Health Care Debate, Debate | featured news

What's all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats' push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, ...

The increase means that monthly premiums would top $100 for the first time — a stark indication of the rise in costs that is driving the debate on health care reform.

U.S. President Barack Obama hit back at the health insurance industry on Thursday, accusing it of trying to deceive Americans about healthcare reform and vowing to overhaul the industry in Congress.

To the credit of opponents of health-care reform, the lies and exaggerations they're spreading are not made up out of whole cloth—which makes the misinformation that much more credible. Instead, because opponents demand that everyone within earshot (or e-mail range) look, say, "at page 425 of the House bill!," the lies take on a patina of credibility. Take the claim in one chain e-mail that the government will have electronic access to everyone's bank account, implying that the Feds will rob you blind. The 1,017-page bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee does call for electronic fund transfers—but from insurers to doctors and other providers. There is zero provision to include patients in any such system. Five other myths that won't die ...

President Barack Obama hammered away at "outrageous myths" about his healthcare reform plans on Saturday, seeking again to take control of a debate that has tarnished support for his top domestic policy goal.

Having grown up in one of the most conservative and Republican places in the country -- East Tennessee -- I understand why many of the people who are showing up at town hall meetings this month are reacting, sometimes violently, when members of Congress try to explain the need for an expanded government role in our health care system.