Spinning Tea

While our Representative Scott Garrett distorted numbers recently to scare people about health care reform, the Tea Party people are going from distortion to flat out lies. This is a long post, but if the mainstream media isn't going to do this, someone has to.

It's been well publicized at this point that those who are part of the Tea Party movement are packing town hall meetings to disrupt instead of discuss health care reform. There are legitimate concerns about the proposal, but the tactics being used by these folks not only drowns out those with legitimate concerns, but also discredits the very views they're supposed to be standing for and makes their opposition seem baseless.

As Blue Jersey predicted, the NJ Tea Party group is attempting to get members to Representative Steve Rothman's recess town hall meetings. To encourage members, and fire them up, they sent out an e-mail recently. With the miracle of the searchable PDF, anyone willing to ask "is that true" can go through the e-mail and shred it.

(A note, I've cut and pasted straight from the e-mail, grammatical and spelling errors are strictly the tea party people's fault)

You know the provisions of the public healthcare plan contain concerning features including the following:

You will not be able to keep your private plan (no matter what they say, it’s in the bill).

Where, exactly? That's the question that any thinking person should ask. People point to Section 102, because it prevents new enrollments in plans that don't meet the minimum requirements of coverage. This has no impact on people's current insurance.

In fact, had the Tea Party people scrolled down they would have seen Section 112, where insurance companies are required to renew grandfathered plans. Your coverage is protected as long as you pay for it. But obviously, that reality doesn't help the opposition's fund raising, so I'm sure the oversight was intentional.

Seniors will be compelled to attend counseling every five years to receive information on how to end one’s life with dignity --- this is code for you’re not going to get the surgery or drugs you need, so end your life sooner ---this is the culture of death.

It's amazing the Tea Party people would rather have seniors be uninformed and not know what their options are. Section 1233 absolutely wants people to know about living wills and medical proxies, options and resources regarding palliative care and hospice, and resources available in the state in which the patient lives.

Health care costs will be passed along to you in the form of increased taxes, or loss of jobs due to small employers having to eliminate jobs to pay the additional 8% on their payroll….think of it 20 employees making an average of 50,000 annual salary = $80,000 to that small employer in tax……that employer has to eliminate two jobs for every 20 people to stay even.

What they leave out in this section is that the tax only applies if the small business does not already provide benefits. If benefits are provided, there's no tax. So no one working a job at a small company that provides benefits has anything to worry about in terms of taxes costing them their job.

You will pay for all families – illegal aliens too.

This is the only true statement in the whole thing. Yes, everybody else will be paying for you.

Also, where people get the delusional thought that we don't already pay for illegal aliens is beyond me. This is true, and it will always be true whether we have private or public care. When people show up to an emergency room or the equivalent they are going to get treated and then we bill whatever national plan they're under.

You will also have your tax dollars funded toward abortions even if you are opposed to that form of birth control. That means also late term abortions…up to the day before birth!

Partial birth abortions are illegal, and whoever wrote this e-mail is intentionally misleading people. It also ignores the fact that the committee votes prevent any abortion funding.

I haven't written a post this long in a long time, but the health care debate is too important to let small groups of people using misrepresentation and intimidation to disrupt what is a vital discussion. I realize there's not a lot of money to be raised by the special interests by being truthful and having a meaningful conversation, but that's what we need right now.

There's a lot of good in this bill, but it could be a bit better. There are also good ideas that have come out of the Republican party, like allowing churches and industry groups pool together, that get drowned out by the Tea Party people.

Whether you're for or against the health care reform as presented, arguing your points needs to be based in fact. Otherwise, what may be a very good idea will either be dismissed or missed because someone decided to be disruptive instead of constructive.