Don’t Pass On the False Claims

One person said that a 1 percent transaction fee was part of the way the Affordable Care Act is going to be paid for. Several other people in the room insisted this was true and that it would apply even to those of us who receive our Social Security monthly payments electronically.

I seriously doubted this “fact” to be true, so I asked some folks who know more about these things than I do.

The rumor about the 1 percent transaction tax is just one of the lies cooked up to discredit the Affordable Care Act by people who just can’t stand the fact that health care is going to be made available to more Americans thanks to President Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

It’s one thing to hate the president, but it’s another thing to deny medical care to neighbors who need it. People who believe all this stuff should ask themselves “Who benefits by my believing this?” Follow the money. Learn about the American Legislative Exchange Council and who is paying politicians to dismantle all the social safety net programs, www.alecexposed.org.

The 1 percent transaction fee was an idea put forward in 2004 by one congressman, and it had nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act, which wasn’t even around yet. A similar idea was discussed more recently but went nowhere in Congress. The White House had nothing to do with it. There are lots of places online to check these rumors, and I’d suggest some folks do their homework before making false claims in public.