Scare Tactics
The tactics and outright lies regarding the healthcare debate these days just have to make me boggle, first at the thought that the people spreading such outright lies think they can get away with it and that other people are believing it and eating it up like pie.
There’s a good site that I recommend to anyone trying to filter the spin out of politics, the Pulitzer award site “PolitiFact“, which is entirely non-partisan and takes the statements of our politicians and puts them to the fact-checking test.
Here are some of the more ridiculous lies going about these days, in attempts to scare people away from health reform:
They’re going to force gramma to submit to euthanasia when she gets too old and expensive to take care of!
Um. No. Honestly, how can anyone believe something like that and call themselves a rational and intelligent human being? The plan does require that elderly meet with counselors to help plan what they want for end-of-life care while they are still able to make those decisions, to encourage people to actually be responsible and lay out what they choose for how they want to be cared for while their still able, so that their caregivers and doctors don’t have to guess about it once their ability to make those decisions is gone.
A living will is a good thing to have, I have one, and I’m young and healthy. I like knowing that if something happens to me, if I were in a car accident or something, that my family will know what I want done, what sort of care I do or do not desire, but the options I chose in that living will are my choice alone, as they will be for any of the seniors who may fill one out with their counselors under this provision. If, however, they wait until something does happen, and they’re unable to fill out those forms or make those decisions, well, then it is left in the hands of their children and next-of-kin to decide what is to be done, with no guidance whatsoever as to what the ill person might actually wish.
Taxpayer money will go to fund abortions!
Again, no. Abortions will not be funded under any government healthcare plan, nor will independent insurance companies be required to fund them. You don’t have to worry about anyone spending your tax money on Evil Baby Murder via abortion…no, that tax money is going to kill other people in other countries, because we all know that sort of murder is right as rain. (/sarcasm).
So, poor teenage girls unable to support their accidental pregnancy will still either have to pay out of pocket for their abortion, or will go on welfare once the baby is born, which means you’ll be spending exponentially more of your taxpayer dollars to feed and clothe that baby, because no taxpayer dollars will go to pay for abortions. Do you feel better now?
Taxpayer money will go to pay for sex-change operations for all those weird gay people and we can’t have that!
Um…no, this one ranks right up there with the Obama-wants-to-kill-gramma one. I just don’t know what sort of answer to give. This is still, essentially, a cosmetic and voluntary surgery regardless of the psychological benefit it may provide to the people who undergo it, so don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about your taxpayer money being spent to support an “immoral” lifestyle…unless you count all those philandering politicians you’re paying the paychecks for.
I don’t make any secret as to where my sympathies or politics lie, but if you want to have a look at the non-partisan analysis of the political commentary on healthcare, take a look at the chart at PolitiFact – it is rather interesting to see who is telling the truth, who is outright lying, and who is telling the truth, but telling it slant. It might make you think.
Hold the people in politics accountable, regardless of what side of the fence they sit on, and make them tell the truth, for once. We’re the only ones that can.
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