Rep. Broun Falsely States Reform Bill Amounts To "Steamroll Of Socialism"

November 07, 2009 10:22 am ET

While speaking on the floor of the House in November 7, 2009, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) falsely stated the Democratic health care reform bill would amount to a "government takeover of the whole health care system" and called it a "steamroll of socialism." However, the respected FactCheck.org debunked that very claim just a day earlier.

Rep. Paul Broun Misrepresents Democratic Proposals On The Floor Of The House

Rep. Paul Broun:

The American people need to understand, this is about a government takeover of the whole health care system. They need to call their congressman and say "no" to the Nancy Pelosi steamroll of socialism. [Broun Floor Speech, 11/7/09]

FactCheck.org Debunked Rep. Broun's "Government Takeover" Claim

FactCheck.org:

The claim that the House bill would amount to "government-run health care" suffered a blow last week, when the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the so-called "public plan" in the revised bill wouldn't offer much in the way of competition to private insurers. But that hasn't stopped Republicans from repeating the claim.

For several months, we've been debunking assertions that Democratic health care bills call for a Canadian or British-type system in which everyone is insured, or insured and cared for, through the government. None of the bills being debated in Congress call for such a single-payer system. Conservative groups have also claimed that a federal health insurance plan would be the death knell for private insurance, offering a much cheaper alternative and eventually leading to "a government-run system." As we've written, how competitive the "public plan" would be depends greatly on how it's structured. And the latest iteration in the revised House bill isn't expected to have much of an impact on private insurers, according to the nonpartisan CBO and an independent analysis of this scenario.

But Republicans are still recycling "government-run" claims and old analyses that don't pertain to the bill. House Minority Leader John Boehner was saying back in June that the House bill "is a complete government takeover of our health care system," and again last week, Boehner told Fox News that the revised House bill is "nothing short of a complete government takeover of our health care system." Boehner partly blamed the federal insurance plan for the takeover, saying, "you're going to drive every private health insurance company out of business."

The congressional Republicans' Web site further claimed that the House bill would create "a new government-run health plan" that "would cause as many as 114 million Americans to lose their existing coverage," according to the Lewin Group. But that's not what the Lewin Group said at all. The GOP cherry picks this number from a months-old Lewin Group study that's based on an early version of the House bill (and the assumption that the "public plan" would be open to everyone). Lewin's estimates of how many would leave private plans in favor of a federal option, structured as it is in the latest House bill (as well as the version that came out of the Energy and Commerce committee), are 90 percent lower than that. The Lewin Group is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group but says it operates with "editorial independence."

[...]

In any case, whether 6 million people take up the "public plan" (CBO) or 12 million (the Lewin Group's high-end estimate), neither number comes close to backing up the GOP claim that this bill would "drive every private health insurance company out of business" and result in "government-run" health care. [FactCheck.org, 11/6/09]