Lies My Government Tells Me

Politicians speak in sound bites because that is what the media reports. I can speak in very short sentences with very short words (sound bites), too, and make sweeping generalities that are misleading. For example:

"Democrats are liberals." Well, of course, they are not all liberals, but since I did not use that quantifier it is hard to call that a lie when a significant percentage of Democrats are liberals. OK, that's my sound bite. Here are a few from proponents of health care reform.

"43 million Americans are without health insurance." Technically that estimate is pretty close to reality. Most of the estimated 10 to 13 million illegal aliens included in this estimate are Americans, North and South Americans, not necessarily legal US residents.

"14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day." I have not researched this number so I don't know if this estimate is anywhere near accurate. I do know that no politician or pundit ever include the number of people who gain health insurance every day. If someone gets a new job with a new company are they counted in that number? They probably did lose their insurance, but very likely got new insurance. With the government's track record, I don't trust them to subtract the number that gain insurance.

"Seniors will not have their Medicare benefits reduced." That is about 75% accurate, so is it a 25% lie? Those seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage will most certainly have their benefits reduced. Language that will force cost cutting if expenses are higher than expected is included in some health care reform bills. No one tells us exactly how costs will be reduced, but if reimbursements to doctors are reduced to the point that my doctor will no longer accept my insurance, but another doctor might, isn't that a loss of benefits? At the very least it casts a shadow of doubt on another often hear sound bite. "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."

The hype leading up to Barack Obama's address to both houses of Congress assured us that the president would give us details then. If you watched that speech you know that we heard more of the same sound bites and almost no details. In fact, the only new things we heard were that 30 million Americans don't have health insurance (finally got the arithmetic right) and that HHS would experiment with health courts in a few states to see if the cost of malpractice litigation could be reduced.

Personally I am not going to tune in for any more sound bites. I will listen when politicians start explaining the details.