[Editorial] Time To Talk Back

September 9, 2009

A remarkable thing has happened on the way to a national public dialogue about health reform: Bullies (many of them well-funded by industry groups) have taken over the conversation by yelling into microphones. Too many people who oppose the president's attempt to wrest control of health care away from the powerful insurance lobby are in hysterics and spreading very bad information.

Just last week on the JFP site, someone posted that the president's proposal includes the government putting implants into all of us. (Uh, no.) Others are making up lies about the way health care works in Canada (see http://factcheck.org for the realities). Still others are comparing Obama to Lenin, Stalin and Hitler—or all three at once as we saw a Sarah Palin fan do on a local minister's Facebook page last week.

Calm down, folks. Breathe. Think. The truth is that most Americans want intelligent health-insurance reform such as that found in President Obama's bill, including a public option. There are no death panels, no implants. You can keep your doctor. Small businesses won't be devastated—in fact, insurance reform will help us insure more of our employees.

Most importantly is what most in Congress agree on: Health-insurance reform should forbid the insurance industry from withholding payment for vital services or refusing coverage due to pre-existing conditions. (Note that right now, insurance companies already make "death panel" life-and-death decisions and often limit doctor choice.)

Frankly, neither the extreme left nor the extreme right likes this bill, and that's part of what is good about it. Regardless, Congress is likely to hammer a compromise of some sort when it comes back this week.

But what the rest of us have to do is raise the standard of the dialogue. We must try to figure out what we're talking about. Try reading the bill; it's long, but it only has a handful of words on each page in that congressional style it uses.

Most importantly, take back this debate. Challenge the lies they are picking up from extremist blogs, radio talk-show hosts and FOX News.

If you're under 30, this is your time. You elected President Obama with a mandate for change, and specifically for heath-insurance reform. Don't stay quiet now. Use all your social networking tools to get out the truth (there's a Youtube cartoon/tutorial you need to see and pass around at http://bit.ly/YBrhJ).

We can fix health care once and for all if we band together. And we can take back this debate and make it intelligent again. Just talk back.