Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Split the difference between lies and arguments

The utter failure of the America press to write the truth is on display here. Republican bullshit gets pride of place in the first three paragraphs, ending with:

The [Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights] includes protecting Medicare from major cuts, preserving the doctor-patient relationship, banning any rationing of care or interference in end-of-life decisions, guaranteeing that seniors can keep their current coverage, and protecting current veterans’ health care programs.
The rest of the story is limited to Medicare cuts, the sole real issue, leaving five lies unrebutted.

One silver lining: The DNC is finally attacking what should already be the non-existent credibility of the entire Republican Party:
“It should be no surprise that the Republican Party - which whipped many Americans into a frenzy at town hall meetings on health care this month by spreading one lie about reform after another - has now taken to scaring seniors who have nothing to fear and much to gain from reform,’’ Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

11 comments:

Silence DoGood said...

Let's be equal opportunity here:

Politifacts caught Obama in his latest lie about healthcare.

"If we went back to the obesity rates that existed back in the 1980s, the Medicare system over several years could save as much as a trillion dollars."
Barack Obama on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 in a forum with supporters

As Politifacts points out the actual estimantes are 12-147 million.

At best Obama has exaggerated by a factor of x7.

I am not defending the repubs there Mr. black and white.

Just supporting my original premise that I do not trust either DNC or RNC or their stooges to tell us the truth.

Think about a good 3rd party!

lovable liberal said...

SDG, the whole price debate about health care reform has been predicated on costs over 10 years, so, after correcting your innocent typo (you wrote million instead of billion), the arithmetic actually works out to be a fuzzy exaggeration of 1.5x (Medicare and Medicaid together) or 3x (Medicare alone). Not good, but well under the bar for ordinary political stretching. And I'm just looking at a straight line - there's exceptionally good reason to assume Medicare's costs in this regard will escalate as Boomers sign up.

For you, an inaccuracy like this is no better than the death panels lie. That false equivalence pervades all of your claims. Would that you had the intellectual honesty to grapple with that, as I just did with Obama's exaggeration.

Of course, a polite commenter would have left the link for other readers, if not for me.

Silence said...

No typo. Hard to believe I know.

Umbama: $1 trillion. quote

Reality $12-147 billion.

Giving Umbama benefit of the doubt (lord knows I try):
1tr / 147b = x7 exaggeration. He is a smart lawyer - that is too much.

President Obama will be a better Liberal if we hold him accountable.

I want an honest Universal Health plan with public option from a set of honest politicians.

Silly me.

Thanks for the link.

lovable liberal said...

You're all about the data, but you can't do simple arithmetic if it serves your purposes not to be able to do it.

The number you're quoting is the annual number. The health care cost debate has been entirely framed in the next decade. That $1 trillion guesstimate of costs for the universal health care plan now before Congress? Over the next decade.

If the point Obama's making is that costs of obesity and costs of "his" plan are on par, he's roughly correct.

Sheesh. Add, subtract, multiply.

I'm trying to make you a better concern troll, o.k.?

Silence DoGood said...

Sorry to go all facts and data on your rant-blog but:

The article references a health economist, but of course YOU know more than him.

Would you even allow in your fantasy world that a politician who you admire can lie? Hate to burst your bubble, but he will be a better leader if we keep him honest! Or you can put your blinders back on and eat your sound bites.

From the article, which calls Obmam's claim a lie:

"But that study — and his claim — are not supported by the data."

......

"We also verified our assessment with Eric Finkelstein, a health economist with the research group RTI International who has studied the issue extensively and written several papers on the topic."

lovable liberal said...

Sorry, you didn't go "all facts and data" on me. You went with an argument from authority. If I had respected arguments from authority, I would have pointed you toward Obama's source. Instead, I did you the service of explaining how much better Obama's number was than your monomaniacal and extreme posturing about it.

Sure, politicians I admire can lie. Sheesh. When was that ever in doubt? I admired Bill Clinton, at least in 1992. But I wrote a newspaper column decrying him when he wagged his finger and lied, which was transparently obvious.

You, on the other hand, can't judge the numbers for yourself. You've got your factoid, and you're hammering it. It's as if you think that no so-called fact-checker can ever get something wrong - at least not when the so-called fact is one you need.

Your style of argument on this is full of shit. You even completely missed your own typo after I pointed it out.

I'm showing a reasonable way to understand Obama's claim. You refuse to see it.

Add the numbers up for yourself - or do you need me to set it up for you as if we were in fifth grade?

Silence DoGood said...

I see what you are getting at. Obamas exaggeration might have been understandable in the context he spoke it.

I applaud your Questioning my Authority reference too. That is my favorite slogan after all.

That website also has some revealing articles on the lies you list in the original post, especially:

death panel myth
Medicare cut myth
senior coverage loss myth
etc.

Politifacts is an equal opportunity lie detector, RNC, DNC, wingnuts, Obama, no one is safe.

lovable liberal said...

Thanks. Peace to you!

Fact-checkers provide an important service. Politicians of all stripes get facts wrong, some more than others.

In the past, though, I've found that some fact-checkers edge from equal opportunity to equal results, and the consequence is often that Democrats and liberals suffer from the motes in their eyes being equated to the beams in the eyes of Republicans and conservatives.

Who fact-checks the fact-checkers? The blogosphere, maybe...

Silence DoGood said...

I would like to debunk another conservative myth I have heard.

I hear a lot of this: "healthcare is not a right, and not constitutional" This sound bite has bugged me for some time and I need to get it off my chest.

Constitution:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"

Common defense is not a right either but the federal government decided early on the make a standing army a good use of taxes which it has the right to levy.

Congress can decide (and I understand there is quite a debate) as to whether it will use some of the taxes to run a federal influenced or run health plan of some sort. It is not a right but they can decide to institute it in the interest of the General Welfare.

website said...

death panel of Sarah Plain is a argument and Abandon the medicare is a lie.

lovable liberal said...

There's a comment that rebuts itself!