Debunk­ing Health Care Lies (by Read­ing the Bill) — Blog — OpenCongress

At Open­Congress, we’ve had the offi­cial text of the House health care bill avail­able online for a month for peo­ple to read and get the facts: H.R. 3200 – America’s Afford­able Health Choices Act of 2009. Any­one can eas­ily perma­link and com­ment on any indi­vid­ual sec­tion of the full bill text. And in this debate, the facts mat­ter — it’s imper­a­tive that as a nation we read the actual text of the bill and actively work to counter any mis­in­for­ma­tion about it. To be sure, it’s a long bill, and not easy to under­stand at first read. Some of the mis­in­for­ma­tion is inten­tional, and some is inad­ver­tent. But whether you sup­port or oppose this bill, we hope you agree that the mis­in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing it is harm­ful to the pub­lic debate and the for­mal leg­isla­tive process on health care. In other words, news cov­er­age and blog buzz and viral emails on the health care bill should refer to spe­cific, citable sec­tions of what the bill actu­ally says — they must be reality-based.

Worth the read. Illu­mi­nated some of the mis­in­for­ma­tion I’d heard.

Now can we begin to have an engag­ing dis­cus­sion about the actual bill?