Morning Bell: Dissent Is Not Un-American
Conn Carroll /
Whether the source is Gallup, Pew, Quinnipiac, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, the Washington Post, or even the New York Times; every recent poll on the issue shows that either pluralities or majorities of Americans have serious doubts about President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Reviewing the month’s polling data, Gallup’s Frank Newport sums it up: “The bottom line is a sense that, while Americans apparently favor some type of healthcare reform in the long term, they are in no hurry to see healthcare reform legislation passed in the short-term on a rushed schedule. … A Pew Research poll released this week shows that those who are worried about new health care legislation are most likely to say it is because it involves too much spending and would increase the deficit.”
Wrapped in their liberal Washington cocoon, however, the leadership in Congress simply do not want to hear this message. Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have chosen to pen an op-ed in today’s USA Today calling those who want Congress to hear their concerns about health care “simply un-American.”
Pelosi and Hoyer claim that opponents of Obamacare are disrupting townhalls across the country by “drowning out the facts” about health reform. However, it is not the townhall-attending Americans that don’t have their facts straight. It is Pelosi, Hoyer, and Obama’s allies that are doing violence to the truth.
The Threat to Your Current Medical Care: Pelosi and Hoyer claim: “The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice.” This is simply not true. According to the non-partisan Lewin Group, under the House legislation about 83.4 million people would lose their current private insurance. This would represent a 48.4 percent reduction in the number of people with private coverage. Pelosi and Hoyer also claim: “Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans.” But thanks to new price controls set in the legislation, yearly premiums for the typical American with private coverage could go up by as much as $460 per privately insured person. (more…)