Five myths about healthcare, and the facts

It can be difficult to find honest information in the sea of scare tactics surrounding health care reform in the United States. Certain parties are counting on a massive campaign of lies and fear to stop any reforms. Salon.com has tackled five of the most prevalent myths and falsehoods being deliberately passed among our citizens.

Obama wants to kill your grandma

Over the last few weeks, opponents (of health care reform) have managed to get out their spin on the bill through talk radio, blogs, chain e-mails and other channels. And their talking points depend on a notably elastic approach to the truth. Here's a fact check of some of the more alarming claims that the right is making about healthcare reform, claims that are already hardening into myth.

Give it a fast read to educate and protect yourself from the insurance company attacks.

Gay to Straight Camps/Therapy Don't Work

If you deal in reality and know any gay people this one won't surprise you. For the rest of you I present the following:

Programs to change gays to straights don't work, report says

The American Psychological Association concluded Wednesday that there is little evidence that efforts to change a person's sexual orientation from gay or lesbian to heterosexual are effective.

In addition, the 138-page report -- covering 87 peer-reviewed studies -- said that such efforts may cause harm.

These "reprogramming" camps and counselors follow typical pattern behavior for some religious conservatives. If the world doesn't match your religious beliefs, homosexuality and evolution for example, then you deny reality and work to convince others of the lie, even to their detriment.

How people with this sort of detachment from the world can claim the moral high ground is beyond me. Is the fear of being wrong really that powerful?

Refuting Birthers for Dummies

Those smart cookies over at Salon have created a guide for refuting all of the Obama birther babble that the tinfoil hat crowd is screaming all over the internet.

Personally I think it doesn't matter what anyone says, these people won't care. They hate the president and this is their vehicle to express that hatred. It could be because of race, politics, ideology or just dementia but no amount of evidence will change things in their minds. Pretty scary.

Salon's handy-dandy guide to refuting the Birthers

In the spirit of public service, Salon has compiled this list of the most popular Birther myths, along with all the debunking you could ever ask for. Now you can just e-mail this list to Uncle Floyd and get on with your life.

Good idea. Maybe I can head-off my relatives for once.

58 percent of GOP Doubt Obama's Citizenship

The results of the following poll are funny but the gold lies in the comments to the article. These birthers are absolutely hilarious and a goldmine for any center or left leaning person.

58 percent of GOP not sure/doubt Obama born in US

A whopping 58 percent of Republicans either think Barack Obama wasn't born in the US (28 percent) or aren't sure (30 percent). A mere 42 percent think he was.

That means a majority of Republicans polled either don't know about -- or don't believe the seemingly incontrovertible evidence Obama's camp has presented over and over and over that he was born in Hawaii in '61.

I hope they never, ever stop.

Single Payer Now!

It makes me so happy to see a representative actually say this out loud:

Dem asks, "Why do we even need the insurance companies?"

The congressman added that he believes medicare works so well and is so simple that America does not need the health insurance companies at all.

“Why do we even need the insurance companies?” he asked. “What constructive role are they playing? They’re taking tens of billions of dollars each year and putting that into profits when that should have been going into healthcare.”

He declared that only a “true single-payer system” will work and said he plans to introduce legislation that would accomplish those ends. “It’s simpler and we know it works,” he said.

The answer is simple. We do not need the insurance companies for health care, at all. Single payer is the only way to go. Get on board people!

Organic Food Has No Health Benefits

Currently the only thing I buy marked as "organic" would be eggs, mostly because I like the idea of free range birds. It does not shock me that organic food is nothing special but the organic veggie folks at work are not going to like it.

Organic food has no health benefits, study finds

Shoppers pay more for organic fruit, vegetables, chicken, beef and milk but the food gives no nutritional enhancement to people’s diet.

Why pay more?

Sunbeds Carcinogenic to Humans

Tanned skin is attractive but the idea of squishing myself into a box of sun lamps always seemed a bit dangerous. Apparently it's more than a "bit" dangerous...

Study: Sunbeds as harmful as cigarettes

It followed a review of research which concluded that the risk of melanoma -- the most deadly form of skin cancer -- was increased by 75 per cent in people who started using sunbeds regularly before the age of 30.

Seventy five percent increase in the risk of melanoma for sunbed users. That sort of a number is hard to ignore so perhaps we shouldn't ignore it.