To the credit of opponents of health-care reform, the lies and exaggerations they’re spreading are not made up out of whole cloth-which makes the misinformation that much more credible. Instead, because opponents demand that everyone within earshot (or e-mail range) look, say, ‘at page 425 of the House bill!,’ the lies take on a patina of credibility. Take the claim in one chain e-mail that the government will have electronic access to everyone’s bank account, implying that the Feds will rob you blind. The 1,017-page bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee does call for electronic fund transfers-but from insurers to doctors and other providers. There is zero provision to include patients in any such system. Five other myths that won’t die: You’ll have no choice in what health benefits you receive. The myth that a ‘health choices commissioner’ will decide what benefits you get seems to have originated in a july 19 post at blog.flecksoflife.com, whose homepage features an image of Obama looking like heath ledger’s joker. In fact, the house bill sets up a health-care exchange-essentially a list of private insurers and one government plan-where people who do not have health insurance through their […]