Posted on 06/13/2009 1:48:47 PM PDT by Bill Dupray
It seems like just yesterday that Obama announced the details of his Nationalized Health Care plan. Today, Bill Kristol and Yuval Levin write in the Weekly Standard that if the Republicans stay united against it, there are enough moderate Democrats who will vote against it and the whole thing will go down in flames. Kristol and Levin aren't just hoping for this outcome, they have contacts and have named names. This is encouraging.
(Excerpt) Read more at patriotroom.com ...
AGREE, KILL IT!
Universal healthcare equates to rationed care
http://www.thedailychange.com/universal-healthcare-equates-to-rationed-care/
Beware of Ozombiecare...
bttt
Health-Care Bill Is the Ball Game
National Review Online ^ | June 09, 2009 | Mona Charen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2269769/posts
You might suppose that President Obama has his hands full running two wars, administering General Motors, “rescuing” the banking system, attempting to empower unions over management, hushing up whispers about hypocrisy regarding Guantanamo detainees, managing the mortgage crisis, imposing “clean energy” on the nation, handling nuclear North Korea and nearly nuclear Iran, “stimulating” the economy, reviving the “peace process” between Palestinians and Israelis, inaugurating a new relationship with Russia and with the Muslim world, and reversing the rise of the world’s oceans, but no, he has one more agenda item overhauling U.S. health care.
The administration is hoping that a health bill will be voted on by early August, which may be overly optimistic but still means that this summer will be dominated by the health-care debate. Its outcome will determine the overall success or failure of Obama’s effort to torque America toward the European model of statism. It isn’t just that the health-care sector accounts for 17 percent of the U.S. economy. It is also the case that, if enacted, a nationalized health service no matter how crushingly expensive or bureaucratic will vitiate arguments about the proper scope of government. All future pleas for reducing the size of the state will run into the accusation that the small-government advocate is eager to take antibiotics from the mouth of a child or insulin from a diabetic.
Whereas the Clinton administration advertised the overhaul of American health care primarily as a means of covering the uninsured, President Obama is making the bolder claim that revamping health care is a way to save money. Really? Medicare is already the program that ate the government, scheduled to go into bankruptcy itself in 2019. As the trustees’ report put it, “While Medicare’s annual costs were 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008, or about three quarters of Social Security’s, they are projected to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2028 and reach 11.4 percent of GDP in 2083.” Or consider the Massachusetts health-care reform introduced by Gov. Mitt Romney. Like every other government health-care program, Romney’s has vastly exceeded cost projections. Initially projected at $125 million per year, the program actually cost taxpayers $133 million in 2007, $647 million in 2008, and $869 million in 2009, and could top $1.1 billion next year.
“Health-care costs,” President Obama intoned as he kicked off a summit on the subject, are “causing a bankruptcy every 30 seconds.” Cord Blomquist on Openmarket.org observed that in 2008, a big year for bankruptcies, there were a total of 1.1 million bankruptcies. Adding up Obama’s numbers 120 bankruptcies per hour times 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year equals 1,051,200 bankruptcies per year would suggest that only 100,000 of those were for non-medical expenses. Does that make sense in the midst of a collapsing housing market? The study Obama based his numbers on was flawed in other ways as well, as ABC’s Gary Langer noted on the ABC News website.
Beware of politicians bearing statistics. But what is even more galling than misleading (or outright false) statistics is to watch politicians rail about the expense of health insurance without once acknowledging their own role in jacking up the price. Health care is expensive, of course though it also delivers value by improving the quality and length of life. But our jerry-built system has made buying insurance much more expensive than it should be. State mandates require insurance companies to cover a variety of specialized medical services (usually at the behest of lobbyists for the relevant service providers) including: in vitro fertilization, marriage therapy, smoking-cessation classes, hormone-replacement therapy, chiropractor visits, and so on. That makes it impossible for companies to offer cheap, no-frills, high-deductible plans for the young and healthy. As Sally Pipes notes in The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care, there were only 252 mandates in force 30 years ago. Today there are 1,901, an average of 38 per state.
Government involvement in the health-care system, through mandates, has reduced competition (such as forbidding shopping for insurance across state lines). A skewed tax deduction that permits only employers and not employees to deduct the cost of health coverage has made health care more expensive than it ought to be. Yet President Obama proposes that a hair of the dog vastly more government involvement will bring down costs and improve quality.
If he follows the lead of Great Britain, Canada, or other countries whose systems he admires, he can definitely bring down costs. He can do it the way they have, by rationing care. But Americans should bear in mind this summer that when the president promises to get health-care costs under control he is really promising less care. There is a better way. More competition, not less. More market discipline, not less. This will affect every American for generations to come. The stakes could hardly be higher.
What amazes me about this effort...by both sides...is that if the goal had been relatively simple in vision and covering kids up to the age of 18....in the reverse fashion of medicare at old age...we might have found ways to get such a option passed. In the current form...I don’t see anything happening...but I suspect that the President knew this from the very start.
The thing is...if it does fail...what air is left in the Obama ballon? I suspect that the Democrats will ask lots of questions about having full control of the senate, house and presidency...and they still couldn’t pass it?
