Mailer’s claims dubious

This letter is less about health care reform and more about looking critically at information you receive and how you interpret it. In that vein, I would like to expose some misinformation that one of our local politicians is presenting on a mailer I received last week.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers states that the health care reform bill is 2,700 pages. This figure sounded suspect, so I started delving into it. Wiki.answers states that it is over 1,000 pages, Politico.com shows it at 2,074 and answers.yahoo.com puts it at 1,017 pages. It appears that few people can narrow down the exact number, but Rodgers’ mailer is clearly an exaggeration.

The mailer also states that “More than 16,500 new IRS agents will be hired to verify your finances and ensure every American has ‘acceptable’ health coverage.” This statement has been totally debunked by factcheck.org, and politifact.com gives it a “barely true.”

I have only cited two examples. This rhetoric is disingenuous at best and inflammatory at worst. Honest people can disagree about the issues, but make sure you have the correct information. It may take some effort.

At the very least, we need our politicians to be forthright and honest.

Taryn Hutchins

Spokane