The University of Pennsylvania's independent Annenburg Public Policy Center is fact checking the advertisements for and against health reform. Their site, factcheck.org, examines some of the more outrageous claims being made in TV ads, ferreting out falsehoods and revealing misinformation and misleading claims in the ads.

Check out the site for the factual analysis that debunk current ads on TV that falsely claim insurance premiums will increase under health reform; that
abortions will be covered, while surgery for seniors won't be covered; and that the House reform bill includes a provision for euthanasia of seniors.

The site also looks at health reform claims by supporters, including President Obama. It is defiintely worth reading to get at the facts behind health reform, and not the misinformation and hype.

comments (6)

The governement already has the funds to pay for universal health care:

Please let me know if you get this. I wish to issue an innovative response to President Obama's Saturday Radio Address. Our government can use the resources they are already paying for to cover the cost of universl health care. I have presented this proposal to Congressman Stupak, Senator Levin, my State Rep, and the Governor of Michigan. I have also shared this idea with Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, NELP.ORG, the Sierra Club, Al Gore's office at Current TV, and Noah Kotch, producer for the Today show. I hope to ge a venue to challenge President Obama and state governments to embrace this simple but very doable paradigm shift.
Thanks for the great work you do. I hope to be booked as a guest or have one of the elected officials or interest group reps be booked as a guest to put forth this proposal. I did talk to Alexandra in Booking @ MSNBC, a producer for the Rachel Maddow Show, NELP.org, NDRC,org, the local NPR station, and local TV station. I am waiting for a response from my state rep, Senator, and Governor. I will let you know if the is any movement in a spcific direction. I would like to give a news outllet an exclusive so i can challenge the President and the Governors to take this simple yet wide-reaching action. I really think this could inpact human history as much as mass production and interchangeable parts. It seems like the perfect storm where all interest groups could get together to drastically cut waste in our governement and health care systems. I explained to the Sierra Club that they could partner with the unions, health care advocates, environmentalists, economists, etc. This could benefit the environment more than if we could snap our finger and immediately turn every car in the us into a hybrid.

Below is a way to pay for universal health insurance and to get people back to work if adopted by private industry.

From TIM ALBRIGHT WEST BRANCH, MI
TIMALBRIGHT@HOTMAIL.COM
whitecollargreenspaceguy@hotmail.com

New website Launched 7/31/2009:

http://whitecollargreenspace.blogspot.com
Instead of improving the gas mileage of the vehicles driven by 250,000 Americans, how about making all American office buildings 100% more efficient. White collar jobs are the new assembly line.
During his Saturday Radio Address, President Obama called for innovation to help us dig ourselves out of the recession. The proposal below could be on of the most innovate ideas since the advent of "interghangeable part" during the Industral Revolution. If I told you there was a way to instantaneously double the gas mileage of all vehicles in the U.S. you would call me crazy. However, this simple concept would have the same effect on all of the office space in America, by cutting in half its cost in financial and environmental terms.
Stay tuned for an earth-shaking paradigm shift that could save jobs, universal health care, and the environment
The Information Age finally talks to its older brother,the Industrial Revolution.
Interchangeable parts in a virtual world.
The Federal Government (GSA) lived through the end of the Industrial Revolution and at the beginning of the White Collar Era. We have grown up during the Information Age which morphed into the Digital Age that we are in right now. We seemed to have forgotten the basic concept that made the Industrial Revolution one of the most important events in human history. "Interchangeable parts." Sure our software and hardware take advantage of this concept, but what about our brick and mortar, our great investment in land, buildings, and interior space. In order to achieve mass production and manufacture a profitable product, Henry Ford and others made capital investments in factories with assembly lines. The industrial revolution would not have been successful if they only used these expensive investments 8 hours a day for five days a week. They greatly reduced their ongoing overhead by operating three shifts a day and some shifts on weekends. Almost all office space now is used by workers only about 9 hours a day five days a week. Most of the processing and storage of documents needed by our agency's technicians exist in an electronic environment. Within the next five to ten years more than 50% of the work done by federal agencies will be in an electronic environment including work from phone calls and internet sites. Most agencies have nationwide integrated telecommunications networks which have the ability to route calls on demand to a multitude of different offices nationwide. These services are already available outside normal business hours and could be expanded to 24/7.
I suggest that we phase in a program to utilize the under-used space we already paid for by beginning second and third shifts in many of our offices. We no longer have thousands of paper forms, documents, and files to store in each office since they are electronic. The second and third shifts could on answer the 800 number phone calls, work on electronic claims files, disability claims, and applications and post-adjudicative work received from our internet portals. The time is now for this sea change in this white collar paradigm:Because of tight budgets, we can no longer afford the luxury of providing white collar workers with work space that is utilized only a third of the time. We could not afford to have all government owned vehicles to run on idle 24 hours a day even when not in use.With the prospect of ongoing high unemployment, workers will be willing to adjust to shift work. It is better than not working at all. Many medical offices already use this concept as they may be occupied by a different specialist each day of the week.With the prospect of universal health coverage on the horizon, we could almost instantly provide the office space, infrastructure, customer service counters, and computer networks that will be needed to administer such a program. We already have the technology to make a fairly seamless transmission.
Even on a limited basis, the federal government could save the capital expense of more office space by using some of the $418 billion dollars in under-utilized space we have already paid for. The savings could be the billions of dollars.
We would be better utilizing safety, security, furniture, and systems investments and thus, greatly reducing our the federal government's carbon footprint
We could help create jobs for a new industry for retro-fitting billions of square feet of empty buildings to three-shift office space. Why waste our money on thousands of new buildings and destroy even more land when we already have the space.
Globally, we would be setting an example for hundreds of other government and non-government organizations and millions of private businesses. Were they to follow suit the savings could be in the trillions of dollars. By facilitating this simple yet bold paradigm shift we could create jobs, speed up the availability of universal health coverage, and help save the environment
Using shift work for white collar jobs to greatly reduce the fiscal and environmental cost of new office space
I have talked to staff at Senator Pelosi's office and Gov. Schwarzenegger's office.

