My former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers stopped by the offices of the Livingston Press & Argus yesterday to throw some poop on health care reform. Not only did he throw poop, he told several bald-faced lies including this one:
He said a government-appointed panel’s conclusion that women need fewer mammograms at certain ages would be incorporated in the bills.Rogers, himself a cancer survivor, said the government shouldn’t dictate who has access to mammograms.
“I said, ‘Oh, my gosh. They just sentenced to death 36,000 American women.’“
And that’s not the only whopper he told.
Livingston County, Michigan is a hot bed of über-Republican politics and Rogers has a sympathetic ear with the editors there. He stopped by to chat with them about his anti-reform stances and stated that a recent report suggesting that the rate of mammogram use in this country is not increasing the health outcomes of Americans would be written into the forthcoming health care reform legislation pending in Congress.
Not one to let actual facts inform his comments, Rogers also said that the legislation which the CBO tells us will reduce the federal deficit is “a financial train wreck”.
He said the estimated cost of proposed health-care reform will most likely outweigh the financial hit of the uninsured receiving health services without paying for them.“The math of this thing is awful,” he said.
Apparently this legislation which has yet to be actually passed by Congress and sent to the president for his signature has enormous power and influence. Why? Well, according to Rogers, it is already “creating a financial catastrophe and led to more private physicians, in particular, to stop accepting the coverage.”
He said mandates for physicians in the bills violate their constitutional rights to operate their businesses.“I think it’s an illegal taking,” he said.
An illegal taking? Really? This legislation is taking physicians’ businesses away from them? Again, let’s not let facts stand in the way of a good sound bite in a conservative newspaper, eh, Representative?
Finally, it is Rep. Rogers’ contention that the reason that Democrats voted for it was because they didn’t actually read it.
He contended many of those who voted for the bills were unaware of many of the details.
Fortunately the article is getting a great deal of progressive flak in the comments section, a bit surprising in this very right-wing area. The amazing thing is that Mike Rogers is often seen as a somewhat moderate Republican by many in Michigan. The truth is, of course, that he is not. Since he’s only one of 178 Republicans in the House of Representatives and 40 Senators, I can only imagine the lies that are being spewed by them across the country as we near passage of this legislation.
Apparently when you and your party have put themselves in a position of having absolutely no voice in the legislative process, your only recourse is to tell lies. The second biggest shame is that there are still media sources that will report it without comment.
On Mike Rogers’ campaign website, Mike needs our help:
Mike is under attack from LIBERALS and BIG LABOR BOSSES who want to control your health care!
If Mike Rogers considers blog entries like this one an attack, so be it. I’m happy to oblige.
I’m just sayin’…
