American Morning
Health care debate: What's true, what's false
How difficult is it to find answers to what’s in the health care bills making their way though Congress?
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/12/obama.nh.blur.gi.art.jpg caption="President Barack Obama speaks at a town hall meeting August 11, 2009 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire."]
It’s not easy at all if you pay attention to all those town hall shouts, YouTube clips, and 30 second commercials that have dominated the news and the Internet over the past few weeks. In many instances supporters and opponents of health care reform have reduced a very complex issue into simplistic, completely opposite interpretations about what’s in the bills.
Bill Adair is the Washington Bureau Chief of the St. Petersburg Times, and also the person behind PolitiFact.com, a Web site that seeks to find the truth in complex policy debates. We asked him to assess the accuracy of some of the claims made by the two camps.
- Watch: Health care truths
Opponents of the plans under consideration in the House and Senate say it will create socialized medicine. Supporters say that’s not true because they rely substantially on private health plans. Adair says it’s “not correct to say that it’s nationalizing the health care system or that it’s socialized medicine.” But he adds that there’s enough uncertainty in how the plan might evolve that several years in the future “it could lead to nationalized health care.”
What about keeping your current insurance under a new plan? Critics say you can kiss goodbye to what you have now. The president has said repeatedly that if you have health insurance now, you can keep it just the way it is. Who’s right?
- From Slate.com: Health Care Reform: An Online Guide
If you want to keep up, you must know these Web sites.
Brothers debate health care reforms
It's a make or break month for health care reform. President Obama is taking his push to New Hampshire Tuesday where he could find the crowd at his town hall deeply divided.
In fact, the debate is dividing families. We found two brothers on opposite sides of the aisle who are also on opposite sides of this issue.
Dallas Woodhouse is the director of Americans for Prosperity in North Carolina and is against the proposed reforms. His brother, Brad Woodhouse, is the communications director for the DNC and is for the reforms.
The Woodhouse brothers spoke to John Roberts on CNN's "American Morning" Tuesday.
Health care debate going too far?
After a week of sometimes rowdy congressional town hall meetings on health care reform, the president wades into the superheated August recess debate. He's holding a town hall meeting here in Portsmouth where both sides of the issue are gearing up for dueling rallies outside of the event.
Over the last week, members of Congress have run head on into protesters at town hall meetings. But opponents of health care reform aren't just showing up at town hall meetings.
Here in New Hampshire last week, protesters descended on staff members of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen who were holding a routing constituent services meeting. The meeting was not a town hall meeting. And the senator wasn't even there.
But she says one of her staff members needed a police escort to leave the meeting. Shaheen called the display "shameful." Just another sign that tensions are rising over health care reform.
Watch: Obama braces for town hall
Is the debate over health care going too far? Do Americans really want reform or is this just politics? What do you think?
Lawmaker gets health care death threat
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/10/miller.brad.cnn.art.jpg caption="Rep. Brad Miller says he received a death threat over his support of health care reform."]
Some people in health care town hall meetings are mad as hell. Many are starting shouting matches, pushing to get in the doors.
Tempers and passions over health care reform are getting so heated one lawmaker got a death threat phoned into his office. It happened to Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC). He spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Monday.
John Roberts: What was this death threat all about?
Brad Miller: It was last Monday. We’d gotten a lot of calls. I don't think that many offices have gotten fewer calls than we have. I think a lot of offices have gotten threats that were as specific and as credible as the one I got. A caller said that if I supported the health care plan, it could cost me my life.
My staff member who took the call was taken aback and asked them to repeat it and he did. And then he said, “Is that a threat?” And he said there are a lot of angry people. So it’s probably equivocal enough that it won't result in criminal prosecution. But you've seen what has happened in the last week or two. And then there's a lot that hasn't been publicized. Week before last, the Longworth building was shut down for hours because of a bomb threat. They have identified that person. That person probably will be criminally prosecuted.
Roberts: You've decided as a result of the rancor we've been seeing at these town hall meetings not to hold any? You’re going to have health care discussions over teleconference?
Miller: No. I have done a few town hall meetings. I think they are kind of an acquired taste. Most people want to have access to their member of Congress to talk about a specific issue and they really think a one-on-one meeting is more access than a town hall meeting and that's what I've done. So we were puzzled when we started getting calls in the last two weeks demanding a town hall meeting. And my staff would say, “Wouldn't you just like to sit and have a private conversation with the congressman, explain your position and ask him about his?” And they didn't want that. They wanted a town hall meeting. And I think we’ve seen why.
Health care reform: forgetting fraud
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/07/chernoff.fraud.cnn.art.jpg caption="Theresa Langlois says when she read her insurance statement she knew her podiatrist had been cheating Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan."]
CNN Sr. Correspondent
When Theresa Langlois read her insurance statement she knew her podiatrist had been cheating Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
"It was like robbery," said Langlois.
She had visited Dr. Jeffrey Cooke to have her discolored big toe examined. Cooke billed the insurance company thousands of dollars, claiming he had surgically removed dozens of warts.
"I turned the bill over and there was a fraud hot line, directly to Blue Cross to report fraud. So I called that immediately," said Langlois.
The insurer audited Cooke's billings, interviewed Langlois and other patients who had seen Cooke, then contacted law enforcement, which ultimately led to Cooke's arrest, conviction on health care fraud charges, and imprisonment. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan won a restitution award of $273,000.
"We open about 1,500 cases a year for in-depth investigation," said Greg Anderson, who heads Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan's Special Investigative Unit devoted to tracking down corrupt doctors and pharmacists. "They're taking money out of our pocket and depriving people who need the actual service. There's only so much money in the pie to go around when people are taking it."
Health care fraud – perpetrated by physicians, hospitals, medical equipment providers and even organized crime gangs – is rampant. A Senate investigation found Medicaid between 2000 and 2007 paid nearly half-a-million claims to people posing as doctors who were dead.
Such fraud costs every American; driving up prices for medical insurance, treatment and drugs.
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