Lil White Lies: Refudiating the Strategery of Takeoverism (Updated)

“The healthcare reform bill now includes a tanning booth tax of 10 percent. You know what this means? This whole thing could be funded by the cast of ‘Jersey Shore.’” – Jay Leno

“In Washington, it looks like the Senate is almost done with the healthcare bill. Otherwise known as the Joe Lieberman Insurance Company Preservation Act.” – Jay Leno

PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year”—that the healthcare reform passed in March constituted a “government take over” of healthcare—received an ambitious, derogatory (as usual) 3,000+ word review from my conservative counterpart, Bryan White, proclaiming it “a case study in disinformation” highlighted by “opinion-drenched news analysis.”

But what is precisely meant by “government take-over” according to PolitiFact? Bryan dismissed PolitiFact’s evidence with “PolitiFact has no fact-based case for the importance of its chosen ‘Lie of the Year’”, but never really provided his own, instead, offering his own opinion: “The claim that increased government control does not constitute a government takeover amounts to Reinhardt's opinion” or “Private insurance will come under greater government control through the new legislation, and it is fair to call newly instituted regulatory powers as a taking.” Increased government control as government takeover is opinion, and it’s fair to call new regulatory powers as taking? No, it’s not fair to call new regulatory powers as taking. Takeover is not even a good term for other countries’ healthcare systems regarding the government’s role (although I'd bet Bryan would have you believe all other countries that have universal healthcare have government “takeovers” of it).

But to answer two of the questions he put forth: “Does the legislation provide for increased government authority as he appears to grant?” No, not necessarily, because the new legislation doesn’t change things much for those already covered (which is the majority). The purpose of the insurance mandate, the crux of the bill, was to find a way to provide coverage for those who could not get insurance by mandating everyone get it, which was the insurance companies’ proposal to begin with. “And isn't an increase in government authority a takeover of that realm of authority, given that the authority came into existence with the passage of the legislation?” No, because an increase in governmental authority is not the same as a takeover. Bryan created a false choice here.

Over the years, many events have occurred which resulted in “governmental controls”—occasionally, yes, there was governmental take over, but most of the time, the increased government authority only resulted in…increased government authority. There could be increased government authority at many different levels, and often dependent on enforcement.

For example, let’s take the automobile industry from a historical perspective. Cars got smaller, lighter, and more fuel efficient, because of CAFE “regulation.” They became safer to drive because of the mandatory use of seat belts, or one could say, seat belt “regulation.” So, aside from the current financial fiascos of GM and Chrysler, has there been a government takeover of the automotive industries due to these increased regulations? Mind you, this would not only have to include GM and Chrysler, but Ford and the foreign manufacturers as well.

Currently, many states are enacting laws and regulations with regard to use of cell phones while driving….is this a government take over of the use of cell phones? (or what one “does while driving”?) When television advertising for cigarettes was banned in the early 1970's, did the government take over the tobacco industry? They've had almost 40 more years to do it.  (Al Gore might be able to answer that!)

I could not find much about who precisely wrote most of the healthcare bill. My understanding is that it was written by healthcare insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. That being said, just WHO is “taking over” here if the corporate sector wrote the bill on behalf of the congress? Why would healthcare corporations author a bill imposing regulations on themselves unless it favored them? Back in 2003, the pharm lobby wrote up the Medicare Part D bill which covered prescriptions—was that a government takeover as well? While this is slightly off topic, the point is clear. A bill written by corporations does not necessarily reflect the will of *collectively socialistic liberals* as much as it does the profit motive of the corporation who are more in tune with the *individually responsible capitalism of Republicans*.

Which leads me to the fact that the Republicans flipped on this because they were FOR the individual mandate before; did they refer to it as a government takeover back then? I don’t think so.  In fact, they called it "personal responsibility."

And that’s not the only place they flipped. Back in February, the GOP published “159 reasons the health reform bill constitutes a government takeover” with the same black-and-white reasoning reflected by Bryan’s critique, and shot themselves in the foot with their own takeover logic. Taking a look at Number 148, tort reform (“Demonstration program to explore alternatives to tort litigation (Section 10607, p. 2369)”), Matt Finkelstein at Media Matters notes:

Ironically, the conflict over tort reform is that Republicans want the federal government to be more involved than Democrats do. The Senate bill would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants to states to develop alternatives to current tort litigation. Meanwhile, Republicans want to implement federal caps -- limits set by officials in Washington -- on damages victims can receive in medical malpractice lawsuits.

The other logic fallacy Bryan employs is to claim PolitiFact created a “straw man” of “government takeover” by equating it with socialized medicine, because “it makes little sense to charge that Republicans were working to mislead people into thinking that the reform bill instituted a single-payer system or socialized medicine.” Really? Our system does not even compare to the socialized medicine in, say, the British system. Wonder what Fox and Friends had to say about it?

Doocy: British system is "sort of just like the one we made law." On the July 27 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy teased an upcoming segment on Britain's National Health Service by claiming: "Britain now ready to admit its health care system is a big, fat mess. It's a system that's sort of just like the one we made law in the United States of America."

Johnson: "Didn't we just pass health care modeled after" the British system? Later in the show, guest co-host Peter Johnson Jr. teased Beck's upcoming segment by asking: "The U.K. admits its socialized medicine is a mess. Didn't we just pass health care modeled after theirs? So what does this mean for our future?"

Oh, excu-u-u-se me, I’m sorry, it’s not the British system, it’s the Canadian!

