Believing in right wing lies . . . err . . . "myths"

Who Believes in Health Care ‘Myths’? - Prescriptions Blog - NYTimes.com:

A new survey finds that whether someone believes controversial statements about the health care overhaul depends on that person’s political affiliation.

The survey, conducted in mid-August for Indiana University, says that when looking at statements that the Obama administration says are myths, Republicans tend to believe the statements and Democrats tend to disbelieve them.

Independents, however, could go either way, believing some and not believing others, so their responses seem to be good indications of where the administration has succeeded and where it has failed.

Here are the statements that independents believed and disbelieved, with assessments of each statement provided in parentheses by Aaron Carroll, director of the university’s Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research, which helped design the survey with the university’s Center for Bioethics.

Clear majorities of independents believe these statements:

the federal government will become directly involved in making personal health care decisions for the public (myth; Medicare does not make such decisions now);

health care will be rationed (debatable);

taxpayers will be required to pay for abortions (myth);

waiting time for services like surgery will increase (debatable);

small businesses will be hurt (nothing to indicate this is so);

a public option that competes with private insurance companies will be too expensive for the nation to afford (myth; if anything, a public option will bring costs down);

a public option will actually increase premiums for those with private insurance (no evidence to suggest this would happen).

I can't help thinking when I read this about the proportion of the population that believes that human beings and dinosaurs co-existed on the planet about 6,000 years ago. Back to basic principles: if someone starts from false premises, they will likely reach false conclusions, no matter how sound their logic. (Add poor logic skills, and it becomes even more of a dart game.) It is absolutely critical that the changes we make be based on the real facts, rather than the lies spread by those bent on defeating someone else's ideas instead of supporting their own.