Remember the cries about "Big Government Democrats Gone Wild"? It sounds familiar because opponents of the reform still repeat it, over and over again. It is mind boggling that people still buy into this crap - even those who are uninsured themselves!
Apparently,the key is to stick to “big lies” –lies so HUGE that they must be true. (Who would dare make up such a whopper and repeat it on television, online or in print?) Distorted language is not meant to provoke thought; it aims to close off thought in order to play on listeners’ emotions.
Why do Republicans refer to Obama’s proposal as a “Washington takeover” of health care? Why do they insist that patients will have to “stand in line” with “Washington bureaucrats in charge of healthcare.”?
Because apparently fear-mongering is an art that pays off. “It could lead to the government setting standards of care, instead of doctors who really know what’s best.It could lead to the government rationing care, making people stand in line and denying treatment like they do in other countries with national healthcare.”
Here the speaker neatly avoids having to offer any evidence. He is not saying that Obama has proposed letting the government set standards or ration care. He is just saying that reform “could” put us on a slippery slope, planting images in the reader’s mind without really claiming that they are true. It “It’s not what you say; it’s what people hear.”
Most Americans recognize that health care has little to do with a free market where sellers compete for customers. Eighty percent of our health care dollars are spent when patients are very sick, they don’t have the luxury of shopping around, and bartering. A patient not likely to tell surgeon A, “if you can’t give me a better price, I’ll go to surgeon B.” The truth is, at best, the patient isn’t looking for the cheapest surgeon; he’s looking for the best surgeon, just as he is looking for the best medication, the best hospital. In reality, the patients go to where their insurance plan offers the best coverage.
Get smart. Don't let the techniques designed to wake up the "group think" in you affect your own judgment. No one in Washington is talking about having the government take over the hospitals, or put doctors on the government’s payroll.
White House has no plans to take over health care. And the last thing politicians want to do is vote on what care people should and shouldn’t receive.
