Trying to follow the health care debate has been dizzying at best. Instead of the usual skirmishes between Republicans and Democrats, this battle seems to be more of a civil war within the Democrat party.
With the 2010 elections looming and public opinion decidedly against many of the provisions within the proposed health care reform, red state Democrats are more than nervous about how this bill will affect their political futures. However, the administration and congressional leadership are decidedly backing the plan, to the point where they are willing to take drastic measures to ram the legislation through congress without the public’s approval or any form of bipartisanship.
This, of course, flies in the face of “representative government”.
Much of the furor is over the inclusion of a “public option”, whereby the government would own the insurance aspect and hold an ironclad grasp on the rest of the American health care system. Instead of the patient making their own decisions with the assistance of their personal physician, instead, the government would dictate what care is allowable for a doctor to provide.
The plan has come under fire from all sides, both conservative and liberal as it is either too restrictive and removes guaranteed constitutional freedoms in the eyes of the former, or does not go far enough in assuring societal control as viewed by the latter. The bill even includes provisions for state funded abortion, and the elimination of the "conscience clause", whereby those who find such action to be morally and socially reprehensible would have no recourse financially, and health care providers would have no protection to object professionally.
And so the intensity of the debate has reached a near fever pitch whereby senators and representatives are being openly and angrily challenged at town hall meetings held during their August break. There have even been instances of violence, as the union organizers and other proponents of the plan press to quell any negative discussion.
Last Sunday, at the peak of the tumult, President Obama let it slip that the “government option” was not a critical component to health care reform, and that there may be consideration of “insurance co-op’s”. This outraged his proponents on the left, as this is the kingpin in moving toward a single-payer system.
Immediately seeing he was losing their support, by the following day he flatly retracted his statement, returning to the government option as the only option for reform. This drew fire from the conservatives, and caused those who were fairly undecided to question their trust of both the plan and the President.
There are also questions about the solvency of his proposal. With a $multi-trillion deficit, the matter arises regarding how we’re going to afford such a huge endeavor. During his campaign, President Obama promised his programs would never affect anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
After calculating the costs involved in administering the proposed system, the Government Accounting Office (GAO), which is responsible to rate all bills proposed by congress in a non-partisan manner, came forward with the conclusion that with present revenues there is no possible way to pay for it. That leaves only two choices; tax hikes and rationing.
From a taxation standpoint, the top 1% of American taxpayers only account for around 20% of the nation’s combined income. Yet those same folks shoulder more than 40% of the present tax burden. Take 100% of their paychecks and those same folks don’t earn enough to pay for what’s being proposed. Thus, the administration let it slip a month or so ago that we shouldn't expect that there wouldn't be some rise in taxation, regardless of income.
This soon to be broken promise has since increased the President’s credibility gap with moderates.
His explanation outlined that some of the monetary offset will be done through major cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. Here the President has been very clear. In a system that is already seriously overspent,there will be cutbacks. Following this logic, it seems that any savings being attributed back into health insurance reform is really nothing more than a reduction in the rate of deficit already being spent on the other two programs. So where's the savings?
According to the President, the plan will become self-sustaining and will encompass a much greater share of the health care market than Medicare and Medicaid, both of which are nearly insolvent. Thus, the proposal will outspend the previous two programs, yet somehow will save money while dong so. One can only assume this must be part of the fiscal policy outlined by our Vice President, Joe Biden, who recently stated, “We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.”
With the present demand alone, there’s no other way to keep the prices down. It’s a matter of supply and demand, and by throwing the door open for “free” health care, the inflow increases exponentially. Add in the potential that the new legislation would cover illegal aliens; the demand has just blown straight through the ceiling.
Simple economics says that when you can't increase income, then the only other way to reduce cost is cut expenses by restricting access to the supply. But the President said there would be no rationing. Of course, the President also has no private sector experience trying to meet the delicate balance of a profit margin. And so, at the rate of expenditure predicted within the plan, rationing is as much a fate of health care as was the Titanic’s demise after meeting mister iceberg.
And the ultimate result? One example is the British system, where because of rationing, 20% of the patients who are deemed curable when they enter their system are beyond help by the time they receive treatment.
As the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, stated in her August 7th Statement On The Current Health Care Debate, “The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost.”
And so the concept of “Death Panels” entered the debate.
While the President was quite emphatic that there is no death panel in the legislation, the inevitability of rationing leads down no other road. In fact, from the first page, in the bill’s preamble, the whole purpose is to reduce health care costs. This obviously begs the question of how the plan intends to deal with maintaining the elderly or those with chronic illness, both of which are overtly expensive.
