Bogus Claims About Health Care Proposals Persist:
CNN has some coverage here. The debate over health care legislation reminds me of the debate over the USA Patriot Act back in 2001 (albeit with the politics more or less flipped). In both cases, the legislation was very technical and difficult for a non-expert to understand. In both cases, you had a lot of vocal critics with only a marginal understanding of the law who were more than happy to be loose with the facts in their criticisms. And in both cases, you had a lot of members of the public willing to believe just about any claim about the law, no matter how outlandish.
UPDATE: A commenter points out another parallel: Many critics seem focused on whether the legislators have personally read the latest text of the bill (as compared to reading summaries of it, reports about it, etc.) I suppose one easy prediction is that if the health care bill passes, it will have a patriotic acronym name, and critics will then complain that the bill passed only because the Senators and Representatives couldn't possibly vote against a bill with such a patriotic name.
To make it more challenging, let me predict a name: I think the bill will be called the "American Medical Excellence Reform In Caring for All" Act -- the AMERICA Act. I mean, who could vote against the AMERICA Act?!?!
UPDATE: A commenter points out another parallel: Many critics seem focused on whether the legislators have personally read the latest text of the bill (as compared to reading summaries of it, reports about it, etc.) I suppose one easy prediction is that if the health care bill passes, it will have a patriotic acronym name, and critics will then complain that the bill passed only because the Senators and Representatives couldn't possibly vote against a bill with such a patriotic name.
To make it more challenging, let me predict a name: I think the bill will be called the "American Medical Excellence Reform In Caring for All" Act -- the AMERICA Act. I mean, who could vote against the AMERICA Act?!?!