Myths about the Stimulus Package

Ardent Republicans have been served a set of myths about the stimulus package. The myths have been dished-out by GOP members of Congress and spread by right-wing media pitchmen like Cal Thomas. The conservative faithful have swallowed them whole without examination or suspicion. Perhaps it is too much to ask them to do a little bit of checking.

One such myth was created by an erratic wing-nut named Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant Governor of New York under Governor George Pataki. McCaughey, while Lieutenant Governor of New York, managed, through bizarre behavior and pronouncements, to embarrass and antagonize the Republican Administration of Governor Pataki of which she was a part. When Pataki ran for a second term he dropped McCaughey from the ticket.

McCaughey wrote an opinion piece for Bloomberg.com in which she claimed that the stimulus bill would create a new office called the “National Health Information Technology Coordinator” (NHIT Coordinator) that would act like Big Brother, overseeing every decision by your doctor and disapproving procedures and treatments that were not cost effective.

The Fact is that the "new bureaucracy" McCaughey described is not new at all. The NHIT Coordinator was established with bipartisan support by a 2004 executive order of President Bush. The purpose was to start the transition to electronic medical records. The coordinator serves as the lead adviser to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on health information technology issues. He does not look over the shoulders of doctors and veto needed medical treatment.

The economic stimulus bill strengthens the Coordinator's role and increases his funding. The Coordinator’s job is to see that every American has a "certified electronic health record" by 2014. The transition to electronic medical records will benefit all medical patients and will save patients and our entire medical system billions of dollars.

The Cal Thomas column about the McCaughey article was as bizarre as Betsy herself. Thomas claimed that the stimulus package’s increase in funding for the Coordinator would lead to the euthanasia of old people! He seems to think that it is a driving desire of liberals to snuff-out the older senior citizens of our country. Amazing!

Ms. McCaughey and people like Cal Thomas seem to think that we are in danger of having needed medical treatment denied because of government involvement in health care decisions. That is simply not true. The real danger of denying needed treatment comes from the profit motive of private health insurance companies that continually deny coverage and look to the bottom line rather than the needs of patients.

The criticism by dingbat McCaughey is part of a program of attacks by Republicans who have invented a series of bogeymen nestled in the pages of the stimulus bill. They claim that the bill contains earmarks for all kinds of pet projects of Democratic congressmen and senators. It doesn’t.

One claim is that that there is an $8 billion appropriation for a high-speed rail line from Disneyland to Las Vegas—supposedly dear to the heart of Senator Harry Reid. Not true. There is money appropriated for unspecified high-speed rail projects, but nothing specifically for this one. In addition, not one penny is slated to save the salt marsh mouse in Nancy Pelosi’s district, and not one penny is slated for ACORN.

The bill does not contain spending for "golf carts" as claimed by one Republican congressman. It has $300 million to promote the development of fuel-efficient vehicles, a worthwhile project. Despite another GOP congressman's claim that the bill "will fund" butterfly parks, Frisbee golf courses, or water slides, there's no money in the bill for any of those projects. The congressman culled those items from a list of 18,750 city projects that the U.S. Conference of Mayors cobbled together and promoted as examples of "shovel-ready" projects.

I know that millions of Republicans are angry about their humiliating defeat last November, but it is sickening to see their leaders purveying misleading myths about the President Obama’s efforts to save the economy of our nation.