While the mainstream news media, union goons, liberal congressmen, and the Obama administration continue to complain about the myths conservatives are supposedly spreading about Obamacare, they are repeating far more dangerous myths about the American health-care system, myths that require thorough and frequent rebuttal. The Heartland Institute’s Health Care News took on a couple of the big ones in a recent issue.

First, there is no free lunch available through government-financed preventive care. It does not save money in the long run:

Congressional Democrats and Obama administration officials are touting preventive care as a major source of savings that will help offset the high cost of their health care overhaul proposals.
But preventive care not only fails to save a significant amount of money, but actually costs more.
“On average, preventive care does not save money,” said Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, DC. “There might be savings to be had elsewhere, but the government will not save money here.”
“A lot of preventive care may indeed be beneficial to the individual, and it is certainly an area that a lot of people would like to focus on, but expanding preventive care is not going to save money for the federal government,” said Van de Water.
“Preventive care is a good thing; it helps individuals avoid illness. But it will not generate savings, especially in the short-term,” said Len Burman, director of the Washington, DC-based Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

Notice that honest liberals freely grant this point.

Second, to say correctly that the American people desire health-care reform is not to establish that the public favors increased government control over health-care finance and decisionmaking:

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll confirmed serious concerns about the government’s fiscal irresponsibility. A quarter of respondents put the deficit as the most important economic challenge facing the country. Just 11 percent put health care first.
Reformers should keep these results in mind because huge new government programs could push the country even further into the red.
Americans are also wary of the government disrupting their current coverage or raising taxes to finance reform. A recent New York Times poll found more than three-fourths of respondents were satisfied with the quality of their own medical care. Only about four in 10 were willing to pay $500 or more in taxes annually to finance an overhaul of the health care system.
Similarly, a Washington Post-ABC News poll in late June found most people are “very concerned” legislation could cause “higher costs, lower quality, fewer choices, a bigger deficit, diminished insurance coverage, and more government bureaucracy.”
That should serve as a warning against sweeping reform: More than 80 percent of those surveyed reported being satisfied with their quality of care.
In other words, Americans want reform, but they don’t want it to jeopardize their existing coverage, require additional deficit spending, or cause new or higher taxes.