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Health Care Debate Based on Total Lack of Logic

Heated partisan debate over President Obama's health care plan, erupting at town hall meetings and in the blogosphere, has more to do with our illogical thought processes than reality, sociologists are finding.

The problem: People on both sides of the political aisle often work backward from a firm conclusion to find supporting facts, rather than letting evidence inform their views.

The result: A survey out this week finds voters split strongly along party lines regarding their beliefs about key parts of the plan. Example: About 91 percent of Republicans think the proposal would increase wait times for surgeries and other health services, while only 37 percent of Democrats think so.

Irrational thinking

A totally rational person would lay out - and evaluate objectively - the pros and cons of a health care overhaul before choosing to support or oppose a plan. But we humans are not so rational, according to Steve Hoffman, a visiting professor of sociology at the University of Buffalo.

"People get deeply attached to their beliefs," Hoffman said. "We form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in our personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter."

And to keep our sense of personal and social identity, Hoffman said, we tend to use a backward type of reasoning in order to justify such beliefs.

Similarly, past research by Dolores Albarracin, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has shown in particular that people who are less confident in their beliefs are more reluctant than others to seek out opposing perspectives. So these people avoid counter evidence all together. The same could apply to the health care debate, Albarracin said....

Just about everybody is vulnerable to the phenomenon of holding onto our beliefs even in the face of iron-clad evidence to the contrary, Hoffman said. Why? Because it's hard to do otherwise. "It's an amazing challenge to constantly break out the Nietzschean hammer and destroy your world view and belief system and evaluate others," Hoffman said.

Just the facts you need

Hoffman's idea is based on a study he and colleagues did of nearly 50 participants, who were all Republican and reported believing in the link between the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and Saddam Hussein. Participants were given the mounting evidence that no link existed and then asked to justify their belief.

(The findings should apply to any political bent. "We're not making the claim that Democratic or liberal partisans don't do the same thing. They do," Hoffman said.)

All but one held onto the belief, using a variety of so-called motivated reasoning strategies. "Motivated reasoning is essentially starting with a conclusion you hope to reach and then selectively evaluating evidence in order to reach that conclusion," explained Hoffman's colleague, sociologist Andrew Perrin of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

For instance, some participants used a backward chain of reasoning in which the individual supported the decision to go to war and so assumed any evidence necessary to support that decision, including the link between 9/11 and Hussein.

"For these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war," Hoffman said. "People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war."

Their research is published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry.

The proposed health care plan has all the right ingredients for such wonky reasoning, the researchers say.

The rest at Live Science

ALSO:

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Majority of Americans Believe Health Care Reform 'Myths'

By LiveScience Staff

24 August 2009 04:52 pm ET

More than 50 percent of Americans believe a public insurance option will increase health care costs, according to a new survey on assertions the White House has called myths.

The national survey, conducted from Aug. 14 – 18, involved a random sample of 600 Americans...

"It's perhaps not surprising that more Republicans believe these things than Democrats," said study scientist Dr. Aaron Carroll, director of Indiana University's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. "What is surprising is just how many Republicans – and Independents – believe them. If the White House hopes to convince the majority of Americans that they are misinformed about health care reform, there is much work to be done."

Among the results on items the White House considers myths:

* 67 percent of respondents believe that wait times for health care services, such as surgery, will increase (91 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Independents).

* About five out of 10 believe the federal government will become directly involved in making personal health care decisions (80 percent of Republicans, 25 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Independents).

* Roughly six out of 10 Americans believe taxpayers will be required to pay for abortions (78 percent of Republicans, 30 percent of Democrats, 58 percent of Independents)

* 46 percent believe reforms will result in health care coverage for all illegal immigrants (66 percent of Republicans, 29 percent of Democrats, 43 percent of Independents).

* 54 percent believe the public option will increase premiums for Americans with private health insurance (78 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of Democrats, 58 percent of Independents).

