Health Care Debate- Fear Trumps Logic

NPR has a good article on this. You can read it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112315433 , but here's my take on it.

Fear has always been the tactic of choice to dissuade, deny, and defeat health care reform. It’s not new. It was first proposed in 1915. Opponents said that national health insurance was a plot by the German Emperor to take over the United States.

In the late 1940s, the American Medical Association ran ads saying that national health insurance would lead to the Red Army marching through our streets; Communism would take over the United States.

In 1991, The Health Insurance lobby was in control by then, and ran “Harry and Louise” ads expressing doubt and fear about how changes to health insurance would hurt “middle America”. It worked.

And so it goes today. Now we have the Republicans talking about “death panels”, care for illegal aliens, public paid abortions, scaring seniors about losing Medicare, and on and on.

The battle for health care reform continues, and the tactics of fear, half-truths and lies by opponents of health reform continues too.