Healthcare misinformation

It doesn't get much worse than this. Today, the Oklahoman ran a letter by Nancy Park of Del City filled with incredible amounts of misinformation about the Affordable Care Act, all to help push its right-wing agenda without dirtying its hands.

She begins by writing that "the idea of foisting government health care on everyone is the worst law I've seen so far." Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) doesn't actually do this. It is incredible that this paper runs letters where lies and distortions are presented as fact.

If Ms. Park bothered to get her information from sources not connected with the right wing media machine, she might learn that at its core, the ACA really just does the following:

A) Lets children stay on their parents' (private) health care plan until 26;
B) Forces (private) insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, and eliminates life-time limites;
C) Requires that every citizen and legal resident has to have (private) insurance or face a penalty;

D) Offers some financial assistance for middle-class families that need help purchasing (private) insurance; and

E) Slightly raises medicare taxes on the extremely wealthy.

There's more than this, but this is the trust of it-- insurance companies can no longer dick you over with pre-existing conditions and life time limits, and in exchange, every person has to have insurance. Only through the most tortured semantic twists could one claim that this is "foisting government health care on everyone" and yet the Oklahoman prints this crap.

Mr. Park goes on, complaining that "adding the government to the mix will make it much more expensive and limit access to treatment for months on end, as in Canada's system."

Holy crap-- it's the Canada canard!! It's hard to really say the US is doing better than Canada with regards to health care when things like actual facts say that it's not true. To be fair, Ms. Park was, it seems, talking just about limited access to treatment "for months on end" and so some extent that's true-- in the linked article, Canada comes in 7th out of 7 in timeliness of care while the US comes in a whopping 5th-- behind "socialist" countries like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. And seriously, there are complex reasons for limits to treatment access that are entirely unrelated to having the government make you buy (private) health insurance. 

But wait. It gets worse:

To suddenly make birth control a cost that insurers have to pay is outrageous. Until now, people have paid for their own birth control and have gained many upgrades as a result of free enterprise. What do you think will happen to any potential research when it's now a mandate?

WHAT THE HELL?!?!?! This is fucking nuts. In general, people with health insurance buy birth control pills with a co-pay of something like $10. Now it's true that the ACA now requires that (private) insurance companies pay the entire cost, but let's be honest: given that the pill with no insurance can run you far more than that per month, it hardly seems like having (private) insurance companies pay a bit more is a radical new step.

Moreover, what the fuck is this shit about "gained many upgrades as a result of free enterprise"?!? What does she even mean???? I can get an upgrade when I fly United Airlines. I don't know how someone gets an upgrade with birth control pills? Perhaps she is talking about condoms? And... I don't even follow the logic with the "potential research" thing. Seriously. Does she imagine that pharmaceutical companies are just going to up and stop working on improving their product because... I guess, there's a mandate for people to have (private) health insurance that pays for birth control? She does realize that just because there's some mandate for (private) insurance companies to cover the costs of birth control pills that doesn't mean that pharmaceutical companies now make their pills for free, right? Like, can we expect people to stop improving on, say, improved techniques for brain surgery? Because I'm pretty sure most of that is going to be paid by (private) insurance, too.

And that even if the profit motive were somehow just killed because of this (a totally preposterous position so asinine that it's hard to take seriously), university researchers would undoubtedly continue to find ways to improve on such things even if the more monetarily-focused researchers gave up.

The rest is comical and reminds me of a previous letter:

I'm not speaking just for religious groups who oppose this travesty, but for all of us. What's next? Abortions need to be covered, too? We'll need to import immigrants to fill the loss of population. But they won't be begging to get into a socialist country, since it's likely that's the kind of country they're leaving behind. The Affordable Health Care Act is far from affordable as it is. The nation is drowning in debt and we need a new entitlement that will cost billions more?

What? Abortions??!? Immigrants?!!? ZOMFG!!! SOCIALISM?!?!!!! FESEV%YVYHQ$TW$!!!!! DROWNING IN DEBT@##@$T$CQ#X$XWF!!!11111!!!!!!

Clearly, the best way to get your letter published in the Oklahoman is to write a paragraph or two parroting some factually inaccurate right wing talking point, and the follow it up with a final paragraph that includes 4-5 standard right wing dog-whistle terms all mashed together in some sort of stream-of-consciousness style.

A real newspaper would publish more thoughtful letters from a wide spectrum of views. But the Oklahoman just wants to push its right wing plutocratic/theocratic agenda and so it opts to run the crap like this letter from Ms. Park.