Health Care Fact Check

President Obama stated: "For all the scare tactics out there, what is truly scary is if we do nothing. ... Where we disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that don't bear any resemblance to anything that's actually being proposed."

There is no place for outlandish rumor or outrageous rhetoric in the debate for the affordable and accessible health care reform we all want.

Below are some facts that will help you counter the dishonest rhetoric Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and liberal special interest groups are disseminating in their attempt to silence dissent:

• Rhetoric: President Obama Promises Americans Can Keep Their Current Health Care Coverage. "You know, the interesting thing is we've actually been very clear on what we want. I've said I want to make sure if you have health care you are going to keep it..." (PBS's "The Newshour With Jim Lehrer," 7/20/09)

• FACT: Analysis Shows Over 88 Million People To Lose Current Insurance Under Government Health Care Takeover. "Under current law, there will be about 158.1 million people who are covered under an employer plan as workers, dependents or early retirees in 2011. If the act were fully implemented in that year, about 88.1 million workers would shift from private employer insurance to the public plan." (John Shelis, Vice President, Lewin Group, "Analysis Of The July 15 Draft Of The American Affordable Health Choices Act Of 2009," 7/17/09)

• Rhetoric: President Obama Pledges Americans Can Keep Their Doctor. "If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing. You keep your plan. You keep your doctor...We're not going to mess with it." (President Barack Obama, Remarks At White House Press Conference, The White House, 6/23/09)

• FACT: Mayo Clinic Says Government-Run Health Care Will Force Doctors To Drop Patients. '[L]awmakers are on track to approve across-the-board federal payment reductions of $155 billion over 10 years for hospitals ... Mayo and similar health systems object to the sweeping cuts. 'Across-the-board cuts will be harmful to everyone and we think it is particularly bad to penalize the high-value organizations,' said Jeff Korsmo, executive director of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center. 'We will have to violate our values in order to stay in business and reduce our access to government patients.'" (Phil Galewitz, "'Model' Health Systems Press Case For Medicare Fix In Reform," Kaiser Health News, 7/20/09)

• Rhetoric: President Obama Promises No Additional Taxes On Middle Class. "What I've said is, and I have stuck to this point, I don't want to see additional tax burdens on people making $250,000 a year or less." (NBC's "Today Show," 7/21/09)

• FACT: Democrats' Plan Imposes 2.5% Tax On Uninsured Individuals. "The penalty assessed on people who would be subject to the mandate but did not obtain insurance would equal 2.5 percent of the difference between their adjusted gross income (modified to include tax-exempt interest and certain other sources of income) and the tax filing threshold ..." (Douglas W. Elmendorf, "Preliminary Analysis Of The Insurance Coverage Specifications Provided By The House Tri-Committee Group," Letter To Chairman Rangel, 7/17/09)

The Republicans want an honest and open debate about how to reform health care, but it is the Democrats who do not want to have a legitimate discussion on the issues. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their liberal special interest cronies are resorting to calling concerned citizens who have questions about their health care schemes "astroturf," "un-American," and even "political terrorists."

One White House aide went so far to say "if you get hit, we will punch back
twice as hard" when coaching Senate Democrats on the ways of "Chicago land politics."

It's time for the President to practice what he preached on the campaign trail and respect all voices in the health care debate.

"Democrats, bloodied over their attempt to force health care 'reform' on Americans, are looking more unreasonable and hysterical by the day. This isn't healthy for the republic. Their increasing anxiety and fear of failure are typified in the words of the leader of their party, who wants Republicans to keep their mouths shut while he 'fixes' health care. 'I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking,' the president said Thursday at a political rally in Virginia. 'I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.' So much for the promises of bipartisan lawmaking. So much for open discussion. So much for understanding who really caused the 'mess' in the first place. Like Al Gore claiming the debate about global warming is over, the White House simply wants to shut down dialogue over who controls more than one-seventh of the economy. ... Truth is, there's nothing more American than revolting against heavy-handed authority, be it a long train of abuses from a king or the lawmaking of elected officials with strong authoritarian urges. This is a nation founded on independence, and there is a large portion of it that wants to retain that priceless heritage. This seems to confuse some lawmakers. ... Voters' deep anger is justifiable. They have every right to disrupt and shout down public figures who, as the protesters can be heard chanting, work for them. At dispute is not a mere difference of opinion that can and should be discussed in a civil manner, but a fundamental question of who is in charge of peoples' lives. We are not advocating violence, though coercive government is at its core violent as the state is required to resort to force to ensure that its directives aren't violated. But we do support our fellow citizens' right to express their rage at an injustice, particularly if it makes lawmakers uncomfortable. Shouldn't Americans bristle when their independence is threatened, when a federal official, in this case White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, says party leaders 'will punch back twice as hard' when voters merely show their displeasure? The freedom the protesters are defending can sometimes be messy and imperfect. A lack of freedom, however, is eternally oppressive. It is an unrelenting prison that poisons the human spirit, even when cloaked in allegedly humane programs such as government-run health care." --Investors' Business Daily