* Five out of 10 think cuts will be made to Medicare in order to cover more Americans (66 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of Democrats, 44 percent of Independents).

Live Science

Rep. Michelle Bachmann: Prayer and fasting will help defeat health care reform



because of course that's what God would do - defeat helping the sick and the poor if you starve yourself. makes total sense.

article here

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Limbaugh: "It is President Obama who wants [to] mandate circumcision ... And that means, if we need to save our penises from anybody, it's Obama."

You wonder how he gets to the crazy positions or exclamations. The ditto heads rarely wonder.

from Salon.com
Limbaugh: You'll pry my foreskin from my cold, dead hands

"If you had to whip up a too-good-to-be-true story for the right-wing pundit class to freak out over, what elements would you include? There would have to be, of course, an element of command-and-control socialist-fascist invasion and regulation of the most private parts of our lives, in the name of some spurious "common good." But that alone is a little pedestrian nowadays, so you'd want to add a nice dollop of male sexual neurosis to really kick it up a notch. Then add just a hint of racial fear and beat to a froth."[pun intended]
.....
"Officials at the Centers for Disease Control, showing touching naiveté about the current political environment, are weighing an initiative to encourage male circumcision, with the idea that there are probably some minor health benefits. Says Dr. Peter Kilmarx, the head of epidemiology for the H.I.V./AIDS Prevention wing of the CDC, "What we've heard from our consultants is that there would be a benefit for infants from infant circumcision, and that the benefits outweigh the risks."

Seems straightforward. Sure, there are reasonable people on all sides of the general arguments about circumcision, but if the CDC takes a rigorous look and decides to encourage the surgery, what harm can they do?"

,,,, Ed Morrissey of the conservative blog Hot Air writes, "If the CDC -- which is part of the same government that will control health care -- decides that circumcision is beneficial and cost-efficient in the long term, that same mechanism would create pressure on doctors and patients to perform them."

Morrissey's argument has the same basic flaw that animated the "death panel" fears: an inability to distinguish between advice and force. If this CDC proposal goes into effect, it, like the now-dead end-of-life counseling proposal, would make available some valuable medical advice. There's nothing on the table to penalize doctors who don't circumcise newborns, or parents who decline the procedure. To have a "mechanism [that] would create pressure on doctors and patients," you need, well, a mechanism. Morrissey can't come up with one.

But when was the last time that stopped these guys? Two days ago, Rush Limbaugh claimed, "It is President Obama who wants [to] mandate circumcision ... And that means, if we need to save our penises from anybody, it's Obama."

So now that we're talking about Limbaugh's penis, all of a sudden, we're in a world where the tiniest measure of government suggestion about sexual health equals a full onslaught against privacy. Expect to see the radio talker at the next march to protect abortion rights with a "Keep your government hands off my private parts" sig

Oath: I did not make it up! None of it.
Lwood.

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Moderate Blue Dog Democrats "just want to cause trouble," said Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who heads the health subcommittee on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

"They're for the most part, I hate to say, brain dead, but they're just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process."

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FactCheck.org TWENTY SIX LIES ABOUT H.R. 3200

A notorious analysis of the House health care bill contains 48 claims. Twenty-six of them are false and the rest mostly misleading. Only four are true.
August 28, 2009

much too long to reprint so please save the link for reference and well worth the read. Go here.

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Total Lack of Logic = Sen. Inhofe: I'll Vote Against Reform Without Reading Bill

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) admitted this week that he would vote against health care reform without reading the bill, or knowing what was in it.

At a town hall meeting Wednesday Sen. Jim Inhofe told Chickasha residents he does not need to read the 1,000 page health care reform bill, he will simply vote against it.


"I don't have to read it, or know what's in it. I'm going to oppose it anyways," he said.

