Political discourse seems increasingly dominated by a strategy of inducing confusion and then capitalizing on this confusion to spread distorted, misleading and even outright deceitful soundbytes to sway voters.  The American public is, for the most part, treated like idiot children.  What passes for political discussion in our nation, on one hand, obscures complexity with simple-minded soundbytes designed to generate support without understanding.  On the other hand, when the full complexity of an issue is trotted out, rarely is it informative or instructional but more often than not seems designed to obfuscate.  Such opaque discourse sends a subtextual message: “read between the lines, you are too dumb to figure this out, stick to the soundbytes and let the smart people do all the thinking.”

One of the most pernicious effects of this strategy is the gradual erosion of logical argument and truth and its replacement with a theatre of opinion.  Rational argument is predicated on the very simple ideas that (1) there are empirical facts against which arguments can be measured and (2) some arguments are better than others.  That is, not all ideas, views and opinions are equal.  The purpose of argument and discourse is to sift out the best.  Increasingly, though, we seem to be in a world where all opinions are created equal and the ones shouted the loudest by the most people carry the day.

One might expect the emergence of fact-checking websites to slow the progression of this theatre of opinion by providing pesky facts, debunking lies and clarifying distortions.  Unfortunately, even simple facts can be convoluted into opinion.  Case in point:

Congressman Ryan states that in his proposed privatized Medicare program Americans will all have access to healthcare “just like members of Congress and federal employees have.”  Sounds nice enough.  Certainly fair.  Is it true?

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post in his fact-checker column says, “uh, no.”  Specifically, members of Congress are reimbursed for 75% of the cost of their selected insurance plan and required to pay the remaining 25% out-of-pocket.  It doesn’t matter what happens to health care cost or the consumer price index.  If health care triples, they still are reimbursed 75%.  For retirees in Ryan’s plan, however, the reimbursement amount is adjusted according to the consumer price index, which has been rising much slower than healthcare costs.  As a consequence, the cost of premiums could rise much faster than the increases in federal vouchers— leaving seniors, on a fixed budget, to eat the difference.

The aptly named website “HotAir.com” picks this up and says, “Kessler takes a page from the Politifact playbook, converting differences of opinion into factual disputes.”  Ah. The transmorgification of fact into opinion.  These are not facts, says HotAir, but ‘opinions’ construed as fact by the liberal media.  They proceed in the blog to discuss rather obscure processes by which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) makes models and estimates.  In their view, its just a matter of opinion which model you believe.  According to the one they prefer, Ryan’s plan would cause healthcare costs to go down and, as a consequence, the costs to seniors will not rise exorbitantly.  Whose crystal ball is correct?

Who cares.  They key fact in this is that members of Congress do not have to gamble on crystal balls, models and opinions.  No matter the cost of healthcare (or the consumer price index), they are reimbursed 75%.  This is most certainly and factually not what Ryan is proposing for seniors.  Therefore, quite factually, it is not “just like members of Congress get.” 

But this difference between Ryan’s proposal and health benefits offered to members of Congress should very much be in the spotlight: Americans who pay into Medicare year after year after year of their working lives should expect the same assurances of affordable healthcare enjoyed by members of Congress, whose salaries and benefits working Americans also pay year after year.  Without this, talk of privatization should be off the table: a non-starter. 

Is this all a matter of opinion? HotAir.com tries to make it seem so.  It seems almost as if such writers want readers to pull their hair out thinking “this is all so complicated, I just give up.” But what’s important is not complicated at all.  And facts are facts: Ryan is not proposing a Medicare program ‘just like members of Congress have,’ though now that he mentions it, that is precisely what the American people should demand.