Pages 425 through 430 of the House plan outline a calculation whereby a person’s remaining quality of life is compared with the medical costs involved in treating a given illness or condition. The older and/or sicker you are, the less years of “useful” quality of life you have left. And so it follows, is it worth spending great amounts of money on those who have fewer remaining quality years? At the moment, the individual decides if their life is worth spending that extra money to sustain. If this legislation passes, a bureaucrat somewhere in Washington will make that decision for you!
How will such a calculation affect American patients? In just one example, a comparison between U.S. and European women being treated for breast cancer, 63% of women under our present health care system successfully complete treatment. Under European single-payer systems, only 56% of women with similar cancer survive.
To offset the obvious implication that government will be the only one making the determination, money will be available to employ and train specific health care providers to counsel those who don’t meet the quality of life criteria on “end of life” care to assist you in your transition.
This, of course, is nothing new to the government. They already have a Veteran’s Administration pamphlet – “Your Life, Your Choices” – that deals with these considerations. In one of its checklists, the pamphlet asks, “What makes your life worth living?” This document is given to every VA patient undergoing government health care, and the obvious intent is not lost on them.
Thus, if you’re over the age of sixty, you may find it a bit more difficult to get that hip replacement or necessary knee operation. Instead, you may be offered a sedative or a wheelchair, along with any necessary medication to ease your pain without actually treating your condition.
As for advanced cancer treatment, in both the Canadian and British systems, as well as the Oregon State Health Plan, treatment is not an option, and you are simply made comfortable for what time remains.
So much for aging gracefully!
For those who do meet the calculated cutoff, the President made it emphatically clear in recent speeches that his reform would increase access to doctors and higher quality health care. In fact, he said that you will still be able to chose your own doctor and get whatever care you need.
The House plan has provisions scattered throughout that will cut training for medical students aspiring to enter a specialty. Instead, education money is focused on general practitioners, reducing the number of specialists in lieu of generalists. Specialized health care is expensive, and to save cost, the emphasis is directed toward more generalized care. That means there will be fewer physicians practicing specialties, causing less availability to specialized care, which, in turn, relates to higher mortality rates.
So while the President claims our health care system will continue to grow and improve, added emphasis away from specialization will dramatically drop quality. Thus, his concept of “improvement” seems to follow the same logic as the Vice President's understanding of economics.
And what happens when a condition lingers, or a patient relapses during a chronic illness. If you have to be re-admitted after being released from hospitalization, pages 136 through 142 explain how the doctor and/or hospital can be fined by the government for doing so. What chance do you have of getting that follow-on treatment, if the government is going to punish your doctor?
It hasn't taken long before reasonable people began to peer through the presidential promises to see that what is being promoted is not what will eventually be delivered. There is no way the government can provide a “free” single-payer system that will meet everyone’s needs, and do so with more efficiency and less expense than the free market. It has been tried throughout the world, and to date, it has not worked for any population nearing the size of America.
Clearly tort reform and changes to the present government restrictions on health insurance, such as portability and grouping beyond state boundaries, would ease cost and bring about real reform. Yet none of this is proposed.
And what if you don’t like this new and improved health insurance system? The President says that under his proposal, you can keep your present health insurance if you like it. Of course, on page 16 of the House version of the bill, you may only keep it if you have a plan in place prior to the date the legislation passes, and if there are any changes in your plan after that date, you’re automatically swept into the government program. This will be automatic and done without your consent.
Also, the government is not in the business of business. Because it is not profit motivated, and all revenues collected must be spent annually, waste is actually a boon to the government. Thus, with no requirement for profit, they can cut the price of the new “insurance” program to well below the premiums of private companies. This will undercut the present providers and drive them out of the market. All the government need do is shift the economic burden within the treasury, and they can effectually offer their plan for free. Of course it is not free at all, and the cost of a single-payer system is shouldered by massive taxation, which will not be related to the premium so as to keep it off of the people’s radar.
When was the last time you looked at the present Medicare deduction on your pay stub?
In no time at all, there will be no private insurance to be had, and many are concerned that taking this course is an incremental way of introducing socialized medicine. In the guise of a national health insurance program, we would transition from our present free enterprise system into a single-payer program owned and operated by the government.
Just the other day the President assured us that he has never suggested, nor envisioned, nor would he support and sign legislation introducing a single-payer plan. But he’s also on tape saying exactly the opposite to a room full of union members just a few years ago. He clearly stated that though it would take in upwards of fifteen years, he strongly supports moving to a single-payer system.
