Obama wants to kill your grandma

Five right-wing myths about healthcare reform, and the facts

By Mike Madden
Salon.com

Aug. 06, 2009 |

Turning America socialist apparently wasn't enough for him -- now President Obama is trying to make old people kill themselves, callously deny important medical procedures, funnel tax dollars to abortion clinics and wiggle the government's way into every doctor's office in America.

At least, that's the sense you might have about the healthcare reform proposals Congress is considering from listening to opponents describe them. Already, conservative activists have erupted against the plan, with protesters hanging Democratic lawmakers in effigy and disrupting town hall meetings.

As both the House and the Senate clear out of the Capitol for the month, expect the viral buzz -- and the TV battle -- about what's in the bills to grow louder and louder. The White House finally seems to have realized that the administration can't win the policy debate without addressing some of the attacks from the right. Aides recently released a video rebutting some of the claims about what healthcare reform would and wouldn't do. An administration official told Salon Wednesday that the White House will soon launch a Web site modeled on the "Fight the Smears" site Obama's campaign ran last fall, where voters can find -- and debunk -- some of the rumors about the reform proposals, and the White House is already collecting chain e-mails at "flag@whitehouse.gov," an address Obama aides set up to receive them.

But the administration might already be behind the curve. Over the last few weeks, opponents have managed to get out their spin on the bill through talk radio, blogs, chain e-mails and other channels. And their talking points depend on a notably elastic approach to the truth. Here's a fact check of some of the more alarming claims that the right is making about healthcare reform, claims that are already hardening into myth.

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