[Vision2020] Why can't the GOP get its facts straight?

[Nicholas Gier]

Good Morning Visionaries,

This is a letter I've sent to the DNews, LMT, and Idaho Statesman.  I'm
taking daily notes of GOP misrepresentations, errors, and outright lies.
 The second part of the letter touches on the current Viz. health care
debate.

Yours for a more honest election process,

Nick

To the Editor:


Why can’t the Republican candidates get their facts straight?  Most of them
are smart enough to distinguish truth from falsity, and they presumably
have aides who can do proper research.


At the MSNBC debate on Jan. 7, Mitt Romney declared that Americans make 50
percent more than Europeans do.  This of course is not true.


According to data from the CIA, average incomes per person are higher in
Luxembourg and Norway, and 10 other European countries are within 50
percent or less of the U.S. These figures have been adjusted for purchasing
power in each nation.


Without exception the Republican candidates claim that Obama wants to make
the U.S. into a European socialist welfare state.  This is also false.


Most European welfare states have paid maternity/paternity leave (up to 18
months), universal child care, universal health care, and universal elder
care.  I challenge anyone to point out where Obama has committed the
country to these wonderful goals.


The Affordable Care Act –as opposed to Medicare and Medicaid—allows private
insurance companies offer coverage.  Ironically, Republicans were
originally for the individual mandate precisely because it would provide
for this free market alternative. See Paul Starr’s “The Mandate
Miscalculation,” *The New Republic* (10/29/11).


Some European health plans (Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland) do
involve private insurance companies, but they are prohibited (gasp!) from
taking any profits. These governments wisely believe that health care is a
right and not a commodity manipulated for the benefit of stock holders.


That damned socialist Barak will allow insurance companies to continue to
make big profits. Their executives will draw huge salaries and fly around
on private jets.  They will also extract far higher administrative fees
than Medicare or any other universal health care plan.
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