Checking the Fact Checkers

I'm glad there are professional "fact checkers" in the media, even if I don't always believe they're as non-partisan as they claim. But sometimes the fact checking is, whether intentionally or not, excessively literal. 

For instance, one piece run on Yahoo!: 

Phrases like "euthanasia," "socialized health care" and "rationing" are still being bandied about. (None of which are in the health-care bill, by the way.)

It's true that those terms don't appear in the bills in question. Opponents of those bills don't claim that they're in there. They claim they're the natural result of what's in there.

For example, the current bills tend to call for insurance "exchanges" for people without employer-based health insurance. Those employers who don't provide such insurance would have to be a fee for their employees who are in the system, but those who have insurance can continue to offer their current program.

But if the government raises the requirements for private insurance, raising the cost of providing it, and lowers the fee to put your employees in the exchange, more companies will find it more cost effective to drop their insurance. As this continues, insurance companies will go out of business, further raising prices, putting more and more people into the exchanges. End result? A single-payer health care system (commonly referred to as "socialized medicine").

And though the president claims this is not the result he wants, in the past he explicitly said the opposite, and so have many other Democratic lawmakers.

Rationing and euthanasia are the same -- likely results of the current legislation rather actual line items.

So when you read "fact check" pieces, read them with a certain grain of salt.

And if you oppose the steady march to single-payer health care, be sure to let your Congressmen, both Democrat and Republican, know.