Sunday, August 16, 2009

Get the Facts on Health Care Reform

It's amazing how with all the coverage of health care reform, the focus has been on town halls and the uncivil discourse and yet, hardly any coverage is pointing out what is fact vs. what is fiction. Here are some useful links for finding the truth:

Hear it directly from White House. Here is the official website for setting the record straight.

Here is a useful summary from moveon.org of the myths and how to dispel them.

Hearing a lot about "death panels"? It is complete hypocrisy on the part of the Republicans. The provision being referred to is about providing so-called "end-of-life" counseling. Now, this does not mean counseling people near the end of their life. It means getting people to put in place things like a living will, detailing one's wishes on medical treatment when something happens. Nobody wants to end up like Terri Schiavo -- having parents and husband fight for years over what you would have wanted. Here are two articles pointing out how many Republicans have voted for and supported this type of provision in the past, including the queen of hypocrites: Sarah Palin.

And finally, read about how the Republicans have no qualms about destroying a man's reputation. Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel has a sister with cerebral palsy and has opposed euthanasia for his entire career. Yet the Republicans have no problem completely mischaracterizing his positions and selectively quoting out of context. (See Sonia Sotomayor for further evidence of such practice).

The health insurance and pharma industries have been spending a whole lot of money to destroy health care reform, and the Republican Party is doing its best to do their bidding -- lying, mischaracterizing, flip-flopping, and worst of all, inciting people to such rage and anger that I am truly afraid that something very bad could happen.

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