Republicans may very well be right in believing President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform legislation might not work. Even if the proposal escapes sabotage by a health industry more interested in maintaining its profit margin than people’s health, Obama’s programs may do too little and come to late to save an archaic health system.
Yet, instead of making their case honestly and allowing the public to rationally decide what is best for individuals and the nation, some Republicans – heavily lobbied by insurance and other health interests – simply lie. They start hyping up people’s emotions with reports of “death panels” and bureaucrats telling people which doctors they can or cannot go to and what services they may or may not have.
In claiming Obama’s proposal creates “death panels” that would deny medicine to grandfathers and grandmothers in their dying days, these Republicans ignore the fact that under President George W. Bush, they held a gun to the heads of many of these same grandfathers and grandmothers when it came to choosing their retirement medical packages, threatening to penalize these people for failing to fork over cash for bad prescription programs and other medical programs. The lie about so-called “death panels” – former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin called them “evil” – has become all-pervasive.
Republicans also ignore the facts when they claim bureaucrats will tell patients which doctors they can see and which services they can provide. Under the existing system, insurance company bureaucrats already do that – and many of these may be former government employees who took jobs with the insurance companies they formerly were supposed to regulate.
The other great myth being promulgated by some Republicans concerns the fail safe public insurance provision in Obama’s proposal. Insurance companies hate it because the provision allows people to opt out of traditional insurance plans, providing an incentive for insurance companies to control costs by giving them competition. But unsaid in all this is the fact that the poor already have a fail safe health plan called the hospital emergency room, and because it is largely a haphazard provider for most people, taxpayers pay through the nose for it.
Not the first time either
The health care issue isn’t the first “Big Lie” the Republicans have told. Each time their party can’t make a logical argument for their side of an issue, they try to scare people. This was true in the stem cell debate in Trenton a few years ago, when conservatives – failing to win the public’s sympathy on moral grounds – invented a science fiction scenario that had stem cell researchers cloning babies.
Former Gov. Jim Florio was the most obvious victim of the big lie, when he tried to balance the state budget by raising taxes. Talk radio went crazy about his taxing toilet paper, and combined with behind the scenes redistricting, Republicans won both houses of the state legislature and eventually the governor’s office.
The big lie in this case came when Christie Whitman took office and claimed the state did not have to raise taxes, and she promptly stopped payment to the state pension fund and raided the unemployment insurance fund. This is like the breadwinner of a household taking out a triple mortgage on a house, borrowing against the family’s 401k and draining the family’s bank account, simply so family members never have to stop overspending.
Now, Gov. Jon Corzine faces another election in which he is pitted against the economy. People are hurting throughout the state and in some ways, the Republicans – who refused to pay the state bills in the past or adequately cut spending – sit back and wait and hope people will get angry enough to dump Corzine in favor of Republican Christopher Christie.
As former U.S. Attorney, Christie is running on his anti-public-corruption record, yet it is unclear if he has any proposals that will run the state any better than Whitman did. Meanwhile Corzine and Christie are both apparently courting anti-corruption Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop, trying to get a little of his clout here in Hudson County.
Democracy in action in Secaucus
The Town Council interviewed three candidates from whom they are supposed to select the interim mayor – unfortunately, two of them dropped out during the interviews, suggesting there is some truth to reports that the selection process was rigged.
Councilman Mike Gonnelli denies that any deal was struck between him and Democratic Municipal Chairman Vincent Prieto to name the next mayor, but Democratic committee people said nominations to fill the unexpired term of Mayor Dennis Elwell were rushed through committee last week.
The Democratic committee people are charged with naming at least three candidates from which the council must select one as mayor. Some committee people wanted to propose former Councilman Richard Kane and never got the chance, and believe that a deal was struck without their consent to have Richard Steffens named acting mayor, which would give Gonnelli control of the council even before his expected election to mayor in November. Gonnelli is running for mayor at the head of a ticket of Independents against three Democratic candidates left without a mayoral candidate when Elwell resigned.
While Gonnelli denies any deal making, Prieto did show him a confidential Democratic poll that even members of the Democratic committee have yet to see. This is a lot like the American CIA showing top secret documents to the Soviet KGB at the height of the Cold War. Needless to say a number of committee people – who were geared up to fight Gonnelli in the upcoming election – feel that they have been betrayed by their own committee chairman.