Seven Falsehoods About Health Care Reform

So much for a slow news month. August feels like campaign season, with claims on health care coming at us daily. Does the House bill call for mandatory counseling on how to end seniors' lives sooner? Absolutely not. Will the government be dictating to doctors how to treat their patients? No. Do the bills propose cutting Medicare benefit levels? No on that one, too.

But on the other hand, has Congress figured out how to pay for this overhaul? Not yet. Or will it really save families $2,500 a year as the president keeps claiming? Good luck on that one, too. You can go to www.fastcheck.org and find out the facts.

FALSE: The government will dictate what kind of care I receive. The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research is charged with supporting and coordinating research that the government has been funding for years into which treatments work best, and in some cases, are most cost-effective. Supporters of this type of research say it can provide valuable information to doctors, improving care and also lowering cost.

False: Private Insurance Will Be Illegal. In July, Investor's Business Daily published an editorial in which it claimed that H.R. 3200 would make private insurance illegal. But IBD was mistaken. It was citing the part of the bill that ensures people with individually purchased coverage don't have to give up that coverage unless they want to.

False: The House Bill Requires Suicide Counseling. This claim is nonsense. In an appearance on former Sen. Fred Thompson's radio show, Betsy McCaughey, a former Republican Lieutenant Governor also enthusiastically pushed the bogus claim that the House bill will require seniors to have regular counseling sessions on how to end their lives: This is a misrepresentation. What the bill actually provides for is voluntary Medicare-funded end-of-life counseling. In other words, if seniors choose to make advance decisions about the type of care and treatments they wish to receive at the end of their lives, Medicare will pay for them to sit down with their doctor and discuss their preferences. There is no requirement to attend regular sessions, and there is absolutely no provision encouraging euthanasia.

Of course, seniors who talk to their doctors about end-of-life care might well choose to discuss what types of life-saving treatment they wish to refuse. That choice has been federally guaranteed for almost 20 years. Euthanasia, on the other hand, is legal in only three states, making it even more unlikely to be a major part of the federal health plan.

False: Families Will Save $2,500 . Proponents speak constantly of holding down rising medical costs. As recently as May 13, the president said legislation plus some voluntary measures by the private sector "could save families $2,500 in the coming years – $2,500 per family," echoing a claim he made countless times on the campaign trail last year. For one thing, Obama isn't actually promising to reduce health care spending below current levels, only to cut the rate of growth in spending. And even that is proving to be far tougher to accomplish than Obama led voters to believe.

False: The Bill Is Paid For. At least, it isn't paid for yet. President Obama has repeatedly said that a health care overhaul "will be paid for" and that he won't sign a bill that isn't deficit-neutral. But neither the House bill nor the Senate HELP Committee bill meets that criteria. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, the House bill as introduced would add a net $23 billion to the deficit each year while the HELP Committee bill racks up more, $59.7 billion a year. But considering in the TARP bailout from President Bush, that's peanuts: AIG received over $65 billion in one year, and the likes of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, et. al. received over $800 billion.

False: Medicare Benefits Will Be Slashed. The claim that Obama and Congress are cutting seniors' Medicare benefits to pay for the health care overhaul is outright false, though that doesn't keep it from being repeated ad infinitum. The truth is that the pending House bill extracts $500 billion from projected Medicare spending over 10 years, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office, by doing such things as trimming projected increases in the program's payments for medical services, not including physicians. Increases in other areas, such as payments to doctors, bring the net savings down to less than half that amount. But none of the predicted savings – or cuts, depending on one's perspective – come from reducing current or future benefits for seniors. President Obama has promised repeatedly that benefit levels won't be reduced. AARP: Fact: None of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services.

False: Illegal Immigrants Will Be Covered. One Republican congressman issued a press release claiming that "5,600,000 Illegal Aliens May Be Covered Under Obamacare," and we've been peppered with queries about similar claims. They're not true. In fact, the House bill (the only bill to be formally introduced in its entirety) specifically says that no federal money would be spent on giving illegal immigrants health coverage.

I certainly hope this is helpful. This issue is too important to not know the facts, regardless which way you are presently leaning in this debate. Personally, I think America needs Health Care Reform. It is too soon to know what Congress will have as its final product for us to rationally make a decision. Currently, there are three seperate bills in Congress dealing with this issue and many, many, changes will be forthcoming before the final bill is ready.

Please don't be swayed by lies, propaganda and the likes, but keep an open mind. This is too important for us, our country, and our children.

Legislature Extends Unemployment Benefits

The West Virginia Legislature passed legislation that extends unemployment benefits for those persons who would have been losing their benefits for an additional 20 months. Additionally, anyone who lost their benefits within the past 30 days would likewise be eligible for the extension. The funding for this extension is completely from the Federal government and therefore does not require the State to pay.

The $500 onetime enhancement to all state employees went down after an agreement couldn't be reached to include a onetime $266 enhancement for retirees.