10 of the Nuttiest Statements Elected Officials Have Made in the Health Care Battle
1. Policy Terminated!More at link.
The thing that makes the rhetoric against health care reform so outlandish is how divorced it is from reality.
The Democrats' health care proposals, as any critic on the left can tell you, are rather compromised, incremental reforms that won't directly impact the vast majority of Americans who have decent health care already. It has a public insurance option, but only 1 in 50 Americans would be covered by it in 2019. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it wouldn't add to the deficit. It's moderate.
Although the legislation is obviously significant, it's tough to portray as a radical and frightening shift in our health care system. So opponents in Congress have taken the novel approach of arguing against a bill that doesn't exist.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, warned that the House reform bill "cancels every [health insurance] policy" in America. "[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi's agenda takes every [policy] away," King told MSNBC.
Not to be outdone, Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann -- always a favorite of lazy left-wing bloggers on the hunt for a gem -- told Fox News the House bill would make private insurance illegal.
2. Health Care Crisis? What Health Care Crisis?
One often hears that virtually everyone agrees that the American health care system has deep, deep problems, even as they disagree on exactly where the problems lie and how they should be fixed.
But have you ever wondered who it is that is not counted among "virtually everyone"? Turns out they include some of Washington's most conservative lawmakers who insist that there is no problem and that the whole thing is just another liberal myth (like global warming, poverty or the war in Iraq).
Another member of Congress named King -- Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., -- told MSNBC that health care is "not a major issue among the American people." The Huffington Post points out that King based the claim on a poll that in fact found that Americans ranked the issue as the third most important, after jobs and the deficit.
But Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., one of the craziest members of the House (and that's saying something), took the prize when she held a press conference to proclaim, "there are no Americans who don't have health care." Which would come as a surprise for the 46 million or so who lack coverage today.
"We do have about 7.5 million Americans who want to purchase health insurance who can not afford it," she granted before urging people not to "give the government control of our lives."
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