Haven't They Learned Anything?
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There were many reasons Republicans lost the 2008 Presidential elections and allowed Democrats to win a majority in Congress. Two reasons cited were the sour economy and the War in Iraq. The anger regarding the war was due to intelligence and the lies surrounding it. The sense of underhandedness constantly heated things up and left the nation feeling burnt out.
The administration went into Iraq by convincing Americans Saddam Hussein had nuclear capability or was close to it, had huge stockpiles of other WMD, had connections to Al Qaeda and direct connections to 9/11. They went on an effective campaign to convince us of this. Most members of Congress followed their lead or voted to support the invasion of Iraq due to fears of backlash.
During the 2008 elections there was deep-seated sentiment among voters from all sides. The revulsion at having been lied to steered many once supporting the administration away from the polls or to switch sides.
Republicans didn't help. They went from decrying administration tactics to eventually backing off and saying things like "well mistakes were made" or "it's time to move on."
Republicans waffled and some by showing support for Bush administration tactics came across like they were lying. But the facts were indisputable. Some pundits from FOX News decried the lies and these had been some of the most die hard supporters of the administration.
So aside from the economy the second biggest issue boiled down to the spread of misinformation and disinformation. That we could not trust someone enough with the lives of our men and women in uniform, our national treasure and international reputation was too much.
With the 2010 elections approaching one might think the last thing Republicans would be engaging in is spreading falsehoods. Rounds and rounds of misperceptions and outright lies spread by not just bloggers from the right or people uninformed, but actual Republican party elite, about the Democrat's health care proposal say otherwise.
The Bush administration rode the wave of the popularity of the decision to go into Iraq all the way until it became obvious the pretext was a lie.
Republicans are in jeopardy of repeating the same mistake.
No doubt, the idea to jump from a massive spending effort to revive the economy into another expensive proposal was just bad planning. However, this is not sending men and women into an illegitimate war. It is not sending soldiers to be killed, keeping them there on multiple tours of duty to stabilize a disintegrated nation and all the while calling it a "war" instead of what it really was. To have declared Osama Bin Laden no longer a threat and attempting to paint Saddam Hussein as somehow more of a security risk than Al Qaeda was the last flame to burn the ties of trust. All this plus Katrina.
When Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was recently asked, on CNN's Situation Room with Susan Malveaux, about the information and hype surrounding the health care debate one would have thought this was an opportunity to lay out a coherent position. If there was a good time to distance his party from ideas of President Obama attempting to kill seniors, fund and promote euthanasia and have a single payer fully government run and operated health care program this was the time right?
God forbid they repeat the mistake of having the actual facts come back to bite them. Oh well. Here is an excerpt of the interview aired Tuesday August 25:
"Malveaux: How honest do you think the debate has been- the discussion? In light of some of the town hall meetings, some of the rhetoric that we’ve seen from both sides, but specifically those who are from your own party who have talked about and compared President Obama to- to Hitler and to some of these other images… Steele: Look, there’s- Suzanne, there’s hot rhetoric on both sides. I mean, there was hot rhetoric during the Bush administration on the war. There’s hot rhetoric now on- on this issue. Why? Because people are passionate about it and they care. And so, you know, we were- you know, demonized because we complained about people talking about the president at a time of war. Now, we’re being demonized because we’re criticizing this president…"
Instead of distancing himself from the falsehoods he supports them by inferring those responsible are being demonized. He goes on to compare an attempt to reform health care, which both sides including himself in that interview admit needs to happen, to lying to an entire nation about the pretext for going to war - something which did not need to happen. He then lies and says they are being harassed for criticizing the president.
The president's own party criticized him for not having a plan they agree with. No one is being blamed for having an opinion. I have questions about the plan. They have every right to be critical as long as it's true. In a free society you can make all kinds of allegations about the president, but in a time when your party is trying to seem viable and credible wouldn't it be smarter to be factual?
The line we would move to socialized medicine is false. At 65 years of age all US citizens move to Medicare coverage. This is socialized medicine. Who was in favor of this? From the same interview:
"Malveaux: But how do you respond to the critics who take a look at Medicare- you’ve criticized- you say it’s in bad financial trouble. People do not disagree with that- Steele: Then let’s fix that- Malveaux: But they say that the Republicans, in 2003- they were the ones that went ahead and- and gave more funds, passed enormous funding for Medicare, and did not actually deal with the deficit- did not lower- actually, raise taxes or make those critical cuts in the budget… Steele: … but specifically accounts for and to our seniors about what this reform will mean to them. My prediction is this- under a single payer system- under a public option system, that a lot of our seniors- the vast majority of them- will be pushed into a public health care system that is not necessarily in their best interest because the services will not be able to be afforded or provided under the current Medicare plan."
That's the plan his party is mostly responsible for. So although he is accusing the Democrat's plan of socializing medicine, which it will not do any more than the current system, his own party, when in the majority in both the legislative and executive bodies of government, voted to actually expand "socialized medicine." They did such a poor job he believes it needs to be fixed. His party helped expand socialized health care in 2003 and bungled it according to his own words. Instead of trying to get to truth he is riding a wave of lies and disinformation.
He attempts to paint the proposal as including a single payer system. This is patently false and he must know that. It's possible someone in his position could be that uninformed, but it's unlikely.
The whole issue of lies is just beggining to come out. For instance Senator Chuck Grassley earlier in the debate said the Democrat's plan was an attempt to "pull the plug on grandma." More recently in an interview with Bob Schieffer he said this about that comment and death panels and death provisons:
"I let my constituents set the agenda. A person that asked me that question was reading from language that they got off of the internet. It scared my constituents… I know the Pelosi bill doesn't intend to do that."
Why the lies? There may be points in the plan that need tweaking or should be exorcized. I won't support to it until it's clear it will save money.
But the plan is not single payer. The plan is not a complete government takeover of health care. The idea is not to give less coverage, but more. In a recent interview with Betty Anne Bowser on the News Hour author T.R. Reid who authored a book on health care in the US discussed his findings.
He found with respect to life expectancy after the age of 60 years old the US currently ranks 23rd of the top 23 richest countries in the world. All the other industrialized countries manage to cover everybody and spend half as much as us. The way they save costs is through, whether government run or privately run, a coherent set of regulations.
This has many positive results. For instance in France administrative costs are 4% of total costs. In the US administrative costs are around 20% of total costs. That's passed on to patients. Another myth is all current models out there prove total care means government takeover. In Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland people stay on private though government regulated coverage until death.
Another positive aspect of tighter regulations can be seen in mandatory payments. In the other nations all must have insurance, but insurers must cover every doctor approved claim. They have strict time limits on the amount of time they have for pay-outs. In Switzerland they have to pay out within 5 days or the patients' next month's premium is free.
The models out there are not lines of people waiting for care, single payer plans, no choice in insurers or people lying around dead and dying early. Compared with those others we have the most people dying from not being treated in time or not being able to afford treatment.
Democrats have yet to present the kind of change we voted for true. However, if Republicans hope to redeem themselves from the dark days of the Bush administration the path they are on will hurt them. Just like the days of the Bush administration, in the information age it is a matter of time before the truth and facts come out. Once that happens the clock is ticking on your popularity. Democrats rode a wave of public sentiment which was sincere and earnest in it's push for something new. That break was to be from deception and lies among other things. It's simply poor form for Republicans to continue the Bush path.
To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.