‘Distortions’ ripple the health care debate, says Associated Press — MedCity Morning Read, Aug. 4, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Confusing claims and distortions have plagued the nation’s ongoing debate about health care reform, according to the Associated Press.

Opponents of proposals by President Obama and congressional Democrats falsely claim that government officials will force elderly people to discuss end-of-life plans. Meanwhile, Obama has played down the possibility that health care reform could cause large numbers of people to change doctors and insurers, the AP said.

To complicate matters, there is no clear-cut reform plan from Obama or from Democrats. The Senate is considering two bills that differ significantly, and the House is waiting for yet another bill to be finished by a committee, according to the AP.

CLAIM: For instance, House Republican leader John Boehner from Ohio said on July 23 that the House bill “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia,” according to the Associated Press. Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey said in a July 17 article: “One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years … about alternatives for end-of-life care,” the AP said.

THE FACTS: The bill would require Medicare to pay for advance directive consultations with health care professionals, but it would not require anyone to use the consultations, the Associated Press said. Advance directives, such as living wills, lay out how a person would like to be cared for at the end of life, whether that should arrive through accident, injury, disease or age.

ANOTHER CLAIM: Health care reform would lead to government-funded abortions. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says in a video, “Unless Congress states otherwise, under a government takeover of health care, taxpayers will be forced to fund abortions for the first time in over three decades,” the Associated Press said.

THE FACTS: The proposed reform bills would not undo the Hyde Amendment, which bars Medicaid — the government insurance program for the poor — from paying for abortions, the AP said. However, a health care overhaul could create insurance “exchanges” or marketplaces that would exclude Medicaid. The abortion policies of private insurers involved in such exchanges is unclear, the AP said.

In late June, 19 Democrats sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that said: “Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government subsidized health care plan under general health care,” according to CBS. ”We cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan,” the letter said.

President Obama recently told CBS that the nation would continue a tradition of “not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care.”

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[Photo credit: By Ed Brown, as Edbrown05, on 05-04-2005; posted at Wikipedia Commons]