While many would like to see the proposed U.S. health care reform, if not a much stronger version of it, passed, Republican objections are understandable, particularly with individualistic and anti-government nature of U.S. culture and politics taken into account. The legislation is not perfect, and there are a number of fair arguments to be made against it, but these arguments must be made in good faith, and they must be predicated on facts, not myths and blatant lies.
On Dec. 24 the U.S. Senate approved its health care reform bill by a vote of 60-39, bringing the debate that has defined Barack Obama’s first year in office closer to resolution. The House of Representatives passed similar legislation on Nov. 7 by a vote of 215-200. The bills will now be sent to a conference committee, where representatives from the Senate and House will work to combine the two pieces of legislation. The most obvious difference is that the House bill calls for a government-run insurance plan (a “public option”), and the Senate bill does not.
Democrats argue that health care reform is a moral imperative given the tens of millions of Americans lacking coverage, and an economic necessity given rapidly increasing costs. Republicans primarily take issue with the expansion of government that the reform will entail, which they argue is economically unsustainable, and that the bill will require individuals to obtain coverage or be fined, which they see as encroaching on civil liberties.
On Dec. 14, Republican senator John Thune stated during a speech to the Senate floor that “every American family is going to be paying, starting next year, $600 a year up to the year 2013.” This is simply not true. The fact is that the majority of tax increases won’t begin until 2013 and only major tax increase that would come into effect this year is a five per cent surtax on voluntary plastic surgery.
Democratic senator Al Franken, who spoke after Thune, paraphrased his brief conversation with Thune regarding the speech: “I said, ‘I didn’t hear your whole speech.’ And he went, ‘Oh, man, that’s too bad.’ I said, ‘Did you actually happen to mention any of the benefits that do kick in right away?’ And he said, ‘Ah, no.’ Again, we are entitled to our own opinions. We’re not entitled to our own facts. Benefits kick in right away.”
Ironically, Franken’s later assertion that “the majority of benefits kick in on day one,” was also false. He was correct that a fair amount do, but the U.S. Congressional Budget Office—a non-partisan federal agency that serves a purpose similar to that of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer—has stated that the majority of the bill’s benefits begin in 2014.
House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio has stated that the House health care reform bill “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia,” that the Senate health care bill will “levy a new ‘abortion premium’ fee on Americans in the government-run plan,” and that the Democrats’ plan will “[force] Americans off of their current health coverage and onto a government-run plan.” None of those statements are true, and while Boehner has displayed a particularly flagrant disinterest in facts (all the more shameful given his title), his statements represent just the tip of an iceberg of misinformation floating around the health care debate.
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah beautifully summed up everything wrong with the debate when he complained that the bill, which he has claimed could lead to the end of the two-party system in America, is too long. “It is 2,074 pages long. It is enough to make you barf.” What Hatch and other members of congress have failed to realize is that part of their job is to read and understand the legislation so they can represent their constituents’ interests. Not since the Social Security Act of 1965 has such a huge overhaul of American social policy been so close to fruition, and it’s no surprise that the bill is as long as it is. Ignorance is no defence.
Congress, like court, is predicated on the idea that all involved are telling the truth. When congressmen no longer appear to be acting in good faith, debate becomes nothing more than a platform for competitive lying, real progress becomes more and more improbable, and the public’s trust in not only their representatives, but the entire system, erodes. American citizens—especially those whose lives lie in the balance—should be treated with the respect they deserve.
