Women's Independent Forum uses scare tactics against Health Care!

[FrenchieCat]

letter as posted at the Independent Women's Forum, a Republican organization made to look like it is Independent when it is not.

Many of these women show up on Hardball and Schuster's program and elsewhere in the 24/7 media infotainment world at least a couple of times a month, and sometimes even more often, and they fake like they are unbiased, when they are not.

Are you as frustrated as I am about the health care debate? The good news is people are paying attention and recognize that they need to make their voices heard. The time to take action is now.

There have been plenty of disturbing developments since President Obama took office: hundred-billion- dollar pork-filled stimulus bills, an economy-crushing carbon tax passing the House of Representatives, and the government seeking to expand its control over just about all aspects of businesses, including compensation. Yet the stakes of the health care debate are a whole new level: Once passed, this type of health care bill would put the United States on an irreversible course toward socialized medicine. This would fundamentally change how our country runs, and make our citizens more dependent on government than ever before.

President Obama may promise that his health care bill will control spending, be deficit neutral, and allow those who like their health insurance to keep it, but the facts suggest otherwise:

Researchers have estimated that as many as 83 million would lose their private insurance as a result of the creation of a government health care plan.

The healthcare proposals are expected to cost over $1 trillion over the next ten years, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated that it would add about $239 billion to the deficit.
Major new taxes would be imposed to finance this massive government expansion: new taxes on those (including many small businesses) making more than $350,000 and an 8 percent payroll tax on employers who don't provide insurance for their employees—that's a massive new tax on employment that will discourage job creation.

Americans need to speak out against this vision of health care reform. There are better ways to improve the system—such as by changing the tax treatment of health insurance, and removing regulations that preventing a more robust competitive marketplace. We need to tell policymakers to go back to the drawing board and create a plan that preserves our freedoms, creates a more dynamic, competitive health insurance system, and protects what's best about American health care. I hope you will join me in getting this message out.

Sincerely,

Michelle Bernard, President and CEO of IWF
http://www.iwf.org/share

The lowdown:

The Latest Health Care Lie

The Independent Women’s Forum is closely linked to Americans for Prosperity, a major organizer of anti-Obama tea parties and town hall protests. (According to Sourcewatch.org, the two groups shared the same address and most of the same operations staff until last year). So the effort to link health-care reform to breast cancer death is coming from the same people who’ve previously compared health care reform to the Holocaust. The new tack sounds slightly more reasonable, and it’s developing legs.

A week ago, The New York Times ran a long, page-one feature about Bob Collier, a Georgia man described as one of the “calmer, more reasoned” opponents of the Democrats’ plans. At a town hall, Collier told Cong. Stanford Bishop that his wife had survived breast cancer through early detection and treatment, but he feared she could be put on a waiting list for care if Obama got his way. The Times story presents the Colliers as rational, ordinary people with “legitimate concerns” about health- care reform. It waits until after the jump from Page One to note that they are committed conservatives who “receive much of their information from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, and Matt Drudge’s website.”

John McCain, another conservative with a reputation for reasonableness, brought up the breast-cancer argument at a town hall last Tuesday. England, he said, has “repeatedly blocked breast cancer patients from receiving breakthrough drugs. … That's what they do there. But obviously we don't want that in this country.”

The entire argument about breast cancer and health care reform is based on a comparison of survival rates in the United States and England. There’s little question that breast cancer treatment is better in the U.S. Last summer, The Lancet Oncology Magazine published a comprehensive international comparison on cancer survival. It found that five years after being diagnosed with breast cancer, American women had an 83.7 percent chance of survival, while those in England had only a 69.8 percent chance. England, which lags behind the U.S. in screening, has a government-run health program, while the United States does not. This is being interpreted as proof that government-run health care leads to more cancer deaths. And that is a dishonest distortion.

Leave aside, for a moment, the fact that no one is proposing single-payer health care in the United States—much to the despair of many liberals.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-31/the-latest-health-care-lie-1

Other members:

Sabrina L. Schaeffer is the Managing Partner of Evolving Strategies.
Prior to launching Evolving Strategies, Sabrina worked in numerous communications positions. She served as the speechwriter for Senator George Voinovich of Ohio, the Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington, DC,

She was just on Schuster today discussing Obama's message to school children




Heather Richardson Higgins is president and director of The Randolph Foundation in New York City. Ms. Higgins serves on the boards of the Independent Women's Forum (as chairman) and The Philanthropy Roundtable (as vice chairman). In addition, she is on the NY board of UBS's mutual funds, and is a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Ms. Higgins was a portfolio manager and vice president at U.S. Trust. Prior to working in finance, she was an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal and assistant editor at the Public Interest magazine

She usually shows up on CNN.


Her latest article?
No Compromise on Health 'Reform'
Why the GOP should resist all entreaties to be 'bipartisan.'
http://www.iwf.org/news/show/21933.html


Carrie L. Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics for the Independent Women's Forum. Lukas is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism, which was published by Regnery Publishing in May 2006. She is also a contributor to National Review Online and a senior fellow at the Goldwater Institute.

Lukas appears frequently on television and the radio, on shows such as Fox News Channel's Your World with Neil Cavuto, Fox Report with Shepard Smith, The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, CNBC's Kudlow and Company, and MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.



