Health-Care Scare Tactics: Peter Johnson Jr. Accuses President Obama of Scare Tactics, Forgets Conservative Fear Mongering
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Jeffrey Joseph
BuzzFlash readers know how Fox News and the right openly implement fear and hatred in attempts to derail the debate on health-care reform. In a startling fit of hypocrisy or an extremely short-term memory, Peter Johnson Jr. came onto Fox & Friends and accused President Barack Obama of employing "scare tactics" to pass health-care legislation.
To validate his point, Johnson cued up a video of President Obama suggesting that a lack of reform would only allow premiums to continue to rise and that Medicare and Medicaid would "blow a hole through our budget." Johnson argued, "If that's not fear and fright, then I don't know what is."
Apparently, Johnson ignored the likelihood of those statements from President Obama as simple facts. A glance at the ever-increasing cost of health care in the U.S. points to an obvious and at least proportionate increase in the cost of premiums. A Congressional Budget Office projection for the spending on Medicare and Medicaid also predicts a massive increase in the percent of GDP spent on the two programs. Stating the facts hardly qualifies as a "scare tactic."
Spouting off the kind of misinformation about health-care reform the way Johnson did around Thanksgiving, though, certainly qualifies as employing scare tactics. In the spirit of the season, he asks if people should "give thanks for health rationing in the name of comparative effectiveness," recalling the "death panel" and attendant Sarah Palin claims soundly debunked earlier in the year.
Johnson had plenty of companions in the fear mongering from Fox, as well. Sean Hannity repeated a similar Palin-inspired trope against reform on his radio program, saying, "I mean that's how they intend to cut cost, by cutting down on the health care we can give and get at the end of our lives and dramatically cutting it down for senior citizens? You know, welcome to the brave new world of Obamacare. We're going to encourage, you know, inconvenient people to consider 'alternatives to living.'"
Glenn Beck added his own version of the theme, referring to a plan that had the possibility of a public option for health insurance as "good old socialism" and returning to another favorite theme of his, sexual violence, in claiming that the bill's outcome was tantamount to "you know, pretty much raping the pocketbooks of the rich to give to the poor."
Johnson did not show up on Fox aghast at what Hannity or Beck had to say, or even recognizing his own forays into projecting fear. Instead, he projected all of those techniques on President Obama. Perhaps he let on too much and he really does not know what "fear and fright" is.
There is no reason to put up with those very "scare tactics" from Fox that Johnson pretends to loathe. Choose not to watch the horror show and help instead to Turn Off Fox.
Please send in your own tips and success stories to TurnOffFox@gmail.com, and join us at BuzzFlash in the Campaign to Turn Off Fox News.
Originally posted at Turn Off Fox.
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Peter Johnson?
Isn't that redundant?
Obama, since you're all
Obama, since you're all sincere about this bi-partisanship CRAP, get your support from the Conservatives - since you respect them so much and since they're so much more important to you than the millions of Americans who hoped we might get your help. Obama I hope you get impeached, dragged through the mud, I hope they come up with a real good BS impeachment charge, serves you right, Down with Democrats.