Hope and Fail

Repeating health care whoppers in weekly address

President Obama held two town hall meetings this week about health care reform — one in Portsmouth, N.H., and one in Belgrade, Mont. In both, the president told lies that he had told before, possibly working on the assumption that if you say something enough, it becomes true.

Kind of ironic, really. The president has said he wants those opposed to his plan to “get out of the way,” and Democratic lawmakers holding their own town halls have appeared on TV explaining to people that “shouting” isn’t going to change any minds.

Well, neither is repeating a lie — over, and over, and over. Also ironic, is that the president couched his Weekly Address under the guise of dispelling myths and avoiding the ruckus that “obscures the reality” of health care reform.

First, the now-ingrained-in-our-heads “you can keep your doctor” falsity:

From the White House transcript:

First, no matter what you’ve heard, if you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it. If you don’t have insurance, you’ll finally be able to afford insurance. And everyone will have the security and stability that’s missing today.

The president made the same claim during his town hall meetings in Montanta and New Hampshire, and also during his July 22 press conference. It’s getting tiresome, but as long he wants to repeat the lie, we’ll repeat the facts.

The Congressional Budget Office, according to a report in USA Today, estimates that if the Senate version of the bill passes, 10 million Americans will lose their health insurance:

In an analysis of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 10 million workers could lose employer-provided benefits and would have to find other insurance.

What’s more, the CBO, as is usually the case, is using conservative numbers. Independent groups say up to 88 million people will be forced out of their health insurance plans if the House version of Obama’s health care reform passes. From the Heritage Foundation:

Independent, non-partisan analysis from the Lewin Group has confirmed the House bill, H.R. 3200, will do exactly that: About 88.1 million workers would see their current private, employer-sponsored health plan go away and would be shifted to the public plan.

Why would people lose their insurance? It’s logical. Businesses would be faced with a choice: Keep the health benefits they offer employees, or pay a fine. The Senate bill, as an example, would charge companies that don’t provide coverage $750 per employee. Currently, companies pay between 6 percent and 9 percent of their payroll in health benefits — which is considerably higher than $750 (unless everyone makes less than $13,000 a year).

The second inaccuracy to be repeated during the Weekly Address is that colonoscopies are a preventative method used against prostate cancer, and that preventative medicine will save the system money in the long run.

This is lifted from his remarks at the Porstmouth, N.H., town hall — and we had thought it would have not been brought up again (mainly because it’s stupid). After all, the president dropped the lines about the Post Office, never being a single-payer supporter and greedy doctors coming after our body parts when he appeared in Montana yesterday.

But to no avail.

From the White House transcript:

Finally, we’ll require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies – because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be saving lives and dollars by catching diseases like breast cancer and prostate cancer on the front end.

Again, not to be tiresome, but if you have prostate cancer, no matter how many times you get a colonoscopy, the procedure will not detect it. Colon cancer, yes. Prostate cancer, no. The president must have failed biology in college while he was studying to be a community organizer.

As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air noted when the president used this line originally:

Does that “make sense”?  Only if you flunked medical school.  Colonoscopies don’t detect prostate cancer; they give an early warning of colon cancer.  If Obama hasn’t yet figured out the difference between a prostate exam and a colonoscopy, someone should tell him to switch doctors.

And to pile on, Charles Krauthammer, no health care slouch himself, wrote in the Washington Post that while preventative care would indeed decrease costs for individuals who detect life-threatening maladies early, it will cost the system more than not providing it (and let’s just forget the fact that the United States already leads the world in preventative care).

President Obama is scheduled to hold yet another town hall meeting this afternoon in Colorado. We can assume these “myths” about health care reform will be repeated again — along with others.

Update

After receiving a negative comment on one the videos posted on YouTube, we found that the American Cancer Society is at odds with Obama’s prescription for early detection of prostate cancer and his recommended method (colonoscopy).

The cancer society does not — repeat, does not — support routine testing for prostate cancer. From the society’s Web site:

The American Cancer Society (ACS) does not support routine testing for prostate cancer at this time. ACS does believe that health care professionals should discuss the potential benefits and limitations of prostate cancer early detection testing with men before any testing begins.

Also, ACS says a blood test or the all-too-familiar “bend over” test given during physicals should be used if a test is even warranted:

This discussion should include an offer for testing with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and digital rectal exam (DRE) yearly, beginning at age 50, to men who are at average risk of prostate cancer and have at least a 10-year life expectancy.