Why Are Republican Members Of Congress Lying About Health Care Reform? Let's Take Mary Bono-Mack, For Example

Connie & Mary oppose health care for us but tax dollars pay for all the health care they need or want

As we mentioned, Thursday night saw the last of the House committees, Energy and Commerce, dealing with the health care reform issues come up with a proposal. Five conservative Democrats and every single Republican on the committee, earned some extra credit from the Medical-Industrial Complex lobbyists and Insurance company CEOs by voting no-- including a conservative California congresswoman who portrays herself as a moderate, Mary Bono-Mack. Bono-Mack joined corrupt, far right obstructionists Roy Blunt (MO), Nathan Deal (GA), John Shadegg (AZ), Marsha Blackburn (TN) and Phil Gingrey (GA), et al in confirming the "Party of No" image that has turned voters off to Republicans in record numbers.

Bono-Mack has taken in $414,088 from the Medical Sector plus another $58,700 from Big Insurance and is counting on their lobbyists to help pay the costs of a tough re-election campaign next year against popular Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet. Riverside County has been one of the most economically hard hit counties in California by Bush era GOP economic policies. Although it is her husband Connie Mack's district in Florida that has the worst foreclosure crisis in the U.S. (35,134 foreclosures so far-- with 116,979 projected over the next four years), CA-45, represented by Bono-Mack is 25th in the country and 4th worst in California with 15,328 foreclosures to date and another 51,033 projected over the next four years. Hers is a district where the rich are doing fine but where regular middle class families are feeling the squeeze.

When the Center For American Progress looked at the need for health care reform in California, the problems they encountered statewide are greatly amplified in the Inland Empire counties-- Riverside and San Bernardino. Their findings for California:

• 2190 residents of California are losing health insurance every day, and 14,000 Americans nationwide lose insurance daily.

• The average family premium in California costs $1,400 more because our system fails to cover everyone-- and $1,100 more nationally.

• Our broken health insurance system will cost the California economy as much as $36.7 billion this year in productivity losses due to the uninsured-- and up to $248 billion nationally.

• In California there has been a 13 percent increase in the uninsured rate since 2007.

• 7,700,000 are uninsured today in California.

• In California the combined market share of the top two insurers is 44 percent, limiting employers’ and families’ health insurance options as well as the care they receive.

• The average family premium will rise from $13,280 to $22,660 by 2019 in California without health care reform.

• In California, without health care reform, 995,200 will have lost coverage from January 2008 to December 2010.

• In California, 3,317,000 people would gain coverage as a result of the House health care reform bill by 2013, and 5,337,000 would gain coverage by 2019.

• A typical California family will pay $22,660 for health coverage in 2019 without health care reform.

Nonetheless Bono-Mack has decided to stick with her political party and with her big corporate donors and screw over her own constituents once again. Insurance companies, conservatives and her party have nothing substantive to say about health care reform so they're just making up lies and using typical right-wing fear and smear tactics to confuse voters.

Hey, did you know that on page 425 of Barack Obama's health care bill, it mandates that everyone on Social Security MUST get counseling every five years to learn about ways to commit suicide?

And did you know that health care will be denied based on age?

And did you know that you won't be able to pay for your own health care even if you can afford it, because that "wouldn't be fair" to those who can't?

Well, neither did I, but there may be a good reason for that: None of the above is true.

That, of course, isn't stopping the far right wing from circulating the above as gospel in its efforts to derail the passage of meaningful health care reform in this country, health care reform that Democrats have been trying to pass since Harry Truman was president more than 50 years ago, but that Republicans have been successfully stonewalling every year since then.

...Health insurance in this country is a for-profit business. You give your health insurance company money every week, and they're supposed to pay your medical bills when they come due. In order to make money, the health insurance companies need to take in more of your money than they put out to cover your bills.

So the health insurance companies focus on two things to increase profitability: First, they try to make you pay as much money as possible IN. Second, they try to pay as little as possible back OUT. As you can see, their first priority really isn't your good health.

Obama's health care reform is a direct threat to the profitability of health insurance companies. Obama's health care reform, he hopes, would include a public health option whereby the federal government would administer a health care program for people who didn't want, for whatever reason, to get their health care insurance from a private company.

