Joe Klein, please aim higher
August 25, 2009 7:34 pm ET by Jamison Foser
Time's Joe Klein rips a new fundraising email that begins with the false claim that "More American women are going to die of breast cancer if you and I surrender to President Obama's nationalized healthcare onslaught" and goes on to make a variety of false claims about health care reform.
Here's Klein:
Needless to say, there is no plan to nationalize or socialize health care. This letter, therefore, is a disgraceful scam, intended to scare the living hell out of already frightened and militantly uninformed people--Fox News viewers who think the sky is falling because a Muslim-Socialist-furriner is in the White House. I'd like to see the leaders of the Republican Party disown this poisonous swill. But they won't--because the real leaders of the Republican Party (Fox, Rush and Drudge) are spreading it.
Klein never mentions who the email is from, though. It's signed by Michelle Bernard of the Independent Women's Forum. Bernard is a frequent guest on MSNBC, particularly Chris Matthews' Hardball.
Joe Klein has expressed a fair amount of outrage in recent weeks about the lies that are being spread about health care. But he seems not to have internalized one very important fact: The problem is not limited to "Fox, Rush and Drudge."
In this case, MSNBC gives a platform to the author of the "disgraceful scam, intended to scare the lving hell out of already frightened and militantly uninformed people." MSNBC, not Fox. MSNBC, not Rush. MSNBC.
The other thing Joe Klein would do well to realize is that Fox News doesn't give a damn whether Joe Klein criticizes them. Neither does Rush Limbaugh, or Matt Drudge. But if Joe Klein, longtime fixture of Polite DC Society, were to turn his ire on people like Chris Matthews for giving people like Michelle Bernard a platform, he might actually do some good. Matthews and Andrea Mitchell and Norah O'Donnell and David Shuster might actually care what he has to say. He might actually be able to shame them.
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Part of the problem is the bills are written are too hard to understand and many sections can be intrepreted in different ways (even by the same person at different readings). We don't know (the public or Congress, I fear) what we are going to wind up with and what the cost will be. How, for instance, can there be a one size fits all public option, when private insurers can not write the same policy in adjoining states? Work on that, provide some type of answer for the "uninsured because of existing condition", provide some type of catastrophic plan, allow people to save tax free $ in health savings accounts for the office calls, shots, etc., provide some type of mechanism to provide for the minor number that cannot provide $ for themselves or are not covered under some existing program, tort reform (and dr liability insurance costs). Address these in plain English, Congress/Administration and perhaps you can change the tenor in the country.
Let's start with the basics: there are no two interpretations of any part of HR 3200, which is the bill most people have read from. Any bill as complex as a wholesale reform of health care is necessarily above the reading level and/or legal acumen of the average citizen that's why we have representative government. Congress has a duty to inform its constituents, but unfortunately they fall short of that ideal, as the media too often fails in its democratic imperative to inform the public, but I digress.
The idea that allowing consumers to have out-of-state insurance policies would be some cure-all is ludicrous. (Ever notice how all the credit card issuers are based in Delaware? Isn't that weird?)
OK, the meat of this argument: catastrophic coverage, tort reform, and tax breaks/health savings accounts. I can take this one:
It sound great on the surface: reduce malpractice costs by capping lawsuits, give everyone $5000/year tax free to put in a health savings account, and the government takes over after that. This is funny. So the state assumes all costs for catastrophic care, say over $10,000 in a year. OK. And you have $5000/year saved up, for routine care, maybe one emergency room visit. By that logic, you'll basically put the private insurance companies out of business, you have a government takeover of high end care, and you've done absolutely nothing to reduce costs, because doctors know they're getting paid no matter what.... unless there's rationing. It's brilliant, and completely devoid of any substance, let alone ideological purity.
HAHAHA! I love it. Even when they TRY to add something constructive, it doesn't make any sense.
I know a few conservatives who have come around to the idea that a government option is a good idea, except that an 8% payroll tax penalty for not providing insurance isn't high enough to act as a deterrent from companies dropping people. Nice try, but you're still going to have to come down to earth before you can have a reasonable conversation on this subject.
I personally think everybody should contribute to their health care costs, just as I think everybody should pay at least a minimal amount of income tax (in addition to the current payroll deductions for insurance premiums for FICA and Medicare). Too many people in this country seem to think they have rights to something without admitting they have personal responsibilities to contribute where/what they can.
We're still waiting for anything constructive to come out of the republicans. What we get is an unending series of provocitive lies. Which does nadda to solve this economicly destructive issue.
Unable to look beyond what might be good for the party.
It has been for the last 20 years at least.
Here's how you can prove it.
Ask any conservative what they would have done had President Gore ignored the PDB warning and stayed on vacation, told the Hart/Rudman report to take hike, took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan, lied us into a plan-free optional war in Iraq, turned us into a deceptive torturing thug nation, took a budget surplus and gave to his fat cat friends, spied on Americans without warrant, used the DOJ as a wing of his political party, etc etc..
If they are honest, they'd admit they would have screamed for impeachment, as they should have but did not. If Gore did what Bush did we'd have heard non-stop yammering about how stupid it was to go into Iraq, complete with references to wasting our money and military. They'd say it was all un-American and un-Christian.
If they say they would have supported President Gore doing these things, they'd be lying, you know it, I know it, even Bob Dole knows it. Conservatism is a controlled group that's number one purpose is to protect their ideology as Rush and the gang define it for them.
Yep. Klein isn't going to go after his drinking buddies.
Check out James Whelan's discussion on why DC reporters won't go after the WT. It's a similar dynamic at work, in this case Klein doesn't drink with Rush. Whelan is the third speaker.
Joe K will never be mistaken for George.
To let them spew misinformation without countering it and without providing any alternative truth to what they're saying, that's just plain lousy/lazy journalism.