Countering campaign spin and negative ads

Yesterday’s NY Times top editorial is a list of fact checks on campaign distortions about national health reform, the Accountable Care Act. For the record, the law does not require patients to go through a bureaucrat to reach a doctor, reform is not a “government takeover” of health care – the law relies heavily on the current, very private, fragmented, inefficient, purely American health care system, some lousy insurance plans that don’t meet minimal standards for value won’t count as coverage (but the administration is being very generous with waivers, so maybe they will), health care costs are going up but it has little to do with the law, under reform Medicare is stronger and most recipients will be far better off with preventive care and lower drug costs, the vast majority of Medicaid costs are covered not by states but by the feds (states are big winners under national reform), and the law is already helping people with changes that became effective last month.
Ellen Andrews