This would be competition for the health insurance companies.

So, in order to compete, health insurance companies would have to tighten their belts, would have to figure out ways to provide better health care at lower cost to the people who buy their health insurance policies. This would Cost Them Money.

So, as you might imagine, health insurance companies and those who have a vested interest in their continued and immense profitability (such as lobbyists and anyone else, including politicians who receive contributions from said health insurance companies) are working very hard to derail meaningful health care reform. It might Cost Them Money.

And in defense of their profitability, you know what? They might even lie.

Republican leaders-- especially John Boehner (OH-$1,206,472 + $904,156), Mike Pence (IN-$453,644 + $160,700), Paul Ryan (WI-$685,714 + $492,651), Miss McConnell (KY- $2,769,168 + $936,057), Roy Blunt (MO-$1,660,898 + $556,682) and Eric Cantor (VA-$1,410,724 + $706,674)-- have been all over the media hysterically lying about the health care proposals and earning the massive bribes they've taken from the Medical-Industrial Complex and the Big Insurance comapnies. These characters are covering Hate Talk Radio like wet blankets, ginning up the fear, so that people who listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, Ingraham, Savage, etc are now paranoid that health care reform is tantamount to euthanasia.

The controversy stems from a proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical interventions they would prefer near the end of life and how to prepare instructions such as living wills. Under the plan, Medicare would reimburse doctors for one session every five years to confer with a patient about his or her wishes and how to ensure those preferences are followed. The counseling sessions would be voluntary.

But on right-leaning radio programs, religious e-mail lists and Internet blogs, the proposal has been described as "guiding you in how to die," "an ORDER from the Government to end your life," promoting "death care" and, in the words of antiabortion leader Randall Terry, an attempt to "kill Granny."

Though the counseling provision is a tiny part of a behemoth bill, the skirmish over end-of-life care, like arguments about abortion coverage, has become a distraction and provided an opening for opponents of the president's broader health-care agenda. At a forum sponsored by the seniors group AARP that was intended to pitch comprehensive reform, Obama was asked about the "rumors." He used the question to promote living wills, noting that he and the first lady have them.

...Not since 2003, when Congress and President George W. Bush became involved in the case of Terri Schiavo, who lay in a vegetative state in a hospice in Florida, have lawmakers waded into the highly charged subject, said Howard Brody, director of an ethics institute at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

The attacks on talk radio began when Betsy McCaughey, who helped defeat President Bill Clinton's health-care overhaul 16 years ago, told former senator Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) that mandatory counseling sessions with Medicare beneficiaries would "tell them how to end their life sooner" and would teach the elderly how to "decline nutrition . . . and cut your life short."

House  Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Republican Policy Committee Chairman  Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.) said they object to the idea because it "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia."

Brody says the proposal to reimburse counseling sessions "is an excellent idea," because too few doctors or adult children know what an elderly person wants, even sometimes when the patient has signed a medical directive.

McCaughey's lies, which Republican members of Congress like Bono-Mack are using to defend their opposition, have been completely debunked and she has been exposed as a fraud working for Big Insurance. The Truth-O-Meter: "For our ruling on this one, there's really no gray area here. McCaughey incorrectly states that the bill would require Medicare patients to have these counseling sessions and she is suggesting that the government is somehow trying to interfere with a very personal decision. And her claim that the sessions would "tell [seniors] how to end their life sooner" is an outright distortion. Rather, the sessions are an option for elderly patients who want to learn more about living wills, health care proxies and other forms of end-of-life planning. McCaughey isn't just wrong, she's spreading a ridiculous falsehood. That's a Pants on Fire."

That doesn't bother Mary Bono-Mack one bit because she's a Pants on Fire congresswoman, happy with the influx of campaign donations from Big Insurance. Last week a constituent from Palm Springs, Bonnie Reiss, had a letter to Bono-Mack published in the district's biggest newspaper, the Desert Sun:

Now Mary's concerned about costs for a decent Health Care plan. Where has she been when seniors couldn't negotiate drug prices, when rates have gone up on average Americans two digits a year? Isn't that a tax on us? After eight years of crashing this economy with a war built on lies, corruption at the highest level and watching our state be destroyed, now she's concerned.

