Get the facts straight

The whistles blowing from both sides of the fence have surely vibrated everyone’s eardrums by now. With so much passion and so many strong feelings involved, people have been making a wide range of powerful statements in regard to health reform the past couple weeks. The problem is that passion, when coupled with mass ignorance, creates a breeding ground for rumor mills and senseless division. In the spirit of common ground let’s take a look at some things that get thrown around in the healthcare debate and get down to the truth of the matter.

Rush Limbaugh and others to the right of the aisle have gone so far as to claim that, “There is no healthcare crisis.” Let’s take a look at the facts behind this and what it means. Without getting too deep and reading into a lot of opinion, it is a widely accepted fact that 25 million Americans were underinsured in 2007, and that was before the rest of the country decided to jump into the economic recession with Michigan.

Secondly, it is rumored that private healthcare programs would cover illegal aliens in the U.S. This is also untrue. Section 246 of the Senate’s Healthcare Reform Bill plainly excludes those individuals who are “not legally present” in this country from government healthcare.

A third piece of hearsay is that a public healthcare program would add $1 trillion to the deficit. Take this information as you will, but the congressional budget office estimated the 10-year deficit increase at a slightly more modest $239 billion.

The point of this editorial isn’t to encourage rumors or to give one-sided facts. What you take away from this piece shouldn’t be a new set of numbers or facts to use in your latest in a series of arguments with your coworkers later. The point is to encourage an increased awareness on the issues at hand. It really could’ve all been written in one word: Read. Remember the importance of opposing viewpoints and make sure you check the credibility of your fact sources.

Go ahead; make a decision on what kind of reform, if any, is necessary. Whatever it is, make sure you understand why you agree with the stance you are taking and the possible consequences it has on the rest of us. Also make sure you are willing to stand up to the opposition and reasonably disagree with logical evidence. Let’s be honest, ignorance is not bliss when it involves the livelihood of those around us.