Inconvenient Truths Behind the ‘Hope and Change’

With Rasmussen and Gallop polls showing American support slipping to a mere 40% for ‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009’ in the last few days, President Obama has been campaigning in front of stacked town hall meetings across the country on behalf of his single-payer health care reform bill.  With many promises and reassurances coming from the Democratic Party talking points, I ask this simple question.  What does the bill, and its authors actually say?  Let’s together compare the Democrat’s promises with the wording in their own 1,018 page bill.

 

One line that Obama has repeatedly advertised is that, “If somebody has private_insurance that they like, they can keep it.”  Even on the surface that statement is inaccurate, and there’s a lot more to the story than that.  Let’s go to page 16 of the House_bill.  It explains that upon passage of this bill, private insurance companies will not be able to draft any new private insurance contracts.  The only option at that point for uninsured people is the government option.  Furthermore, employers who offer private insurance to their employees, and people who pay for their own private plans, will have only a short grace period in which they can transition over to the government option.  After the grace period, both businesses and individuals who still use private insurance, rather than the government option, will be taxed an additional 6%-8%.  If we then jump to pages 142 and 146 we see that when we file for taxes every year, everyone must show proof of having a ‘qualified’ health plan.  If a person doesn’t have such a plan, they’ll be fined for the cost of one year of the government option, and then automatically/mandated be enrolled in the government plan.  So let’s just clarify something.  With the government making the rules, and with their ability to mandate subsidies from the tax payers, they can write whatever low rate they want in order to out bid the private insurance companies who won’t receive the bailout.  The government can also mandate that the private insurance companies only offer Cadillac plans, at rates that won’t make a profit.  Then, with penalties for those who do keep private insurance, the majority of people are sure to switch plans.  That will then put private companies out of business forcing the remainder of people to switch plans.  In probably just a few short years, most people, if not everyone will be on the government ‘option’.  Obama himself even campaigned on the very promise of nationalizing the healthcare industry.  I guess his recent promises to the contrary haven’t been so genuine after all.

 

Obama has also said, “There are 47 million Americans who lack health coverage.”  Huh?  He must have conveniently forgotten about the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1968 which says that hospitals cannot turn ANYONE away for ANY reason: even if they have no way of showing the hospital who they are, if they can pay, if they’re a criminal, or any other information.  EVERYONE can get help when they need it.  Let’s be fair though; perhaps President Obama mis-spoke a few hundred times and meant to say, “47 million Americans are un-insured” (which is completely different).  This report that has been quoted so often from the left is a reference to the 2005 Census_Bureau  report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005” which cites 46.577 million Americans who are living uninsured. When they later break down those numbers we find that 9.487 million of those “Americans” are illegal immigrants (but don’t worry, they’ll be covered under the new bill with tax dollars that they aren’t paying into). 8.3 million of the uninsured people make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year and 8.74 million make more than $75,000 per year and choose not to purchase insurance. They can clearly afford it with their income above the household median income of $46,326. Also, 10.6 million of those people are between the ages of 20-30 and, like myself, have chosen not to purchase health insurance. We’re now down to 9.45 million people who “can’t afford health insurance.” Out of those people, how many are already eligible for Medicare or Medicaid? How many are in job transitions and will be covered in the next few months from a new job? The ‘47 million Americans who are desperate for health care coverage and need this bill to pass RIGHT NOW’ are quickly disappearing.

 

Another idea that President Obama has pushed is that, “Nobody’s talking about health care rationing.”  While that may be true for the town hall talking points of the Democratic Party, reality dictates the exact opposite.  Let us for a moment consider how the average American hospital today is funded.  For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that every healthcare procedure costs the hospital $100 for supplies, staff, etc.  Because the government makes all of the health care rules, they’ve mandated that their constituent gets that $100 of service, but through Medicare the government only pays the hospital $94 and through Medicaid (what most people use), the government only pays about $86.  To help make up that difference, everyone on private insurance pays roughly $136 for every $100 of service.  Obama has talked heavily about the rise in health insurance premiums.  Well, as we consider the rise in number of people who use government insurance, the private market is forced to carry a heavier burden.  Let’s now consider the health care quality if the private market is removed from this equation (which it will be under Obama Care as shown in the previous paragraph).  In 2008, America spent $2.4 trillion on health care.  The Congressional Budget Office says that the government will spend $1.7_trillion on the new healthcare plan.  If we’re cutting 30% of the money in the health care industry, either hospitals will go out of business, or rationing of treatment and serious staff cuts are inevitable.  Think of it this way.  Let’s say that you and I have a pie to split.  We have just enough with the current system (actually, some people complain that we DON’T have enough as it is); if we go and add two more people to share with and remove nearly a third of the pie…we don’t have more pie, we have less pie.  Obama promising better care with such a massive reduction in cost is foolish.  Notice that he can’t quote any economists who agree with him.  The reason why is because this same system has been tried many times before, never with success.  Take a look at Canada, Great Britain, or any other country with nationalized health care.  They have a government bureau that makes all health care decisions.  Citizens wait in lines for sometimes a year or more to get simple treatment.  Because of that, they come HERE to get our treatment because they know that you can’t wait for cancer treatment for a year and SURVIVE.  Nations who nationalize their health care system must ration health care because the system is going bankrupt even with big taxpayer bailouts and extremely heavy rationing.  Furthermore, just before the August recess for the House there was an amendment proposed with very simple language which explicitly forbid the government option from ever rationing care.  It was struck down by the Democrats.  Why?  Because deep down they know that this will not be self sustaining without broken promises down the road.  Don’t be alarmed though; the same people who voted down that measure were sure to put in an amendment protecting them from this legislation.  The House and Senate have their own Cadillac health care plans, also paid for by you and me.