Mary, you are so lucky half the people don't vote, and your followers watch Fox News (the more you watch the less you know) What exactly is your plan Mary? Call her office and ask them.
Bonnie Reiss 
Palm Springs

Friday the same paper ran a devastating OpEd asking Bono-Mack what she plans to do about the health care crisis that is devastating so many families in her district.

Our desert is a prime example of the deterioration of the health care system. Our hospital emergency rooms are overcrowded and our hospital beds are in short supply. My internist, along with many other fine doctors in the desert, has become a “boutique” doctor, and although I presently pay for this out-of-pocket service, my health care premiums continue to rise, along with my prescription drugs and other costs.

I admire the 90 people that challenged Rep. Mary Bono Mack at Tuesday's town hall meeting in Cathedral City. Our political leaders must open their eyes to the situation this community and other communities across the nation face. I applaud those 90 people that braved the heat to visit Bono Mack's representative and encourage all citizens who care about America's future health too, before going to their doctor when they are feeling ill, instead, pay Bono Mack's office a visit. Ask Mary for some help paying for their doctor visit, the pharmacy prescription, the hospital bed, the visiting nurse, the medical equipment and on and on.

When Mary says she's “not in any way against health care reform just some of what is in the bill,” tell her, instead of acting like a politician of “no” to become a politician that is actively involved in “change.” It's so easy to say no and, frankly, so many of the citizens in my community seem to say no all the time. I am tired of those that are angry and hostile and who offer solutions that amount to nothing more than name-calling. Let's stop saying no and work together in finding solutions that work.

This morning the Associated Press did one of their fact checks and, although it was written by anti-Obama activist Charles Babington, it concluded that distortions are rife in the health care debate. Among other things, he deals with the lies about abortion that you're seeing in Insurance Industry-funded ads and hearing from Republican opponents of health care:

CLAIM: Health care revisions would lead to government-funded abortions.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says in a video, "Unless Congress states otherwise, under a government takeover of health care, taxpayers will be forced to fund abortions for the first time in over three decades."

THE FACTS: The proposed bills would not undo the Hyde Amendment, which bars paying for abortions through Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor. But a health care overhaul could create a government-run insurance program, or insurance "exchanges," that would not involve Medicaid and whose abortion guidelines are not yet clear.

Obama recently told CBS that the nation should continue a tradition of "not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee amended the House bill Thursday to state that health insurance plans have the option of covering abortion, but no public money can be used to fund abortions. The bill says health plans in a new purchasing exchange would not be required to cover abortion but that each region of the country should have at least one plan that does.

Congressional action this fall will determine whether such language is in the final bill.

CLAIM: Americans won't have to change doctors or insurance companies.
"If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing," Obama said on June 23. "You keep your plan; you keep your doctor."

THE FACTS: The proposed legislation would not require people to drop their doctor or insurer. But some tax provisions, depending on how they are written, might make it cheaper for some employers to pay a fee to end their health coverage. Their workers presumably would move to a public insurance plan that might not include their current doctors.

CLAIM: The Democrats' plans will lead to rationing, or the government determining which medical procedures a patient can have.

"Expanding government health programs will hasten the day that government rations medical care to seniors," conservative writer Michael Cannon said in the Washington Times.

THE FACTS: Millions of Americans already face rationing, as insurance companies rule on procedures they will cover.

Denying coverage for certain procedures might increase under proposals to have a government-appointed agency identify medicines and procedures best suited for various conditions.

Obama says the goal is to identify the most effective and efficient medical practices, and to steer patients and providers to them. He recently told a forum: "We don't want to ration by dictating to somebody, 'OK, you know what? We don't think that this senior should get a hip replacement.' What we do want to be able to do is to provide information to that senior and to her doctor about, you know, this is the thing that is going to be most helpful to you in dealing with your condition."

Lying about medical reform for Big Business is hardly new for Betsy McCaughey. Here's a Countdown segment from last February, when she was using the same arguments to smear the Stimulus Package: