Posted on 09/09/2009 2:00:05 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Tonight, President Obama will stand before Congress and the nation to pitch health-care "reform" one more time. Over Congress' summer recess, he and the Democratic horde tried to rally suspicious Americans behind Obamacare, but their condescension and disingenuousness served only to make Americans more uneasy and distrustful. And judging by the rhetoric Tuesday on Capitol Hill, the Democrats who spent August "listening to the people" heard not a word.
In place of more empty oratory, Americans would prefer honest answers and workable solutions, especially when it comes to:
Basic economics: Health-care costs are out of control because demand for medical services far exceeds supply. That's attributable to such things as doctors ordering batteries of expensive tests to try to indemnify themselves against frivolous lawsuits, a situation that purposely isn't addressed in the House bill. Paradoxically, the push for preventive care, a cornerstone of the House bill, only adds to the imbalance because it provides services to millions of people who are in no danger of coming down with the diseases for which they are screened. But more to the point, the House bill would add 46 million people to the demand side without materially affecting supply. Though the Democrats say reform at worst will pay for itself, it only can raise costs dramatically. Why else are they plotting to pay for Obamacare with a national sales tax; a surtax on millionaires; a tax on the value of the health-care insurance Americans get from their employers; and more than a half-billion dollars diverted over the next decade from Medicare and Medicaid?
Fuzzy math: How can the House bill cost only $50 billion a year when insuring a similar number of people under Medicare costs $450 billion?
Affordability: Over the next decade, America's debt is projected to increase by $1 trillion a year and by 2019 will exceed America's annual gross domestic product. Today, 50 cents of every dollar the feds spend is borrowed, and the government has more than $100 trillion in unfunded entitlement liabilities (including $70 trillion for the original government-run health-care system, Medicare) with no plan for paying them. Why would a nation this close to bankruptcy embark on such extraordinarily expensive undertaking?
The public option: The Democrats would create an agency of unelected bureaucrats who would establish national health standards and dictate what coverage private insurers must offer. Before long, the agency would deem insurers too incompetent to carry out the mission, requiring the government to inject itself into the industry. Even now, senators reluctant to support Obamacare say they would vote for the House bill if it includes a public option as a "fail-safe"; rest assured the Democrats will set it up so that clause is triggered early on. The government's ability to subsidize its insurance premiums, raise taxes to cover its expenses, and run up deficits and unfunded liabilities would give it enormous competitive advantages, causing insurance companies to wither and die and necessitating a full government takeover of the system. But why should Americans believe the government would do better running the entire industry when its administration of Medicare has been so abysmal?
Rationing: To get the most from its finite resources, the government would have to apportion care based on cost-benefit standards that necessarily would limit or deny treatment to senior citizens, the terminally ill and the disabled in favor of younger, healthier, more productive people. The best care thus would be available to those who need it least. This process would be facilitated by the fledgling national health-care databank administered by unelected bureaucrats with their signature callousness and inflexibility.
The Democrats' evasion on these and other issues, including their goal of a nationalized health-care system achieved through legislative incrementalism if need be, has spawned great distrust among Americans. But more than that, even if the Democrats were forthright, they still can't deliver what they promise — free health care — because there's no such thing.
There are ways to reform health care without draconian socialism, but the Democrats cannot countenance them because they involve less government and more patient choice. But until all other options have been explored, the status quo, warts and all, is far preferable because it's far less expensive than what the Democrats are plotting.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
At this point it’s like tryng to listen to Charlie Brown’s teacher - there’s noise, but nothing makes sense.
I think the editorialist has been reading Thomas Sowell. If only more people did ...
That's easy.
The guy running the Executive branch hates this country, has surrounded himself with others who hate this country, and wants to turn it into a third-world hell-hole like Mexico or Kenya, where 99% of the population lives in grinding poverty (like his brother) and the last 1%, himself and his buddies, the aristocracy, lives in palatial wealth.
Once you realize that, everything else makes perfect sense.
Thanks for the ping Graybeard.
“But until all other options have been explored, the status quo, warts and all, is far preferable because it’s far less expensive [and restrictive] than what the Democrats are plotting.”
Plus, Obama thinks he is a dictator. He certainly acts like one.
right after Joe Wilson called him a liar, obambi lied again by saying that no abortions would be paid for with fed dollars!
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