In our information superhighway culture where everything seems accessible at the library and all the junk and some good stuff is on the World Wide Web, it is difficult sometimes to sort the truth from fiction and to recognize the difference.
Logic, common sense, research and knowing the bias of the author of the information are four ways to recognize what is credible and what is not. I have not researched the new Medicare drug discount law but having read Congressman Jim Cooper's article about it, followed by Kerri Houston's criticism of Cooper, I think I recognize political motives and posturing when I read it.
Logic and common sense tell me that none of us will have complete answers to whether the Medicare drug discount cards save money or cost money for our senior citizens until we have a few years of data and experience. Even then it will be difficult because drug manufacturers will change their pricing, re-label their drug names, and there will be major cost differences between brand names and generics.
However, knowing the bias, or point of view, of authors Cooper and Houston probably tells me a lot already. Cooper is a Democratic congressman who during his previous and present service has been widely viewed as a middle of the road member of Congress who earned a reputation as a health-care expert when he opposed the Clinton health-care proposals and offered his own alternative.
Houston described herself in her September 13 Nashville Eye column, ''Rep. Cooper joins wrong-headed chorus against drug card for seniors,'' in very general terms. If you go to her Frontiers of Freedom Web site, she is a self-described ''expert in media and marketing'' who is on the board of directors of GOPUSA.com; used to work for the American Conservative Union and the Texas Conservative Coalition.
In her Nashville Eye column, Houston quotes the Kaiser Study on Medicare savings without giving their conclusion that savings would be ''modest'' even before factoring in enrollment fees and before we know what will happen to senior citizen discounts that are presently given by local pharmacies.
Houston's other columns at her Web site urge more freedom for Macedonia (three of her last seven columns), recommend more freedom for school students to buy candy and vending machine food; and that Web site recommends deregulating the control of toxic mercury emissions from U.S. power plants; proposes the privatization of Social Security; and urges the defeat of the antiterrorism bill. Her Frontiers Web site favors protecting the environment by the free market and advocates that parents, not the government schools, should educate children. It also lets you vote in a poll on which candidate for President Osama bin Laden supports!
Former U. S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop, the founder of Frontiers of Freedom says that he created and raised $170 million in fees and licenses for fishermen when he served in the U.S. Senate and successfully opposed President Clinton's attempt to ''colonize'' the Western states. This group favors withdrawal from the United Nations and, on health care, opposes importation of drugs from Canada.
Needless to say I was not surprised to find links at Houston's Web site to every conservative as well as extremist political organization in the land. Would Houston criticize my political beliefs? Probably, but unlike Houston, who did not disclose, I am not concealing my point of view. I have long been a liberal Democrat who believes in freedom and justice, and I belong to liberal political groups. I believe in public debate and effective communication which is only possible when you the reader use your common sense, logic, research and when you know the point of view or bias of the opposing writer or speaker.
Larry Woods is a Nashville attorney, a professor at Tennessee State University, a political debate coach and chaired Governor Bredesen's TennCare Transition Committee.
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