How to implement:

Moratoriam on the government leasing or building new offices. In the future there should be a surtax on new construction that could be used to pay for the retro-fitting of old office space to 2 or 3 shift operations. This would provide work for construction workers who will be building less new buildings
Establish a certification program such as ISO_9000 to verify that all office space is used efficiently.
Extend this concept to medical facilities. We already have all the buildings and equipment needed to provide health care to the 50 million uninsured, we just have to extend the hours they are available to the public.

This is doable and
it is a win-win-win:
for the environment
for the uninsured
for the unemployed
whitecollargreenspaceguy@hotmail.com
Innovation can save the earth

we DO NOT NEED ADS BY DRUG COMPANIES THEY ARE PILL PUSHERS LESS PILLS LESS HEALTH PROBLEMS

Does the FCC hold any power over broadcasting of false and misleading claims by these groups?

Is there any recourse for the publication on public airwaves of information that is either an out right lie or so "edited" as to convey an entirely incorrect understanding of the facts?

Hi --

I've been working along these lines in the past few days and have just finished a post on criticisms of national health care reform that are motivated by Objectivist philosophy. Feel free to check it out at this page. Thanks for all your hard work!

The government already for several years has funded abortions, both in the US & abroad. Money given to the UN & other US programs has funded abortions (e.g. Mexico City Protocol), which was major news early in the Obama presidency. To allege Obama's plan would not do so is disingenuous! The government plan is stated to be "universal" & "comprehensive." Its main proponents & authors are ardent abortion supporters, so it is A GIVEN it would be a staple of the legislation. I say most respectfully, please be fully honest & objective when assessing the validity of claims made by others, to ensure your own claims are indeed accurate.

To be honest, I haven't heard very much positive feedback from people I know about health care reform. I agree that something needs to be done to bring down the cost.

There may be a lot of so called misinformation out there regarding Obama care, however, I don't think that all of it is wrong.

I have heard over and over again that there aren't enough primary care physicians to care for the huge influx of uninsured Americans who would buy into the system. As a result, I see rationed care on the horizon.

How can Consumers Union or anybody else know what is in that confusing over 2,000 page bill that nobody seems to understand. As far as I can tell most of the decisions on health care are being made behind closed doors, and this worries a lot of people. This is no way to run a democracy.

Neither Obama nor any other Democrat has been able to clearly outline exactly what is in this health care bill and what it will do for me.

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