This cute little quote about the health care has been circulating some of my friends’ Facebook profiles, and I thought I would critique it on my blog, since they would probably get mad if I brought unsupportive posts to their Walls. I don’t want to put any work into a thoughtful reply that will just be deleted. Besides, there’s no good that would come out of embarrassing my friends publicly.
So they passed a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he didn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that exempts themselves from it, signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and better yet it is to be financed by a country that’s broke?
There are some bold claims in this short passage, so let’s break them down individually:
“written by a committee whose chairman says he didn’t understand it”
From what I understand, this myth has spawned from a quarrel between Senator Tom Coburn and Senator Max Baucus, the committee chairman that supposedly doesn’t understand his own bill.
You can see their exchange on YouTube.
Watch it already? Okay, here is a recap. Basically, Coburn requests that it be required for Senators to certify that they have read the bill and fully understand it before they vote on it. Max Baucus objects to Coburn’s request not only because he does not want to be responsible for certifying the knowledge of the bill held by these Senators, but because it would literally be impossible for him to know if they truly understood it. Coburn replies that it would be a self certification by each Senator, not something Baucus would be responsible for, and Baucus holds firm to his position, replying that as a Senator that is what they should be doing with every bill that comes through their hands.
Coburn just muddies up the water by posting that clip to YouTube with the title “Health Bill Author: No Senator Can Understand Health Care Bill.” Nice. Way to misrepresent Baucus’ words. And every site that I’ve seen that embeds that video repeats the same misunderstanding, or worse, claims that it proves that Baucus said even he doesn’t understand it.
“passed by a Congress that exempts themselves from it”
Completely false. It was just a simple Google search that led me to the relevant section in the bill:
(i) REQUIREMENT- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, after the effective date of this subtitle, the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are—
(I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or
(II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act).
(ii) DEFINITIONS- In this section:
(I) MEMBER OF CONGRESS- The term ‘Member of Congress’ means any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate.
(II) CONGRESSIONAL STAFF- The term ‘congressional staff’ means all full-time and part-time employees employed by the official office of a Member of Congress, whether in Washington, DC or outside of Washington, DC.
Pretty much spells it out: Congress will be using the same health care system as everyone else.
“signed by a president who smokes/overseen by a surgeon general who is obese”
These are called ad hominem attacks, and they are pretty weak logical points, in my opinion. These are simply tactics to weaken the credibility of the President and Surgeon General for making poor lifestyle choices as if these facts somehow also discredit the messages they both are giving about making choices that positively affect a person’s health.
Obama is definitely aware that smoking is a bad thing. That’s why he’s continuously tried to quit smoking. Unfortunately though, smoking is one of those addictive habits that some people struggle with. It was a poor choice he made to start when he was younger that he’s still paying for today. That’s why he signed a bill into law last year to help prevent children from beginning smoking. It’s not like, as a smoker, he’s been making an effort to repeal public indoor smoking bans and dismissing evidence of smoking’s harmful effects.
Even while signing that bill, he was criticized for his own smoking, to which he said:
I’ve said before that, as a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. I don’t do it in front of my kids, I don’t do it in front of my family, and I would say that I am 95% cured, but there are times where — (laughter) — there are times where I mess up.
And, I mean, I’ve said this before. I get this question about once every month or so, and I don’t know what to tell you, other than the fact that, like folks who go to AA, once you’ve gone down this path, then it’s something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don’t want is kids going down that path in the first place.
I could basically say ‘ditto’ for Regina Benjamin, the current Surgeon General, but I’ll give an example to drive my point home. In January, despite her own weight issues, she announced her plans to “help Americans lead healthier lives through better nutrition, regular physical activity, and improving communities to support healthy choices.”
In her document, The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation, she begins with:
Our nation stands at a crossroads. Today’s epidemic of overweight and obesity threatens the historic progress we have made in increasing American’s quality and years of healthy life. Two-third of adults and nearly one in three children are overweight or obese… The sobering impact of these numbers is reflected in the nation’s concurrent epidemics of diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases. If we do not reverse these trends, researchers warn that many of our children… will be seriously afflicted in early adulthood with medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. This future is unacceptable. I ask you to join me in combating this crisis.
Doesn’t sound like she’s a health denier either, does it? I’d hope not, with her being the Surgeon General, who was voted into her position unanimously by the Senate. Remember that unanimous means that everyone (on both sides of the aisle) agreed, not just a majority.
“funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes”
I can’t dispute that; there was clearly some funny business going on that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was involved in, but he did eventually pay those taxes (not that that clears him of his wrongdoing completely; maybe he shouldn’t be serving that role for the country).
“to be financed by a country that’s broke”
How is this a problem when the Congressional Budget Office has projected the bill to cut the deficit by over $1 trillion? More than $100 billion in the next ten years, and then $1.2 trillion in the decade after.
The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years — so, 2020 to 2029 — it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion.
That’s it. It looks like the only point that’s left standing is that the Treasury Secretary might be crooked.
It’s a real shame that stuff like this message spreads around the Internet like wild fire. The type of people that pass on this stuff will make no effort to check the facts before they forward it to their entire address books. I find it pretty annoying hearing people claim the bill is shredding the Constitution when they don’t know what the bill or even the Constitution say.
Why is this blurb from an anonymous author more credible than Obama, who was a teacher of constitutional law, or the rest of his administration, or any other bill supporter in Congress? Why is Fox News more credible than the entire rest of the so-called liberal media? Why would anyone align with such cynical groups of people (Fox viewers, Tea Party activists, etc.) without seeking even a speck of evidence? If you’re going to fully accept the words of one side and not doubt any of their wild claims, why follow the side that always spouting doom and gloom?
