Right on cue, and according to plan, Betsy “Death Panel” McCaughey has spewed onto the pages of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal with her new set of lies and hysteria about the merged House health care reform bill – HR 3962 – scheduled for a vote late Saturday. 
For Betsy and her handlers, this is the last best chance she has at shaping the debate. She didn’t really write this column to influence the House vote. What she’s really trying to do is influence the Senate vote and inevitable1 conference committee bill.
For the benefit of the curious and intellectually dishonest, what follows is her lie and the truth. I’ve highlighted Betsy’s contentions in a color appropriately depicting their real character.
- Betsy: Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a “qualified plan.”
Yes, Betsy, that’s right. A qualified plan will be a plan that meets the minimum requirements for a health insurance plan. That means no zillion dollar deductibles or lifetime caps on coverage, no exclusions for acne or domestic violence. Oh, and by the way, your 401(k) is a ‘qualified plan’. Got a problem with that? - Betsy: Sec. 224 (p. 118) provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a “qualified plan” covers and how much you’ll be legally required to pay for it.
Betsy, there were two ways to come at this. The first was simply to dictate benefits and benefit levels, assumptions to calculate premiums, and limits on rate bands.
Or, Congress could invite the insurers to show up and offer relevant data as support for basic benefit packages, rates, and appropriate coverage levels/cost sharing. Seems to me the fairest way is to allow for that data to be compiled and supplied as part of the effort to actually get fair rates.
Betsy goes on to outline what the CBO estimated as costs. She forgot to include what families would be paying right now, and she also forgot to include the fact that anyone lucky enough to be employed probably has health insurance provided by their employer. Instead of accounting for what employers contribute toward health insurance, she put big scary numbers out there for everyone to run from.
- Betsy: Sec. 303 (pp. 167-168) makes it clear that, although the “qualified plan” is not yet designed, it will be of the “one size fits all” variety. The bill claims to offer choice—basic, enhanced and premium levels—but the benefits are the same. Only the co-pays and deductibles differ.
Again, why is this a bad thing? It is not all that different from what’s offered today. Just for the heck of it, I went to the Anthem Blue Cross website. I found 3 plans with 3 deductibles, Tier 1 and Tier 2 prescription drug coverage, maternity benefits, out of state coverage, health and wellness programs.
Are you seeing a pattern here? There’s nothing at all really to criticize, so Betsy frames what already exists as scary change.
- Sec. 59b (pp. 297-299) says that when you file your taxes, you must include proof that you are in a qualified plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars. Illegal immigrants are exempt from this requirement.
This is particularly odious framing, especially since Betsy was the one stirring hysteria over illegal immigrants being covered under the public option. She cannot have it both ways: Either they can have health insurance or they can’t. Illegal immigrants are not EXEMPT. They’re BANNED. They’re banned because Betsy and her Republican friends were so concerned about those bad immigrants getting even one dime of taxpayer money that a special provision was written into the merged bill BANNING them from the public option. In other words, we are going to prohibit illegal immigrants from paying for something because we’re so afraid of them. Okay, fine. But don’t turn around and make it sound like they’re exempt and receiving some special consideration. They’re banned, Betsy. Live with it.
Here in California, if you want a drivers’ license you have to prove you have insurance. If you want to register your car, you have to prove you have insurance. It’s done all the time. It’s not terrible. Really, it’s not. Nor is it an onerous horrible requirement.
- Sec. 412 (p. 272) says that employers must provide a “qualified plan” for their employees and pay 72.5% of the cost, and a smaller share of family coverage, or incur an 8% payroll tax. Small businesses, with payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000, are fined less.
Employers provide plans for their employees and pay far more than 72.5% now. This is a break, not a burden. The 8% is a safety hatch. If insurance is more expensive, they can pay the 8%, send employees to the exchange.
As for the small business analysis, Betsy forgot to say that businesses with less than $500,000 payroll are not only exempt, but receive tax credits for providing insurance to employees. I’m sure it was an oversight on her part.
McCaughey goes on to claim that Medicare is being ‘eviscerated’ when the opposite is true. As evidence, she offers provisions that were specifically requested by doctors, particularly the provisions relating to how they’re paid.
Example: Sec. 1114 (pp. 391-393) replaces physicians with physician assistants in overseeing care for hospice patients.
