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[digg-reddit-me]Ezra Klein gives his dispiriting prognosis<\/a> of the health care reform debate:<\/p>\n [E]ven if…the media has made some admirable efforts to combat specific lies, they \u2014 we \u2014 have allowed lies and chaos to emerge as the subject of the health-care reform debate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He writes this while pointing out that more than half of polled Americans believe that the plans at issue now would amount to a “government takeover of health care<\/a>” and would give coverage to illegals – despite the fact that both are untrue. Large percentages of Americans likewise believe that it would lead to government-financed abortions and the government “pulling the plug on grandma.”<\/p>\n What this suggests is that our national conversation truly is broken<\/a> – that once you go negative enough, and negative consistently – you will have won. This obviously creates rather perverse incentives and leads to a system in which only changes that can be passed quickly – and without opposition from entrenched forces – will be effected. It would be a system in which only those regulations and reforms and changes that have concentrated benefits for a minority and disperse costs on the majority will pass<\/a>. That’s basically the system we have now – as people from most ideologies can recognize.<\/p>\n But there are a few glimmers of hope<\/a>. Barack Obama was the object of such a campaign of lies – but he still won a majority. And it must be true that the same tactics used repeatedly have a diminished effect.<\/p>\n