Today the White House rolled out their "Reality Check" web site for health reform (trying again to rebrand it health insurance reform) which they claim is intended to "mythbust" detractors’ criticisms of health reform legislation. The web site, however, does not bust any myths – in fact, it perpetuates them. Since the beginning of this debate on health reform, the White House has sought to lay out principles and platitudes, none of which have had any impact on pending legislation in the House and Senate. If you look at the parsing of the President’s words, he continues (along with his PR rep Linda Douglass) to voice the same platitudes, without any data to back him up. Actually, the facts show that the President is wrong.

The White House claims health reform will benefit small business. This is simply not true. Health reform ***could*** benefit small business if we lowered the costs of health care and health insurance. But none of the bills currently being debated would do that, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. They have found that the bills on the table will hurt small business – a $540 billion new surtax on small business, an 8% payroll tax mandate, estimates show that as many as 4.7 million jobs would be killed by these bills, according to the President’s own advisors.

The White House promises you can keep your insurance if you like it. This is another talking point that just isn’t true. Legislation on the table would have the effect of making employers stop offering coverage, making insurers stop operating, and eventually forcing tens of millions of people into government-run health care. How is that keeping the coverage you have? It is true that the bills wouldn’t take your coverage right away (the House bill, for instance, doesn’t really kick in until 5 years have passed). However, the net effect of the bill, again according to nonpartisan experts, is that people will be stuck with the government-run "public option" because employers will end coverage and insurers will be forced out of business.

The White House claims you can keep your doctor. This one doesn’t pan out either. It’s true that nobody is going to come to your house and physically force you from going to your doctor. However, the bill will change the ways doctors are paid, especially forcing doctors to accept lower payments from the government. This means your doctor might require that you pay cash, or might stop taking your insurance. If you are on Medicare, your doctor may stop taking or seeing Medicare patients. Nancy Pelosi won’t take away your doctor – she will make your doctor inaccessible to you.

These are just a few of the myths the White House is propagating about health reform. Hopefully the grassroots fury at all the lies out there will prompt the White House and Speaker Pelosi to drop the talking points and start talking about real legislation and the real effects it will have on American families.

If you are concerned about this legislation – and I know I am – please visit the website of the Campaign for Responsible Health Reform.