I keep track of the reactionary fringe through emails from a friend of mine. He is not himself a Wingnut, but he sure gets a lot of email from people that are, and he forwards them faithfully to me, usually including a simple question. "True?"

Yesterday it was Obama being born in Mombassa. Today it was this idea that Congress and The President are cramming a health care program down our throats that they, themselves, won't accept. This meme has spread all over Wingnut Nation.

It seems to be founded on a healthy dose of suspicion and paranoia, a total lack of intellectual rigor, a dash of political expedience, and an inept reading of the section of the proposed Senate Bill that precludes federal employees (along with any other employee that has access to health coverage through work) from enrolling in the "Community Health Insurance Option." In other words, if you already have coverage or are eligible for coverage from your employer, you can't access the publicly funded health insurance.

This seems only reasonable. Why should someone who already has access to adequate, affordable coverage, be offered coverage from the government? If anything, the Wingnuts ought to be cheering that costs for the government program will be limited by this provision. Far from being a "takeover" of the health care system or "Socialism," the current bills in both the House and Senate are in my view very measured, conservative approaches to the problem. They keep in place much of the structure that we currently have and they put in place a safety net for people who cannot afford coverage or who otherwise cannot obtain it.

The same folks that torpedoed health care reform in the 1990s are at it again. Many of the citations on this issue come from Besty McCaughey of the Hudson Institute, a woman most noted for her ability to extrapolate and to propose outlandish worst case implications.

I would rather be on the side of the AMA, who are not your typical proponents of "Socialized Medicine." They have endorsed HR 3200. If anyone would be raising the red flags concerning government takeover of health care, it would likely be them.

Here is the House Bill. Here is the Senate's. Read for yourself.