On the June 29 edition of Special Report, host Bret Baier falsely suggested that Obama has cited Canada's medical system as a "possible model" for his health care reform plan. [Special Report, 6/29/09]

A July 18 Associated Press article by Charles Babington uncritically repeated the baseless charge that "Obama would push" the United States "into a Canada-like [health care] system." [AP, 7/18/09]

As for Republican claims of the healthcare reform being "socialized medicine", PolitiFact didn't have to bother.  Sean Hannity stomped all over that “straw man”  in his recent book “Conservative Victory” (emphasis added):

Only months into his presidency, he had so infuriated average Americans that a series of Tea Party protests emerged across the nation, attended by everyday people who were outraged and horrified by Obama's every decision: his reckless federal spending, his seizure of control of private industry, his cap-and-trade legislation, and his obsessive quest to nationalize one-sixth of the American economy through socialized health care. [Page 4]

[...]

Rather than responding to the real fear that his debt explosion struck in the heart of most Americans, he brazenly turned a deaf ear and pressed forward with his hugely unpopular question to nationalize our health care, proving he was anything but a president of the people. [Page 6]

[...]

As a leftist to his core, Barack Obama has been salivating over socialized medicine for years. It's the perfect policy vehicle for socialists who want to ensure that government's tentacles will spread into all aspects of our society. [Page 94]

So, are there differences between the British and Canadian systems, or are they all “socialized medicine”? A well-known PBS Frontline study describes four types of healthcare system models:

The Beveridge Model (Great Britain) the purest form of “government takeover”: “health care is provided and financed by the government through tax payments, just like the police force or the public library.”

The Bismarck Model (France, Japan, Switzerland) which “uses an insurance system -- the insurers are called "sickness funds" -- usually financed jointly by employers and employees through payroll deduction.” The caveat is “Bismarck-type health insurance plans have to cover everybody, and they don't make a profit.”

The National Health Insurance Model (Canada, Taiwan, South Korea), which has elements of both but might more appropriately be described as “single payer:” “It uses private-sector providers, but payment comes from a government-run insurance program that every citizen pays into.”

The last is called the “Out of Pocket” Model which basically describes the U.S. system aside from VA/Medicare. Our system is based on age, employment and ability to pay. This is what Nevada Senatorial aspiree Sue Lowden was referring to when it came to farmers bartering their chickens for medical treatment.   But the caveat here is “If [you] have nothing, [you] don't get medical care.”

So what kind of system is ours with the new healthcare reform? It is certainly not the Beveridge model, which is the purest form of government control. It is not the Bismarck model, because health insurers can still make a profit. It is not National Health Insurance because there is no single payer. It is a mixed system which takes elements of all of these: Beveridge in terms of the VA, National Health in terms of Medicare, and a sort of modified, more healthcare business-oriented Bismarck model with Obamacare. So, does that still mean that “Obamacare” was a government takeover of our healthcare system?

Well, it’s just another Lil White Lie “Even Though” scenario—what Bryan White expects you to believe “even though”: ANY Democrat version of healthcare reform is a government takeover of healthcare, even though the same type of reform was prior promoted by Republicans, even though it only affects a small percent of people without insurance, even though for most people their coverage won’t change, even though Republicans wanted more strenuous "government control" in healthcare via their own tort reform proposals. And even though dozens of well-known conservative pundits/politicians call it socialized medicine, they couldn’t possibly be trying to mislead people. And if a poll shows the majority of people believe the government has taken over healthcare (btw, isn't that called argumentum ad populum?), how did they arrive at this conclusion....could it be, could it be that it's due to hearing those dozens of well-known conservative pundits/politicians who are calling it socialized medicine?  And any increase in government regulation IS a government takeover, even though it’s been done for years without takeover, even though the regulation is often done for the collective good (as in the healthcare reform, covering people who might not be able to get insurance). Along with death panels, even though….need I go on?

Postscript (December 21): A review of comments on Facebook's PolitiFact page for the "Lie of the Year" were, of course, a cornucopia of posters getting lambasted by Bryan White for disagreeing that increased regulation did not lead to government takeover (I also enjoyed the comment of Liste Gundrun, who gave a compelling list of all the consequences of "no regulation"). The last word (as of the postscript date) however, by one Bill Benson, very conveniently and accurately summarizes the flimsy arguments of Bryan's blog critique.   He obliterated Bryan's 3,000+ words with about 50, I'd say--and he probably never read Bryan's blog critique, it was just based on his Facebook comments.  I wish I could have expressed them this well (the 50 words quoted here with emphasis added):

By the way, your [Bryan White's] slippery-slope argument is equally ridiculous. There's nothing resembling a clear path from the current legislation to where you're going. Simply saying "you'll be sorry when our new commie overlords are feeding us borscht" makes me giggle, but it's not a credible argument.

Your arguments amount to: 1) it's a takeover because it seems like one to me, 2) it's a takeover because it seems like it to other people who have been subjected to a propaganda campaign to convince them that it is, and 3) well, even if it isn't, it could/will be someday.

I'm awaiting Bryan's response, if any. Probably the usual, to quote Bill Benson again, most likely "some minutia of my wording to argue against as a technicality."   Yep, you got it Bill.  Only Bryan will also take it and turn it into a federal case.  But thanks anyway.

Update January 2, 2011: Heeeerrrrre's.....your minutia of wording technicalities!  Bryan White has made a "federal case" of my comments as well as those of Bill Benson, as predicted.  He waited awhile and then posted a detailed response at Facebook.  He then made a very muddled response (which on careful reading, should have titles like "My false choices are better than the ones I say you have" or "Bet you can't wrap yourself around THIS" or "How much more poison can I throw in the well?") to this post at his “side blog”—I have yet to decide whether it is worth making any sort of answer to his post, because exactly as he notes, it “serves as an excellent example of why I do not regularly waste my time replying to” them, and why I have transitioned to applying  his “load of nonsense” reasoning to show how many of PolitiFact’s rulings can be construed as conservatively biased as well.