Health Care Myth Blasting #2

By Keith R. Schmitz

Let's deconstruct more rad right health care reform mythology courtesy of Media Matters.

MYTH 2: Health care reform will impose rationing

CLAIM: Progressive health care reform proposals will introduce a system of "rationing" into American medicine.

SEAN HANNITY: "We're gonna have a government rationing body that tells women with breast cancer, 'You're dead.' It's a death sentence." [Fox News' Hannity, 6/19/09]
MICHELLE MALKIN: "Big Nanny Democrats want to ration health care for everyone in America -- except those who break our immigration laws." [Malkin column, 7/22/09]
REALITY: Insurance companies already ration care. Insurance companies acknowledge that they ration care, restricting coverage of procedures and tests like MRIs and CAT scans and denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.

Sanjay Gupta: "I can tell you, as a practicing physician ... who deals with this on a daily basis, rationing does occur all the time." As Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, explained: "[P]eople always say, 'Is there going to be rationed care?' And I can tell you, as a practicing physician, as someone who deals with this on a daily basis, rationing does occur all the time. I mean, I was in the clinic this past week. And I -- you know, at the end of clinic, I get all this paperwork that basically says, 'Justify why you're doing such and such procedure. Justify why you're ordering such and such test.' And if the justification is inadequate, the answer comes back, 'Well, that's not going to be covered.' Which basically is saying that the patient is going to have to pay for it on their own, which is, in essence, is what rationing is, in so many ways." [CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, 8/12/09]

Insurance companies ration care by rescinding coverage. As former senior executive at CIGNA health insurance company Wendell Potter explained in June 24 Senate testimony, insurance companies restrict or deny coverage by rescinding health insurance policies on the grounds that people had undisclosed pre-existing conditions. President Obama recently cited one such example, noting that "[a] woman from Texas was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, was scheduled for a double mastectomy. Three days before surgery ... the insurance company canceled the policy, in part because she forgot to declare a case of acne. ... By the time she had her insurance reinstated, the cancer had more than doubled in size."

Gibbs Skewers the Inanity of Hannity

Keith R. Schmitz

Savor this fine six minutes as Obama Communications Director Robert Gibbs lets the air out of gas bag Sean Hannity following the debates last night.

Gibbs; in his typical affable, next door neighbor style; blasts the guilt by William Ayers association desperado tactic of the McCain by pointing out that Hannity had a whole show featuring the anti-Semite Andy Martin.

Worse for Hannity, his long-suffering foil Alan Colmes adds a dollop of Cool Whip on the topic by going into depth about the board that Obama and Ayers served on, talking about the other members who made up the board (funded by former Reagan supporter Walter H. Annenberg), blasting the McCartyite tactics. This "issue" will be something our own local Charlie McCarthyite will be using ad infinitum as the smell of dead horse drives people away.

Don't think Gibbs will asked be on Hannity's show any time soon.

Monday Miscellaney

by folkbum

• Our TiVo
  2003-2007
  Rest in Peace
  
• The Brawler writes about unions so I don't have to. All youse who are afraid of imaginary union goons (like the scary 300 pound men of Paul Noonan's fevered imagination) are apparently unfamiliar with the facts.
  
  
• Speaking of studies that burst conservatives' imaginary-world bubbles, it turns out that immigrants--including illegal ones--boost pay more than prison populations.
  
  
• Who would have guessed that I'm in the top ten for a Google search for hamburger helper turning in my wrench for a fork?
  
  
• The Cheddarsphere's own Sean Hackbarth has been the point man on what I see as a too-little-too-late campaign to distance the genteel right from Ann Coulter. (If you don't know why Coulter is in the news again, just Google it up.) I say too-little-too-late because Ann Coulter is now and has been for a long time a known quantity. Yet I didn't see Sean boycotting the convention; rather, he was quite glad to go despite knowing that Coulter would be there even after her as-offensive remarks from last year.
  
  Blue Texan pointedly asks Sean why it took so long, especially given that her remarks this weekend were tame by comparison to her previous hits. Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has reports from the same now-aghast bloggers reporting on how much that very convention loved Coulter before the speech.
  
  It is often said that there is basically nothing a prominent right-winger can say that will get them ostracized (although someone should ask David Brock about that). And I predict that there will be little change to Ann Coulter's media status after this past weekend.
  
  Oh, and what Digby said.
  
  
• Anyone who thinks that the crisis at Walter Reed is somehow indicative of government's inability to deliver health care should read this and this.
  
  
• Who knew that Rick Esenberg's done more drugs than I have? And I'm a cymbal-banging leader of the drum-circle left!
  
  
• This is from the same massive conservative conference Ann Coulter befouled. I don't entirely know if the picture is fair, but it's kind of funny. I got it from here, but the site's currently under a denial-of-service attack by those genteel righties.
  
  
• I can't believe people aren't embarrassed to death to do things like this. Saying one night, about Mitt Romney's Mormonism, "We created a new religious litmus test. This is very troublesome to me, and no other candidate is getting that scrutiny." And then saying the very next night about Barack Obama, "Now, a closer look at the church's vision has led many to call them separatist and, in some cases, even drawing comparisons to a cult." How does his brain not explode?
  
  
• And, saved for last because my head might explode: I actually agree with McIlheran. Althouse, however, continues to befuddle me.