jobs across America.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce made this claim in ads that targeted Brown and other Democrats, and “job-killing” is the standard epithet applied to the health care law by opponents. PolitiFact looked at the best projections available when the claim was raised, based on how the law is actually written, and found that they do not suggest that the law will “kill” jobs. PolitiFact also looked at evidence provided by the Chamber to support its claim, including a brief from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has been critical of the law. When the authors were asked whether their brief supported the claim, they responded that “our paper does not provide evidence that the [health care law] would cause job loss.” The rating: False.
The health care law “will cut $500 billion from Medicare.”
This claim from candidates and advocacy groups has been examined numerous times by PolitiFact national, PolitiFact Ohio and other PolitiFact state operations. The important point there is that $500 billion is not taken out of the current Medicare budget and that nowhere in the bill are benefits eliminated. The $500 billion represents the projected saving by slowing the projected growth in Medicare spending over 10 years. Medicare spending will still increase. The rating: Mostly False.

The Never Ending Health Reform BS Machine

Just at the beginning of the month, I posted at the Doctors for America Blogabout a couple of ridiculous email campaigns that will not die, in spite of how ridiculous they both were and are.

A friend sent me another one this morning, which is actually a YouTube video (link below). The video is based on previously debunked BS email that was going around in 2009, as noted by Snopes. At the time, Politifact covered it, and you can read the debunking here.

Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2012 4:57 AM

Subject: THIS WILL KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF!! Please WATCH!!!

More details on your healthcare bill.

Please watch the entire video…. Then forward it to everyone you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=HcBaSP31Be8&vg=medium (10:29)!

What is most astounding to me is that you can have a steaming pile of BS, like the original letter, and then take the time and effort to turn it into a video without, apparently, using The Google to see if any of it is true! Who does this stuff?