Email warns that health care reform will be a "death warrant" for seniors.

[Lasher]

This one is yet another tiring string of rightwing lies. Quotes from the email are in blocks below.

The actress Natasha Richardson died after falling skiing in Canada. It took eight hours to drive her to a hospital. If Canada had our healthcare she might be alive today. We now have helicopters that would have gotten her to the hospital in 30 minutes.

The fact is, it took 8 hours to get Richardson to a hospital because she initially refused to go. The hospital was a 40 minute drive away.

Obama wants to have our healthcare like Canada's and England's.

The President's plan calls for providing Americans with the option of government health insurance (which will compete with private insurance plans), not for replacing the entire U.S. medical system with a single-payer, government-funded system like the ones in Canada and England.

In England anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stints or bypasses because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed

It is patently false to say that anyone in England over 59 can’t receive “heart repairs or stents or bypass.”

Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the "stimulus" bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens.

Any medical system rations care in some way. U.S. private insurers deny reimbursement for some kinds of care and Medicare has its limits.

The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with the following statement: Daschle says "health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."

Tom Daschle never said, “Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”

If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that Senators and Congressmen have their own healthcare plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay

As federal employees, members of Congress are eligible for employer-provided health insurance that is just like the benefits provided by many other large employers in the US.

Snopes article here

[DevonRex]

1. I got that one from my sister this morning and replied to all with an AP

debunking the Richardson part. I know it's a lost cause to argue with my family on real issues. But hopefully they'll see that if the "hook" is a lie then maybe the rest is suspect too. We'll see.