Inhofe said he was able to form such a strong, yet uninformed opinion through polls and the media.

at HuffPO

Poll: Most Don't Know What "Public Option" Is -- Including Pollsters

A new survey by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates for the AARP reveals widespread uncertainty about the nature of the "public option" -- a government-run health insurance policy that would be offered along with private policies in the newly-created health insurance exchanges. Just 37 percent of the poll's respondents correctly identified the public option from a list of three choices provided to them:

See graph here

A total lack of logic - and a total lack of true Christian values. Here's what Lowell Grisham had to say in the Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009, op/ed section of the NWA Times:

"Jesus is a healer. Healing and teaching were Jesus of Nazareth’s most characteristic activities. Healer-Evangelist Graham Jones documents that nearly 40 percent of the narrative verses in the New Testament are about healing. Twenty-six of the 35 miracles of Jesus were healings (bible.org).

Jesus healed anyone, neighbor or foreigner. Once he healed 10 lepers, the castoffs of the health care system of Jesus’ day. Of the 10, only one returned to thank Jesus: a Samaritan - the first century version of an illegal alien.

The disciples continued Jesus’ work of healing. The Acts of the Apostles tells 28 stories of healing through the ministries of the disciples. The climactic vision of the heavenly Jerusalem in the book of Revelation sees a tree growing at the center of the city, with leaves for the healing of the nations.

Healing and health care is something that Christians support. That is why so many churches and denominations have made statements supporting the current discussion about how to improve our health care system.

For Christians, it is immoral that 50 million of our neighbors have no health insurance while profitable insurance companies make millions of dollars denying care.

The Old Testament prophets warned the wealthy and powerful “who are at ease ... and feel secure. Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches; who sing idle songs; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph” (Amos). “The powerful dictate what they desire, thus they pervert justice” (Micah). “Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isaiah).

How the ancient prophets would roar at a health care system where pencil pushing insurance bureaucrats on the 46th floor of some insurance company in Indianapolis tell your doctor what tests, procedures, and drugs you may use. Insurance companies don’t answer to the people, they answer to their stockholders. That’s why 20-30 percent of our insurance premiums go to bureaucratic paperwork that is largely about saving money by denying services and increasing profits.

I had my annual physical last week and my doctor told me, “All my hassles come from the insurance companies. I spent 20 minutes on the phone today with some insurance bureaucrat trying to get authorization for something my patient needed. I never have those problems with Medicare.” And Medicare can get its paperwork done at one-tenth the cost of the for-profit insurance companies. Public healthcare answers to the people, not to the stockholders.

There is a crisis. Americans are suffering and dying and going bankrupt because they lose insurance when their jobs change or they get denied because of preexisting conditions or insurance is priced beyond theirmeans or their care is rationed by the insurance companies who too often make life and death decisions based on profit rather than what our doctors recommend. Uninsured neighbors risk serious illness because they can’t afford preventative care. We all pay when they have to go to the emergency room and when a simple problem has progressed into something more serious. Healing is failing in America, and that is a moral and a religious issue, especially for those of us who take the priorities of Jesus seriously.

Rich Huddleston of the nonprofit Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families says this of the current House Bill 3200: “What this is really about is providing coverage for the many uninsured people in our state. It’s about making sure that people aren’t denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. It’s about reducing situations where people can’t get procedures they need because someone has decided that in their case it is not warranted. It’s about making sure that we don’t economically bankrupt families or force them to foreclose on their homes because they can’t afford medical bills.”

The Epistle of James tells us, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” If a brother or sister lacks health care, and one of you says, ‘Go in peace; get well and take your medications,’ and yet you give them no way to access their care or their prescriptions, what is the good of that?

Christians care about our neighbors. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Christians are pro-life, and therefore we are pro-heath care. Christians support things that are good for children and families. Christian values have helped shape our society. Some Christians even claim that this is a Christian nation. What better way to prove ours is a nation that lives out Christian values than to insure that everyone has access to basic health care. Everyone.

What would Jesus do? Who would Jesus leave out? Who would Jesus refuse to heal?"

Lowell Grisham is an Episcopal priest from Fayetteville.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 08/31/2009