And so the battle rages on. Throughout all of it, false information is being spread around about the President’s proposal. To counter this, there’s a new website available; healthreform.gov. It was instituted by the Whitehouse to counter all of the lies and misinformation regarding Congress’ new health care plan . . . or is that health insurance reform . . . or whatever their focus group polling tells them to call it this week.
Yet lately, it's the President who seems to be making statements counter to what the proposed legislation actually contains.
And to make sure all of this misinformation doesn’t spin out of control, the Whitehouse also set up an e-mail address – flag@whitehouse.gov – so you can report your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and others who spread these vicious lies.
Didn’t the Hitler Youth also reward young Arian children for reporting their parents to the government?
Anyway, none of this is really addressing the heart of the issue at stake. Again, our politicians have drawn another line in the sand regarding the limits of American freedom. We are about to lose another major chunk of our liberty, as well as up to one fifth of the U.S. economy, all in the name of providing health insurance to - when all of the calculations are done - little more than 1% of our population who actually can't get it. Everyone else is either already covered or doesn't intend to get health insurance at the moment.
By the way, don’t think about going without health insurance under the Obama plan. If you do, you will receive a penalty of 7% of your income on your next tax return. That goes for businesses who don’t offer insurance to their employees as well. And that’s above and beyond the tax hikes slated to pay for the program in the first place.
Best of all, the evil truth is that in this legislation, no real improvements or reforms are even proposed. It is all about control, and not about reform.
This seems to be the most recent trend in Washington. Americans aren’t driving the right kind of cars, so the administration offers “Cash for Clunkers”. Under this program, you can get up to $4,500 cash for trading in your gas guzzling clunker for a nice shiny new fuel efficient automobile. Of course, they decide what sort of cars you may buy, and your trade-in must be destroyed, never to drive again.
The program ends this upcoming Monday after spending almost two $billion out of our pockets. The trade-ins that could have gone to people who can’t afford a new car are destined for scrap, dealerships across the nation are not receiving the promised government payments and are out of pocket the $4,500 per vehicle, and a majority of the vehicles that were purchased were foreign models.
Very little of the Cash for Clunkers program actually stimulated the American economy, and it was all done with your and my money. And that doesn't include the mountains of regulatory red tape and paperwork that so far has slogged the whole system to near paralysis. Didn't they do enough damage when they bought up General Motors and fired a slew of healthy dealerships?
Another shining example of how the government runs things, just as they will health care, if given the chance.
We once valued rugged individualism. Now, everything seems to revolve around civic entitlements. And even worse is the takeover of our economy through the semi-nationalization of various private companies, such as GM, and the banking system. Once they own the medical industry, there’s little else they can’t grab.
This is why this fight is so fierce. It’s not that people don’t want to help others. Philanthropy goes well beyond individuals, whereby the big, evil, profiteering, pharmaceutical companies even give out free medication to those who truly need but can’t afford it. And as for being denied health care, people already show up at their local emergency room, whereby they cannot, by law, be refused care, even if they obviously can’t pay.
So what are the politicians really after?
It may be summed up in one word . . . “power”!
There are a lot of perks that go along with being a senator or congressman, and if they can’t buy that power with your money through a “free” health plan, they now seem quite comfortable in sending either ACORN or the Unions to ensure any opposition is silenced.
Of course, most of the media seems unable to report such involvement, attributing disruption at various town hall meetings to the grass-roots movement afoot to stop this juggernaut. The only humor in all of it is in listening to the left dissent against itself. There are plenty of Democrat senators and congressmen whose conservative districts will surely ease them back into the private sector should they pass such a monstrosity.
And as for the President, considering that there are plenty of recordings of him speaking on both sides of this issue, I think we should really take him up on his offer to report the one spreading lies to his special website. Of course, it all depends on if he’s for or against any provision that he proposes, or never proposed, or never will propose, or already did propose . . . or . . . or . . .
I'm all for "Change you can believe in". I say in 2010, we change the power structure in congress and vote these power hungry lunatics back into private society! And that leaves only one answer for that old saying, “I’m with the government and I’m here to help you.”
In this case, not on your life!
David J. Arthur
Conservative Thinker
Private Citizen
Public Nuisance
And Devote of Constitutional Patriotic Liberty
(Note: I surely invite you to send this blog to any and all you wish. Just remember to leave in the byline, or better yet, link to this blog, where there’s plenty more political irreverence to ponder. Oh, and don't forget to report me to the President's "snich site".)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
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