Rep. Renee Ellmers Can't Stop Lying About Health Reform

Congresswoman revives discredited "death panel" nonsense

Maybe it is because she does not understand the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care reform law passed in Spring 2010. Perhaps it is because she is on the defensive after her irresponsible vote earlier this year for the Ryan Republican Budget which will end Medicare as we know it. Whatever the reason, 2nd District Congresswoman Renee Ellmers is still trying to scare her constituents with Sarah Palin's thoroughly discredited lie about "death panels".

At a June 29 town hall in Rocky Mount, Congresswoman Ellmers confused the Affordable Care Act's elimination of $500 billion in wasteful government subsidies to the private, for-profit companies in the Medicare Advantage program with cuts to Medicare itself, then added:

"In place they have put a 15 person panel that will choose and decide what kind of health care you will receive. They are an independent panel working amongst themselves, deciding your health care if you have Medicare."

Click here to watch Rep. Ellmers lying to her constituents.

The nonpartisan website FactCheck.org has put the lie to Rep. Ellmers' talk about "death panels":

The fact is, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act specifically states on page 490 that the advisory board "shall not include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums."

Adam Searing of the NC Justice Center's Health Access Coalition called on Rep. Ellmers to stop lying about "death panels" and health reform in general:

"Rep. Ellmers' statements are egregious misrepresentations," Searing said. "She is doing her constituents a great disservice and she should not get away with mischaracterizing reform."

North Carolinians in the 2nd District deserve a U.S. Representative willing to put the time and effort necessary into understanding the facts about the Affordable Care Act - and other issues like our ongoing jobs crisis - instead of parroting right-wing talking points that have no basis in reality. So far that is not the kind of representation their freshman Congresswoman, Renee Ellmers, has to offer.