Steven Benen at the Washington Monthly makes a good point about the problems with sitting back and letting the corporate Republican community use astroturf politics to destroy health care reform. The point is that if left unchecked, mainstream Republicans have nowhere else to go but the extreme and inaccurate positions being spewed out by the likes of Betsy McCaughey (who effectively lied about the Clinton plan in 1994, repeating the lies so many times that it became assumed that she was possibly correct).
A case in point. A relative of mine (to be unnamed) asked me about the current proposals and how they might impact people who buy their own coverage. I sent an analysis done by Business Week that described the current plans in the House and Senate. The response? This relative assumed that (a) the ceiling for premiums was the percent of income we will all pay (11%), (b) that everyone would have to buy the most expensive plans, and (c) their family would be paying higher taxes. All of these are wrong, and could have been corrected if this person read carefully. But the point is that in the days of Twitter, people do not read details. therefore, they make assumptions based upon the information out there in the general media environment. So, lies do not get dismissed; instead, they reinforce the fuzzy belief systems of inattentives.
The moral of this story: there does need to be some response to the crazies..
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