Her latest?
Conservatives See Kennedy's Politics and Personal Life as Destructive to Women
with Carrie L. Lukas, August 28, 2009
http://www.iwf.org/staff/show/276.html



there are many more of these members that show up on television and in ink.
They are not Independents. They are Republicans.

[firedupdem]

1. Michelle is an idiot. I can't even listen to her. She complained

that the Lilly Ledbetter act was going to keep companies from hiring women. She's a complete nutcase. Women's forum my ass.

[FrenchieCat]

2. Many folks don't realize that she is stealth!

Chris Matthews sure doesn't let it be known. In fact, he cites her "Neutralness" often enough.

[jenmito]

3. To be fair to him, he once said to her, "Well, you're on the right..." and then she denied it...

and he pressed her, saying she voted for McCain and she replied, "No, I voted for Obama," and he did his "HA" thing like he "got her." Even if she DID vote for Obama, she's still on the right.

[FrenchieCat]

4. She didn't vote for Obama.....she simply said she did.

She lies a lot. Check out her letter!

[defendandprotect]

5. You mean the "anti-" Independent Women's Movement . . . ! !!

[FrenchieCat]

6. Yes....them!

[Bozita]

7. List of the Board members of IWF.org - Rightwing as can be!

I will attempt to post this list in any thread that names Michelle Bernard in the OP's title.

http://iwf.org/board /

ABOUT IWF > BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chairman


Heather R. Higgins
President and Director, The Randolph Foundation
Vice Chairman & Board Member, Philanthropy Roundtable
Executive Committee & Board Member, Hoover Institution
Trustee, Committee for Economic Development
Board Member, (NY Board), UBS Mutual Funds
Member, Council on Foreign Relations

Directors


Mary Arnold
Vice President of Government Relations, SAP America
Board Member, American Council of Young Political Leaders

Yvonne S. Boice
President of The Shoppes at Village Pointe
President, Fugazy International Travel

The Honorable Carol T. Crawford
Former Commissioner, U.S. International Trade Commission
Board of Directors, Smithfield Foods, Inc.

Jennifer Ashworth Dinh
Principal, Bancroft Associates PLLC
Board Member, Junior League of Washington

Mary Beth Jarvis
Vice President, Government and Public Affairs of Invista

Randy Parris Kendrick
Board Member, Goldwater Institute

Lawrence Kudlow
CEO of Kudlow & Co., LLC
Distinguished Scholar of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Joanne T. Medero
Global Head of Government Relations and Public Policy, Investment Banking &
Investment Management, Barclays Plc
Member, Advisory Council for the Corporate Governance Center, The Conference Board

Directors Emiritae


Lynne V. Cheney
Midge Decter
Kimberly O. Dennis
Wendy Lee Gramm
Elizabeth Lurie (deceased)
Kate O'Beirne
Louise V. Oliver
Sally Pipes
Nancy M. Pfotenhauer
R. Gaull Silberman (deceased)

[FrenchieCat]

8. I have written to MSNBC!

This is too much to have to bear!

WTF are they thinking????

[Cha]

9. Kicking this for information in tandem with cross post in GD..

Oh, the cockroaches are out in full force to defeat this real health care reform..not gonna let them do it.

Good ol' MediaMatters Again!:patriot::patriot:


babylonsister (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-09-09 03:10 PM
Original message

"Why is health care liar Michelle Bernard hosting an MSNBC special about health?"
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909090025

Why is health care liar Michelle Bernard hosting an MSNBC special about health?

September 09, 2009 2:44 pm ET by Jamison Foser


According to the Orlando Sentinel, on September 20, "MSNBC political analyst Michelle Bernard" will moderate a two-hour special featuring Bill Cosby and NAACP president Ben Jealous, "focusing on the parenting, education and health issues facing the poor in the United States."

Michelle Bernard is a frequent MSNBC guest, particularly on Hardball.

Bernard is also the president and CEO of the conservative Independent Women's Forum, in which capacity she is busy spreading lies about health care.

Like this one: "More American women are going to die of breast cancer if you and I surrender to President Obama's nationalized healthcare onslaught."

Here's how FactCheck.org describes the health care lies coming from Bernard's IWF:


A False Appeal to Women's Fears

Republican-leaning group claims health care legislation could lead to 300,000 deaths from breast cancer, but uses old statistics, faulty logic and false insinuations.

A conservative group with Republican ties called the Independent Women's Forum is airing an ad that says "300,000 American women with breast cancer might have died" if our health care were "government run" like England's, citing the American Cancer Society as a source for the figure. In fact, a spokesman for the cancer society's advocacy arm says that figure is "not reliable" and adds: "{I}t's not one that we have ever cited; it's not one that we would ever cite." Furthermore, an epidemiologist with the cancer society told us that the way this figure was calculated was "really faulty."


There's much more, but the bottom line is clear: Michelle Bernard and the Independent Women's Forum are lying in order to stop health care reform.

So why is MSNBC turning to Bernard to moderate a two-hour special about, among other things, "health issues"?

Could it be that MSNBC is in favor of lying in order to stop health care reform?



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6500512