 

What about abortion? Currently, there are around one million surgically performed abortions in America each year (that’s excluding any abortive “birth control” plans that can be administered such as the morning after pill, or IUDs, as well as the government funded abortions in other countries thanks to Obama reversing the “gag rule”). Under the new health care plan, government funding would multiply to ultimately fund all abortions. Our tax dollars would fund more than a million murders per year.  With the economic laws of supply and demand, if something is supplied for free, do you think demand will stay the same?  Of course not!  Look at the cash for clunkers program.  They gave a pool of money that was to last four months and it didn’t last three days!  Congradulations!  We’ve figured out that people take advantege of hand-outs!  Studies are blatently clear that when the government covers abortion procedures, the statistics drastically go up. If this bill passes, we’ll likely find that the number of abortions funded by you and me will rapidly increase. (Stats published by: Focus on the Family, July 23, 2009)

 

Obama has talked about his plan to reduce health care costs by using the famed “end of life counselors”.  I must say, he will most certainly reduce costs here, but you may not like how he does it.  If we read pages 425-430 of the House_bill it talks about this very program.  Democrats have defended this passage claiming that it merely encourages doctors to talk to elderly people about their health care options and if they’ve drafted a will.  The problem is that doctors already do that.  What the bill actually does is it provides bonuses for doctors to minimize healthcare expenses for the elderly.  In other words, it’s a financial incentive for doctors to be pushy for the elderly to “die with a little bit of dignity” rather than keep fighting their illnesses or get those costly surgeries when ‘they’re just going to die anyway, right?’ 

 

Obama’s own advisors have talked about these issues.  The advisor to Cass Sunstein (the regulatory czar), Peter Singer, wrote about this in a piece with the New_York_Times on July 16 when he said, “Saving the life of one teenager is equivalent to saving the lives of fourteen 85-year-olds.”  They’re just not worthy of the cost on society, I guess.  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Obama’s Health Advisor) was clear on these issues as well.  Emanuel has admitted that cuts to the health options we currently enjoy will be deep. “Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records (sound familiar?) and improving quality are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change,” he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).  Emanuel believes that, get ready for this… “communitarianism” should guide decisions on who gets care. He contends that care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens…An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ’96). In other words, hope you have some good ideas to care for grandma with Parkinson’s, or your new baby with down syndrome or cerebral palsy, because they aren’t worth the tax burden to these guys. Emanuel even defends such action, “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years” (Lancet, Jan. 31). Emanuel also criticizes Americans for being too “enamored with technology” and is talking about reducing access to it. Both he and Dr. David Blumenthal (also an advisor) have agreed that controlling medical innovation is a good way to control spending. “Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they’re ‘associated with longer waits’ and ‘reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices’ (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it ‘debatable’ whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you’ll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)” This was in the New_York_Post on July 24.  Emanual also said this in January, “When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”  If you can believe this, Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren, is also known for writing even worse.  “The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being.”  This czar also wrote about putting sterilants into drinking water and staple foods for population control.  He then wrote that “it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”  “In future society,” when protesters like myself are out of the way, “It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.”  Holdren then went on to suggest a “coercive fertility control” program that involved “the development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired … The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”  Okay, so in their perfect world, women need to seek permission from the government to have babies, any undesirable people will be euthanized, and if you’re not worth the tax burden you don’t get care.  Now, let’s be fair.  I don’t think Obama has ever said these things.  But if this is what his advisors talk about openly in public, what are they saying behind closed doors?  If Obama’s convictions were as strong as he would have us believe, how can he surround himself with people like this?  With this kind of value on human life, I can only imagine what our health care system will look like in just a few short years under Obama Care.

 

Now let me be clear; I do not believe that our health system is perfect.  Reform is needed.  First, let’s work on tort reform.  Secondly, open up the market to allow citizens to purchase health insurance across state lines allowing us to purchase the lowest costing options.  Third, let’s work on getting people off of government assistance so that they can be productive members of society.  Those three things alone will drastically improve the health industry, and drastically reduce costs.  None of these key issues are in this bill.  This is nothing personal against Obama or Democrats; this is policy.  A lot of people in America are angry and scared at what might happen.  I’m one of them.  Contrary to Mrs. Pelosi’s remarks, it doesn’t take a nazi to be against this bill.  Common sense would say that this bill is “downright evil” (Sarah Palin, Aug. 7).

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