Death Panels, Nazi symbols, and the Health debate

August is traditionally the month for crazy news stories. Normally Congress is out of session and the president is on vacation and there is little actual news to report on so reporters fill the air with stories about shark attacks and anything else they can find.

This year the politicians may not be in Washington but they are not on break. They are trying to drum up support for Health Care Reform. At the same time, opponents are trying to stop them. This is leading to all sorts of irrelevancies. For example:

Death panels. Sarah Palin talked about the establishment of death panels that would rule on who got to live. While her language is colorful, she was probably referring to something like Britain's NICE standards. These attempt to rate cost against quality of life in deciding what treatments will be allowed. When a woman at a town hall asked President Obama about a pacemaker for her then-100 year old mother, she was referring to this sort of cost benefit. Obama's answer wasn't comforting. I assume that Governor Palin was under this sort of pressure when she was pregnant with her son Trig to have an abortion.

While we might see something like this eventually established, it is not part of the current bills.

Nazi Symbols. Nancy Pelosi claimed to have seen protesters carrying Nazi symbols outside a town hall meeting. CNN checked. There was a sign with a swastika that had a circle and a line through it. In other words, it was a "no Nazi" sign. There was also a sign with Obama sporting a Hitler mustache. Pelosi gave the impression that the protesters were neo-Nazis when that's what they were calling her side.

Organized protests. The left has been insisting that the protests are organized and packed with people from outside the district. This is an attempt to discredit the protesters. To date, all that anyone can find is that anti-reformers have sent out email alerts and urged protesters to attend these meetings. This is exactly the tactic used by the supporters. This doesn't matter. The important thing for the Democrats is to get out a message. They know that few people will bother to look for the truth.

ReBranding. Most people are already insured so they rightly wonder what is in it for them? The two points that Obama is insistent on are universal coverage and the government option. Neither of these will help people who are already insured and they know it. Obama finally figured this out and launched a new message - that the whole thing is nothing more than an insurance bill of rights. If that was true then it would have already passed and been signed. This is only a small part of the reform bills. Similarly, Obama tried telling people that he is actually thrifty and will not sign a bill unless it is deficit neutral. While the White House is still trying to convince people that the bill will be paid for through increasing efficiencies in the system, this is an exaggeration (and I'm being kind). There will be a tax increase as part of it and it will hit most of the population.

Health Care Crisis. Obama insists that we are in a crisis. He tosses around the figure of 46 million without insurance. What he doesn't mention is that this includes 10 million illegal aliens. When asked, the Democrats insist that they will not be insuring illegals. So why include them in the count of the uninsured? To make the number scarier. In truth, a large percentage of the uninsured are gambling that they will not need coverage. They prefer to keep their money rather than spend it in insurance premiums. If asked, they would probably prefer to be left alone but they have to be included, also. The bigger the number the more the perceived urgency.

In his first few months in office, Obama took over the financial sector and the big three car makers. Now he is trying to take over energy and health care. People are rightly asking what he will be taking over next year? The speed that Obama is using to take over portions of the economy is scaring people. It doesn't help that the Demcrats made a big thing out of being Progressives and that the fascists rose out of the early-20th century Progressive movement. In pushing a bill that isn't even written yet, Obama is scaring otherwise reasonable people. I've said before that he should be spending his time on the economy. Health Care Reform is something for a country that feels financially strong, not one reeling under mounting debt and unemployment.