Sometimes, you have to hand it to Senator Richard Burr for his creative and imaginative takes on the national health care reform debate. At one moment, he's tossing around inaccurate (often outrageous) claims about the serious reform bills under consideration. Then, the next minute, he's offering proposals of his own that he can't even get his own party to take seriously.
A classic "less than accurate" claim occurred recently during an interview Burr gave to Fox News. During the appearance, he claimed that no reform plan under consideration in Congress covers the majority of Americans. This is patently untrue; every Democratic plan under serious consideration extends health insurance to nearly everyone.
Burr told several similar false tales about the health care reform bill that just passed the U.S. House in a recent interview with the conservative Raleigh radio host Bill LuMaye.
For instance:
Burr: "It scored a $1.2 trillion but if you look at it over actually ten years worth of benefits paid out it's actually a $1.8 trillion bill. So in the out years it's not paid for. It does contribute to the debt."
The truth: Burr appears to have cribbed his information from a conservative editorial in the New York Post that attempts to misrepresent the costs of the bill. Republicans keep trying to move the projections past the standard ten years to say the House bill will cost more than estimated or add to the debt.
But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office notes that even after the ten year window the health care bill will still reduce the deficit. This is from the CBO analysis:
"According to CBO and JCT's assessment, enacting H.R. 3962 would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2010-2019 period (see Table 1). In the subsequent decade, the collective effect of its provisions would probably be slight reductions in federal budget deficits."
Another distortion:
Burr: "It doesn't have reforms in it. The only reform that's really there is that we do away with preexisting conditions."
The truth: The House legislation is full of reforms, especially in the individual insurance market. Not only does the bill eliminate preexisting conditions, it increases Medicaid coverage, provides subsidies to help pay premiums, eliminates lifetime limits on insurance benefits, caps out-of-pocket expenses, and creates more transparency and accountability by establishing health insurance exchanges. And these are just a few of the reforms in the House bill.
Here's another Burr whopper:
Burr: "We're taxing individuals if they won't take insurance and if they still don't take it they still could be incarcerated for five years."
The truth: Burr's claim is a ridiculously farfetched scare tactic. While it is true that once health care is made affordable most people will have to purchase a policy, the penalty for not buying a policy is not jail, but a tax penalty.
As the Joint Committee on Taxation made clear in a recent letter to Congressman Dave Camp of Michigan, the IRS is not going to be using the criminal courts to collect such penalties.
In addition to griping and fibbing about the Democratic reform bills, Senator Burr has also complained about the lack of attention his own reform proposals have received. The irony here, of course, is that he and his fellow Republicans controlled Washington for six years. During that time there were no efforts to expand health insurance to all Americans or eliminate preexisting conditions or any of the things now deemed a top concern of conservative lawmakers.
Why wasn't the senator complaining then?
One answer, it appears, is that Burr's ideas can't even win support from his own party. The national GOP website lists all of the "common-sense" reforms proposed by Republicans in recent months. The list does not include Burr's legislation. The list also excludes the "American Health Care Solutions Act" – a bill co-sponsored by Rep. Sue Myrick. The list does, however, include ten or so other bills introduced by Republican members of Congress.
Could it be that even Burr's friends find his health care takes less than persuasive?
If so, this raises real questions about Burr's performance on this issue. No one's demanding that North Carolina's senior senator be the leading light on health care reform., but there is a minimum standard for truthfulness, competence and effectiveness that all North Carolinians have right to expect.
Right now, it appears that no one's listening to Richard Burr. Thankfully, that's probably a good thing.
Adam Linker is a Policy Analyst at the N.C. Health Access Coalition.