In fact, it does not replace physicians with physicans’ assistance. It expands the current definition from “nurse practitioner or clinical nurse specialist” to “nurse practitioner, a clinical nurse specialist, or a physician assistant”. This is so Medicare can reimburse for hospice care provided by a PA, which it does not currently do.
That example serves as a beacon for Betsy’s service to her insurer masters. As the tobacco industry spokesperson during the Clinton years, she published provably false statements which were framed and written by her Philip Morris employers. Today, she is no less of a shill. The only difference? Rupert Murdoch gives her a platform with a reputation to taint by allowing her nonsense to be published on the Wall Street Journal site.
You can coat bullshit in candy, but it’s still bullshit. McCaughey’s last-ditch effort to scare people away from health care reform is as pathetic as it is false.
One last observation: She doesn’t even mention the public option. If ever there was evidence of surrender in her dying gasp for attention, this is it.
1Yes, it is inevitable, Betsy. In tonight’s House Rules Committee meeting, the Republicans conceded that the bill would indeed pass and become law. Of course, they did it with the requisite grinding and gnashing of teeth, but still, they see the handwriting on the wall.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Karoli, you found 3 plans with 3 dedectibles at one insurance company. There are others, many others.
And your car insurance analogy is so ridiculous, yet so common. Millions of Americans are exempt from car insurance premiums–they choose not to drive or own a car. Car insurance is not a prerequisite to live in America.
Regarding the 8% tax, surely you recognize the impact of raising taxes in a recession? I ate sushi on Wednesday at a local hole in the wall place. They had 3 sushi chefs and 1 waitress there because they can only afford a full staff on Fridays and Saturdays. As a restaurant, they easily surpass $500k a year in payroll. What will happen in they are hit with an 8% tax? Thousands of small businesses are barely getting by and will be put under by these new taxes.
And that will be millions more jobs not saved and not created.
Thanks, again, Karoli, for being the person I rely on to dig up the truth. You are my best weapon when sparring with my conservative friends. Keep up the good work.
Another point, the 15% of uninured Americans and 21% of under-insured Americans whould have access to health care in Canada, like any average Canadian, and exactly the same as the Premier of their province and their Member of Parliament.
If they really took a look, they would find that Canadians, who have a government funded singler payer health care system, actually have more rights and freedoms in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, than Americans ever had in their Constitution.
In addition, they would find that the average Canadian has health care which is as good as, or better than, the average American.
The lies about universal government run healthcare come from a single direction. On that side you have the radical anti-abortionists who want to tie their crusade to anything that moves in order to get attention. You have the gun owners- the same ones who will inevitably say when school children are gunned down that it wouldn’t have happened if the kids or their teacher had a gun. Yeah I want to send my kid to school where a teacher whose had a bad day is allowed to carry a gun.
You have the religious zealots. Insert the anti abortion comment here.
You have the privacy crowd. “The government is going to invade my privacy? bullshit. Well thanks to Bush its too late for that.
You have the freedom crowd. The t-baggers. Apologies to @michalepleahy who thinks the term is derogatory but that’s what they chose to take as their logo.
What they are trying to tell me is that people in every other industrial country have no freedom? What a pile of horse manure. Go tell the Danes, Swedes, Canadians, French they have no freedom. They will laugh at you.
And so I laugh at those who are anti heathcare. They are pathetic in their arguments. They are clearly uneducated and when I take the time to talk to them. and I have often, I find people who have never left their state (except to go to Vegas) or who have never left their country. When asked what the capital of Canada is they either don’t know or say Toronto.
I met two women one American and one German and a t-bagger rally. It was about taxes. We started talking about taxes and the discussion led to healthcare. The American lady, a senior, was afraid of losing her medicare (funded by taxes I might add and getting more expensive every year). She said the medical care in socialized countries was abysmal. Her German friend corrected her saying that she had a friend in Berlin who had breast cancer. got excellent care, and it was free. She didnt have to sell her house or take out a loan.
The t-baggers, the anti healthcare crowd are sad and uneducated. I hope their children grow up with different set of principles. But I also know we wont have to wait for their generation to get what we deserve- freedom from the insurance companies and financial safety knowing one illness will not put us out on the streets.
This is America. No longer the shining city on the hill. The city is getting tarnished, it smells, the right wingers are not picking up their garbage and its flowing into the streets.