Obama and Wild Misrepresentations

I agree with President Obama. You should not believe wild misrepresentations.

The health care bill does not mandate end-of-life counseling. Don't believe it when people say it does. The bill only allows Medicare to cover the same sort of end-of-life counseling that most people get already in one form or another, and it's entirely voluntary.

But there are other misrepresentations, too ... mostly from Obama and the Democrats.

Even though Obama insists otherwise, the health care bill does give government control over many peoples' insurance. It gives the government total control -- through the health insurance exchange -- over what individual health insurance options are available, as well as control over any services provided by the new "public option."

The health care bill MAY, in fact, force people to give up insurance they like, despite Obama's claim to the contrary. It's true that no existing health insurance coverage is explicitly killed by the plan, but significant changes (other than adding dependents) cannot be made to existing individual plans, such as to keep the coverage current with modern practices and treatments. And, of course, the public option and the exchange may force existing plans -- maybe one that you like -- out of business.

Therefore, further, it is also a misrepresentation for him to say that the public option will "hold down rates." It can only do so if it forces companies to lower their services to compete, or lower their rates and keep the same services ... and probably go out of business. Either the public option will cost as much as (or more than) existing plans, or it will undercut those plans and hurt them. There's no other two possibilities.

It is also a misrepresentation that if this bill does not pass, we are "doing nothing." If that's true, it's only because the Democrats want it to be true, since they could pass bipartisan health care reform that includes modest insurance regulations (like ending rescission), cost-cutting measures, tort reform, and so on. But they refuse to do it if it is not part of a far-left liberal takeover of a huge part of the health insurance sector.