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Ann Coulter has it right:
First screw something up, then claim that it’s screwed up because there’s not enough government oversight (it’s the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of “reform.”
We are now hearing noises from the Dems to the effect that they are willing to compromise on the public plan issue. The more I think about it, the less I believe it.
The bait-and-switch is an Obama/Democrat specialty. These are the people who proposed taxing health insurance benefits after trashing John McCain for a similar proposal.
These are the people who promised an open public discussion on health care reform, and then began compiling an enemies list on those of us who actually dared to dissent.
And, of course, Obama was famously for single-payer before he began running for President and needed to adopt a “moderate” position on health care.
So, when these people start offering a compromise like insurance co-ops, it is prudent to keep one’s hand on one’s wallet.
One of the claims often made by the President and his congressional accomplices, despite longstanding evidence to the contrary, is that health “reform” will save money by encouraging preventive care.
Well, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Ofiice has done the math, and concludes that this claim is pure BS. In fact, the numbers suggest that the opposite is true:
The evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.
Unlike the fabulists at the White House and in Congress, the work of the CBO is grounded in objective reality. Nonetheless, the Obots are once again attacking the messenger:
Democrats from President Obama on down have expressed frustration that [CBO Director] Elmendorf doesn’t give Democrats’ health care reform proposals sufficient credit for cost cutting through preventive care.
Reality bites, eh? Fact-based analysis is always an itrritant to these BS artists.
In an apparent attempt to prove that the term ”progressive” is a synonym for “fascist,” the Obama administration has published this seriously creepy request on the White House web site:
If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to [email protected].
Yes. you read that right. The Obama administration is asking Americans to inform on their fellow citizens for having the temerity to dissent via e-mail or the internet.
And, in addition to requesting reports about “fishy” e-mails and web posts, the White House wants the Obots to keep alert for “rumors” they hear in “casual conversation.”
Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help.
Call me paranoid, but I’m just a leeeeetle uncomfortable with a Presidential administration that wants to “keep track” of the things people say in casual conversation.
However, I’d like to make one thing clear to any Obot reporting my “fishy” posts to Big Brother: the name is spelled C-A-T-R-O-N. And, as to pronunciation, it rhymes with “patron.”
Oh, yes, I almost forgot. While you’re snitching, make sure you report the conflicts of interest that seep from every pore of Obama’s health care Czarina, Nancy DeParle.
One of the linchpin arguments of government-run health care advocates is that the government can run an insurance program more efficiently and with much lower administrative costs than the private sector. According to them, Medicare overhead is approximately 3% while private insurers have 12% (or 20% or 31% depending on who is talking) in administrative costs.
The argument is complete rubbish.
Put aside the fact that since private insurance companies have to earn a profit for their shareholders, they must also root out fraud. Medicare and Medicaid – which are rife with fraud to the tune of billions of dollars – do not because they rely on a bottomless pit of taxpayer money.
Put aside the fact that private insurers need to collect premiums while the government collects its premiums through the IRS whose administrative costs are nowhere to be found in the so-called Medicare overhead number.
The reason that the Medicare overhead number appears so low is that it is computed as a percentage of total health care costs. Since Medicare covers people over 65 whose costs are much higher than the under-65 population, the admin costs appear lower – but they are not. This is nothing more than lying with statistics.
It seems that the advocates of government-run healthcare didn’t learn anything from the history of the 20th century. Almost 20 years since the end of the Soviet Union and the collapse of world communism, the American left still seems to think that government should run businesses and that profit should be outlawed. There’s absolutely nothing different about health care from any other important good or service that the market provides.
In an apparent effort to confirm our worst fears about socialized medicine, Britain’s rationing Czars have decided to stop paying for therapeutic pain injections:
Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued by the NHS, doctors have warned.
And what do these apparatchiks recommend for patients with such pain?
Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.
Meanwhile, the growing number of Americans speaking out against going to such a health care rationing system in the U.S. are being mocked by the “news” media and vilified by the nutroots.
This is good news. When ”progressives” start in with the slander, it usually means they’re afraid. And they should be. The outcry at townhall meetings around the country may be the death knell of Obamacare.
This, by the way, is not unlike what happened in 1993. Hillarycare wasn’t killed by Harry & Louise or the “health care industrial complex.” It died when the public started hearing the details.
Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute addresses the issue of health care “reform” in a new column. Read it all.
Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama’s “reforms” will only expand that intervention.
Prior to the government’s entrance into medicine, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market-no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.
Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans’ rising productivity would have afforded them better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn’t for food or clothing.
This video speaks for itself – and shows that Obama’s various defenses of the public insurance option are more of the same: obfuscation and propaganda.
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