He tells one thing after another, making it seem so easy. Well, believe me: This is not easy. It's going to take some sacrifices and some really painful cuts for people to get this system under control.
In other words, Brooks is a lot like the congressman who, when he yells out, "You lie! is actually lying.
Let's go through Brooks' lies about what the C.B.O. actually said.
First: "He said everyone can keep their health care plan. Well, the CBO doesn't say that. Six million people are going to lose their plan.
Obama said that the proposal would not compel no one - no individual, no employer, no employee - to change his insurance overage arrangements. The C.B.O. never suggested otherwise. Instead, it estimated there would be a rational response to a "significant feature of the insurance exchanges [which] is that they would include a public plan that largely pays Medicare-based rates for medical goods and services. CBO estimates that the premiums for that plan would generally be lower than the premiums of the private plans against which it would be competing.
As a result, the C.B.O. estimates that about three million people, including large numbers of part-time workers who would be eligible for subsidies in the exchanges, would choose to leave the plan offered by employers. In addition, the C.B.O. estimates that employers who currently offer coverage to about three million employees may elect to stop offering coverage. "Firms that would choose not to offer coverage as a result of the proposal would tend to be smaller employers and those that predominantly employ lower-wage workers. In other words, those who can least afford to pay for private insurance will very likely have a better alternative.
Second: "Preventive care saves money. That's not true."
The C.B.O. said something else entirely. It said that the scorekeeping rules prohibit it from measuring cost savings in Medicaid and Medicare until Congress passes specific legislation with designating specific appropriations for such cost saving measures.
The C.B.O. also expressed skepticism about the cost benefits of preventative medical care, but it relied heavily on a study that has been slammed for its flawed sampling and methodology. The study's authors claimed that, "opportunities for efficient investment in health care programs are roughly equal for prevention and treatment. But, as other experts have noted, "The flaw in this argument is that what the authors classified as preventive services included not only recommended practices but also interventions that no major guideline recommends." Whereas a broad array of economic studies, "consistently report that evidence-based clinical preventive services offer high economic value."
Third: "It's going to cost $90 billion a year. That's not true. It's probably going to cost twice as much when it's fully implemented. Government will be out of health care decisions. He tells one thing after another, making it seem so easy.
I have no idea what Brooks is referring to here, though I know the effect he was going for. He wants viewers to come away with a general impression, that Obama and proponents of health care reform are less than honest, and not much better than the Republicans who lie about death panels.
It's a favorite stunt of Brooks, setting a specious equivalency to absolve Republicans of blame. He opened his column on Obama's liberal elitism with a comparison to the Republicans' right-wing insularity. Here he is on a different NewsHour, making the same bogus claims that Obama's plan does nothing about costs, and also claiming that the pull-the-plug-on-granny stuff is no less mendacious than the criticism of the neocons who scammed us into the Iraq war.
BROOKS: There's a lot of misinformation out there...that they're going to cut off Granny and all that stuff, which is mystifying to me. I mean, there's a real -- I mean, my concern is, which is backed up by the CBO and everything else, that we need health care reform. This does nothing to reduce costs. That is not the argument they're making, maybe because it's not an emotional hot-button argument, "They're going to kill your granny." So there's a ton of misinformation going out there"Let's not pretend this just started. I mean, every time we have a major issue, this happens. I mean, just go back to the Iraq war. There were people claiming there was the Project for the New American Century and Richard Perle was part of a big neocon conspiracy. There's ugliness that goes on. There's ugliness that went on in those rallies. And...
JUDY WOODRUFF: You're saying it's the same kind of thing?
BROOKS: I'm saying -- I think every time, if you look through American history, every time there's a major issue -- and this a major issue -- you get people who are totally over the line and spreading misinformation. And that doesn't justify it -- believe me -- but we shouldn't pretend it just started from one group.
Brooks never stops lying about the origins of the Iraq war. Frequently, as he did above, he injects these falsehoods as a digession from the topic at hand. Here are few other examples, from an earlier NewsHour:
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