Halloween.  What an annoying time of year.  There are the innocent children dressed by their overzealous parents in costumes ranging from silly to sexy, harassing me for candy and invading my personal home space.  Then there are the people decorating their yards with scary ghosts, goblins, and dead dummies, making it virtually impossible for me to take my three year-old daughter on a nice stroll through our usually unassuming neighborhood without freaking her out.

I’m more aggravated though about how some political circles have spooked the health reform debate.  It’s a perfect horror movie with serial killers of anything Obama, scare tactics aimed to torment and take advantage of citizens who are vulnerable and unlearned about a complex issue, and gangbangers of a majority party unwilling to compromise for bipartisanship.

Take for instance some of the absurd television and internet ads on health reform.  One ad claims that 300,000 women will die from breast cancer if health reform legislation is passed.  An online ad claims that in Massachusetts, you can go to jail if you don’t have the right health care insurance.

And vocal anti-reform providers are scaring people even more.  I participated in a recent panel discussion on health reform and afterwards, a businesswoman expressed fear of reform because a physician who had just worked to revive her 7 year-old niece from a deadly aneurism told her that her niece would have died had health reform been in effect because quality of care would be compromised.

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