Four of the Nation’s Top Five Papers Buried Obama’s Letter
Posted on Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:41:45 AM by Man50D
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2269379/posts
“....In the text of the story, the L A Times added: “At the same time, the president, who rejected such a mandate during the campaign, reaffirmed in strong terms his determination to offer a government-run healthcare plan ....” [.....snip.....] Click link to read more.
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Qualms and Questions About Obama’s Health Plan
Townhall.com ^ | June 11, 2009 | Michael Barone
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2269401/posts
Barack Obama has said he wants to pass a national health care bill this year, with a government insurance policy option. Democratic congressional leaders have called for passage of such a bill before the beginning of the August congressional recess.
What they want more than anything else is a government insurance program that will tend over the next few years to crowd out private insurance.
We are told that a government insurance plan reduces the amounts spent on health care by using “comparative effectiveness research” — in other words, by rationing care and limiting options through the use of statistics. Unfortunately, statistics are constantly in flux and do not capture the differing needs of actual patients as well as skillful practitioners can.
Obama and his party are pursuing an ambitious goal. It could drastically change health care in the United States. But Congress has yet to write an actual bill, although there are some drafts around. And there’s not much time. Congress is scheduled to be in session for only six weeks from next week to the August recess. Six weeks of Tuesday-to-Thursday sessions means 18 days for actual legislating. There are other things before Congress, like annual appropriations and cap-and-trade. Still, Obama and the Democratic congressional leaders see this as a rare chance to make “transformational” changes in America. They may be right.
Still, there are some things out of kilter here. First, there are nagging questions about money.
As Clinton White House deputy domestic policy adviser William Galston points out in the New Republic blog, “Congress has thus far given the cold shoulder to most of the administration’s proposals for raising revenues dedicated to health reform.”
So if Democrats want to pass their health bill using the reconciliation process, which requires that they get only 50 votes in the Senate, they will have to come up with $150,000,000,000 in annual revenue or offsetting spending or else add to the $900,000,000,000 in yearly budget deficits projected by the Congressional Budget Office. As Galston points out, the CBO is unlikely to agree with administration projections of savings from comparative effectiveness research. So money is a problem.
So is public opinion.
An April tracking poll conducted for the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that voters rank changing health care below strengthening the economy, stabilizing Medicare and Social Security, and reducing the federal budget deficit on a list of eight possible priorities. Democrats rank it higher, Republicans rank it at the bottom, and independents, on this issue like many others this year, look more like Republicans than Democrats.
The blunt fact is that most Americans are satisfied with their health insurance and don’t believe major legislation will improve things for them. This gives opponents of the Democrats’ rush to legislate a strong talking point.
Third, the segment of the electorate that did most to produce the Obama victory and give the Democrats large majorities in Congress is the least concerned and least informed about health care. That segment is the 18 percent of voters under 30.
Young voters preferred Obama to John McCain by a 66 percent to 32 percent margin, according to the exit poll. Voters 30 and over preferred Obama by only a 50 percent to 49 percent margin. Some 63 percent of the young voted Democratic for the House of Representatives. Only 51 percent of the rest of Americans did so. Without the young, the votes would clearly not be there for what the Democrats are trying to force through.
But what do the young know or care about health insurance? They have the fewest medical problems of the whole population.
Their image of health care, at least until they become pregnant and have babies, is university health services. You come in if you feel like it, someone else pays, you get some pills or some counseling, or whatever.
As for the downside of government insurance, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that the young favor capitalism over socialism by only a 37 percent to 33 percent margin.
The rest of us prefer capitalism by a 57 percent to 17 percent margin.
But while young voters may be open to government health insurance, they surely don’t care very much about the issue.
Voters with experience dealing with doctors and insurance companies care more.
Democrats hope they can assemble the votes and finagle the financing before anyone much notices. Those who oppose them have some material to work with.
They are trying to make us think its dead, like Cap N Trade so that we don’t protest and put up a fuss. They likely will pass both if we get complacent.
So let’s stay aware and get these Republicans and blue dog Democrats to keep their guard up.
Obama has said he wants health care done this summer, otherwise it won’t happen at all. If that’s the time frame, let’s kill it, and then work in 2010 to elect more Republicans to Congress. With fewer Democrats in Congress, he won’t be able to do as much damage.
I hear the Senate will still be strongly Democrat after 2010 elections due to who is up for re-election, and it doesn’t look good to change too many seats there.
Everything done between now and Nov. 2012 can help defeat this president. This can be the moral or political equivalent of war. This is not a caretaker president. This is one who can do some real damage if unchecked.
IS AARP just sitting by and waiting for Congress to cut $400 BILLION out of MEDICARE to pay obamacare benefits to 26 year old “children” of the suburban middle class?
Like its easy NOW to find a new doctor who takes MEDICARE.
Gee, folks, let’s cut the prescription plan and reimbursement rates for the major coverer of the elderly even more .... sarc
Until that happens costs will not come down.
0bama’s Wealth-share program.
The rumours of its death are greatly exaggerated.
Just so we all contact our congresscritters — I’ve called Artur Davis twice in the last 10 days. Call and keep calling.
yep, keep up the pressure, KILL IT!!!
You ARE brilliant. I think this is subterfuge— like all those millions of angry women who supposedly jumped ship after Hillary was treated so shabbily. They were imaginary.
They want us to think we have their support so we will let up on our momentum. Don’t fall for this game twice! We have to fight every day for a long time to beat the masses who’ve ingested hopium.
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