Scare Tactics 101

GOP Pushes Health 'Bill of Rights' - washingtonpost.com: "Having seized on the idea that Obama's reform plans represent a 'risky experiment,' Republicans have lately intensified their health-care message toward the elderly. The Republican National Committee's 'bill of rights' includes calls to 'protect Medicare,' 'prohibit efforts to ration health care based on age' and 'ensure seniors can keep their current coverage.' Taken together, the list does not represent an actual reform proposal -- congressional GOP leaders have so far failed to introduce a plan of their own -- but rather a series of things Republicans believe reform should not do."

More evidence that the opponents of health reform are more interested in scoring a political victory than in actually helping anyone. Here's what factcheck.org has to say about it:

RNC’s “Bill of Rights” FactCheck.org: "The Republican National Committee this week posted a “Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors,” which RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others have taken to the airwaves to publicize. It contains a number of claims we’ve seen and criticized before, but also contains one new one that has some truth to it, and another fresh one that has very little.

• The RNC says that cuts proposed by Democrats 'threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage plans.' That’s certainly possible. Ratcheting down payments to the private insurance plans in Medicare Advantage would likely cause them to reduce benefits or even withdraw from the market. That might force an unknown number of beneficiaries to find new plans or go back to the traditional system, which still covers 78 percent of the Medicare population.
• Another new wrinkle in the RNC’s 'Bill of Rights' is a claim that Democrats have proposed raising TRICARE insurance costs for retired military and their families. This one is false. It was actually the Bush administration that most recently proposed changes in TRICARE, which the hospital industry said would cost hospitals $458 million in its first year."