[Bob.Kerns]

Originally Posted by KSagal

First off, I have no desire to compete with O'Reilly or anyone else. And you are wrong, I am not a better man than him, and more than that, you have no possible way of making that assessment anyway...

You're welcome to your opinion, but I stand by mine.

Originally Posted by KSagal

You say there was never a dispute about Jail potential in the house bill, but there are only three of us posting on this thread at this time, and you and one other are blaming FOX news and the Republicans for everything from dawn to dusk that is wrong, and he was very clear to lie about the potential for jail not being written into the bill, which it was...

You are being disingenuous to say that the bill only required the purchase of insurance. That requirement would be enforced by a fine, but the fine would be called a tax, and if you did not participate at all, you could go to jail...

You do not find it at all disingenuous to claim that jail time is PART OF this bill?

Let's just take a look at this, shall we?

Originally Posted by Glenn Beck

BECK: You know, this is the first time in history in our country where, just to be a citizen, just to be -- just to not go to jail, you have to buy something.

No, you can instead pay the penalty. Some people are already planning to do just that, thinking it's a better bet. Given the elimination of preexisting conditions, they're probably right, unfortunately.

And you can go to jail for not buying a host of other things; the statement is absurd. For example, failure to buy Workman's Compensation insurance carries both civil and criminal penalties in California. (In some cases, you can self-insure, but this option is not available to most small business owners).

It happens I agree with him that it's a bad thing that we have to buy our insurance from private, for-profit insurance companies that are protected from competition via government regulation and tax law. I'm pretty pissed about that, actually. I don't think it's going to work out very well.

I grant that Beck may have possibly been being stupid or careless with his words, rather than deliberately lying here. It's O'Reilly's claim that it never happened that we're focusing on.

Originally Posted by Dick Morris

Can you imagine your prison yard? 'What are you in for?' 'Murder.' 'I'm in for rape.' 'I didn't have health insurance.' "

Yes, he does say it is only if you refuse to pay. But by illustrating it thus, it is clear the message he is carrying. You could go to jail for not having insurance!

But the reality is: not having insurance would not cause you to go to jail. Not paying the penalty would.

Originally Posted by Andrew Napolitano

If you don't purchase what the government tells you to buy, if you don't do so when they tell you to do it, if you don't buy just what they say is right for you, the government may fine you, prosecute you, and even put you in jail.

That's pretty clear.

Originally Posted by KSagal

If the bill did not exist, then buying or not buying this insurance could never result in going to jail, but if it went on as it was written last fall, then it could result in going to jail... That means simply that it carried with it the potential for jail, even though you and another keep saying no...

We're not debating what "carried with..." means. We're debating whether O'Reilly lied. He did. Fox did NOT always make the distinction you're making, and which we are acknowledging.

The only reason you're seeing an inconsistency here is that you're not following the thread properly. We're saying that FOX's statements go BEYOND the remote possibility implied by the conjunction of a tax and the existing tax law, to imply and often STATE something far more nefarious.

FOX lied. You did not. We did not.

Both Civicsman and I are very carefully distinguishing between what the law says about not buying insurance, and what Fox said it says, and what the law + TAX LAW say about not paying penalties.

I think we agree on the basic facts of the law. I don't know if there's any hope of convincing you that FOX lies, but otherwise, the only source of disagreement I see here is just a matter of following the thread of the discussion, and keeping straight which of those three categories the statements are addressing.

News programs are supposed to inform, not obscure. Are you really willing to defend Fox here, when it is so clear that they intended people to believe that people were going to go to jail because they could not pay for insurance?

[Edit: I should also add -- please distinguish between your opinion of the law, and the honesty of the Fox reporting. The point here isn't about whether the law would have been good or bad as originally written. I disagree with the change, but it doesn't upset me. If Fox had wanted to honestly report on the implications, I'd have cheered them on, even if I disagreed with their conclusions. If they'd wanted to rant instead, but hadn't tried to cover it up, I'd have just shrugged it off as a typical side-effect of the pernicious impact of television. It's only when O'Reilly lied about whether FOX said what FOX said, bragged about taking Colburn down a notch, and then lied about whether he got caught lying, that I start to get riled up about this.

Contrast this with, say, NBC's handling of the reports that Bush evaded National Guard service. They bent over backwards to investigate -- many charge, too far, perhaps caving to White House pressure, even. They brought in former AG Dick Thornburgh for the investigation, as well as the CEO of the AP. They fired people. I believe it even contributed to the eventual departure of Dan Rather. This at least took on the form of journalistic integrity.

I'm riled up, because FOX bears much direct responsibility for our failure to have a meaningful debate on the topic.

And in case you didn't notice, this isn't some Liberal conspiracy. Colburn is a GOP Senator, and no liberal, and it was HE who was originally objecting to FOXs reporting. Nor is he the only one.]