Not only did GOPer Rep. Robert Inglis, R-SC, have the guts to face his constituents, he also had the common sense to tell them the truth:
"I had to politely explain that, 'Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,' " Inglis recalled. "But he wasn't having any of it." (WashingtonPost.com).
And why wasn't the "keep your government hands off my Medicare" guy having any of it? Disinformation, pure and simple. Recently, the astroturf group "Conservatives For Patients Rights (yeah, "right") had their ad fisked by FactCheck.org. It shouldn't surprise anyone that their analysis of rightwing claims are, well, to quote the analysis:
CPR Administers Bad Facts, Again
* It's not true that any of the health care overhaul measures that have been approved by committees in Congress would add "a trillion to the federal deficit," as the ad says. The Senate bill would add roughly $597 billion over 10 years, and the House bill that was approved by the Ways and Means Committee in mid-July would add a much smaller $239 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (FactCheck.org)
Now, I'm looking at a very fancy brochure recently mailed out - at taxpayer expense - by Rep. Erik Paulsen, R=republiCon. And what does Rep. Erik Paulsen claim, in his published and mailed at taxpayer expense brochure? It's "right" there, on page 2: "Their plan would cost over $1 trillion"
Way to go, Erik! Mailing out debunked disinformation, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.
Paul Krugman opined a little over a week ago on the subject: Why Americans hate single-payer insurance. Paul Krugman's explanation? "Because they don't know they have it." And Paul Krugman uses the "particiapant" at the Town Hall, referenced above, as an example. Here's what else Paul Krugman said:
One of the truly amazing and depressing things about the health reform debate is the persistence of fear-mongering over "socialized medicine" even though we already have a system in which the government pays substantially more medical bills (47% of the total) than the private insurance industry (35%).
In a way, this is the flip side of the persistent belief that the free market can cure healthcare, even though there are no places where it actually has; people also believe that government-provided insurance can't work, even though there are many places where it does - and one of those places is the United States of America. (NYTimes.com)
And rather than correct the disinformation, Rep. Erik Paulsen, R=republiCon fuels the fire.
Gotta love today's "conservatives", doncha?
Well, in a word, "no." And you certainly can't trust them to tell the truth, either.
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