A Few Points for the President

President Obama continued his public relations whirlwind health care tour with this op ed. He purported to "debunk" a series of health care myths that he claims were created by opponents of health care. These include that illegals will get health care, abortions will be funded with tax payer money, death panels, and that this is a government take over of health care.

Let's start with the false claim that illegal immigrants will get health insurance under reform. That's not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has never even been on the table. Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform. And as every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called "death panels" - an offensive notion to me and to the American people. These are phony claims meant to divide us.

To the president I have a few thoughts. First, the bill is 1017 pages. So, with all due respect, if there are false perceptions, one can understand how they were created when there are 1017 pages to read. Second, with 1017 pages how can anyone know what is or isn't true? There are 53 new bureaucracies created by the bill so how can anyone know what this bill will do? The bill is 1017 pages of legalese so how can anyone decipher exactly what it will do?

You say that there will be no tax payer funded abortions but factcheck.org says the issue is much more muddled.

The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new "public" insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them. Obama has said in the past that "reproductive services" would be covered by his public plan, so it’s likely thatany new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who would choose the "public plan" would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions "fabrications."

So, who de we trust? It's impossible to know because the bill is too long, to wordy, and full of too much legalese. The people aren't just going to trust you when there's this much on the line. You say that this bill won't be a government takeover of health care. How is anyone to know? The bill is 1017 pages after all. No one can possibly know for sure having that much to read. So, what are we to make of statements like these?



It certainly sounds as though you support a government take over of health care in that video. What are we supposed to make of 53 new regulators if not a total take over of health care by the government?

Here's the reality in this bill. There's nothing that's cut and dry in this bill. Instead, everything is muddled and that's the problem. No one knows who to trust because the whole entire bill is inexplicable. Say what you will about opponents of this bill but their accusations come because the bill is filled with nothing but 1017 pages of vague, ambiguous, legalese that makes it impossible to know what is and isn't true.