John Hawkins

The aftermath of Joe Wilson shouting out "You lie" at a shameless liar in the midst of a shameless lie about health care has turned out to be one of the most Orwellian moments in recent memory.


But then, a funny thing happened: the Senate started working to close the loophole that Wilson pointed out. You know, the one that allowed illegal aliens to get coverage. Soon thereafter, the White House quietly followed the Senate's lead and started backing that provision.

Meanwhile, the liberal netroots, which had almost unanimously said Joe Wilson was the liar, started yelling at the top of their lungs that the bill shouldn't be changed to fix a problem they claimed didn't exist 24 hours earlier.

Unfortunately, this sort of deception has been the rule, not the exception in the Democrats' health care push. In fact, Barack Obama has sold health care by saying, in effect, "Anybody who has anything negative to say about health care reform is just spreading myths."

It's a shame that Barack Obama has chosen to go this way, because our health care system does desperately need to be reformed and conservatives would be very willing to work with the Democrats to do it. In fact, in a recent poll of 74 conservative bloggers, every single one of them said that they'd be "willing to support health care reform that primarily emphasized market based reforms." If Obama were to take that approach or even if he were to simply focus on helping the 8-10 million Americans who want health insurance but can't afford it, I suspect he'd have no trouble at all getting strong bipartisan support for a bill.

Instead, we're being fed a steady diet of deception by the very same politicians who are telling us to "trust them" while they take over 1/6th of the US economy. So, if there are any other Republicans in Congress who can take the heat, there are a lot of other lies about health care that still need to be addressed.


2) Republicans haven't suggested a plan for health care: Republicans have actually submitted 35 plans.

3) The public option won't put the insurance industry out of business and lead to a government takeover of health care: Of course, it will. That's the whole purpose of putting it in the bill. Don't take my word for it, listen to Barney Frank explain it in his own words.

4) Medicare won't be cut to fund this health care bill: Actually, there are $500 billion in cuts to Medicare planned to help pay for this bill.

5) The health care plan won't add "one dime to our deficits either now or in the future." There is simply no bill that fits that description winding its way through Congress. According to the neutral Congressional Budget Office, the House bill adds $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years -- and even those numbers rely on very unlikely streams of revenue coming into the program. Moreover, the CBO only estimates numbers 10 years out. Over the long haul, all evidence points to costs skyrocketing into the stratosphere just as Social Security and Medicare have over time.

6) Preventative care will be required in these bills and it'll save money: Studies show that preventative care increases, not decreases costs. That's not only because of the cost of the tests, but because it leads to large numbers of people being treated for potential problems that would never end up coming to fruition.

7) Health care reform will help create more jobs: That's simply not true. According to the Natural Federation of Independent Businesses, this health care bill would wipe out 1.6 million jobs.

8) Abortion won't be covered under the bill: Unless the bill specifically says abortion isn't covered, it's covered by default. Abortion is not mentioned in the House bill and thus, is covered.

9) This bill won't lead to rationing of health care and people being denied life saving operations: Of course, it will. Barack Obama himself has even alluded to it with his famous, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller" quip. In nations like Canada and Britain, long waits for surgeries and people being denied proven life saving operations for financial reasons is commonplace. How can anyone believe that we're going to copy their system and not have the same result?

10) Obama's "Plan" doesn't have these problems you're talking about: Obama hasn't submitted any sort of plan to Congress. In other words, there is no special Obama plan. His only "plan" is to sign anything that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can push through Congress.

At the end of the day, there's only one question you need to ask yourself to decide whether you should support health care reform: Do you trust Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and the army of bureaucrats in DC enough to allow them to make life altering medical decisions for you and your children? If not, then it's time to stand up, speak out, and take action before this bill is passed and irrevocably changes our country.

John Hawkins
