Thursday, July 30, 2009

ObamaScare

We have dodged a bullet of the destruction of our freedom ... for now. Obama's fast track to ObamaCare in the ObamaNation has been delayed. Congress will recess without the Congressional vote Obama wanted on a healthcare bill.

The first speed bump was the CBO, noting that millions who lose their private health insurance, the deficit would balloon by hundreds of billions, and claimed savings in Medicare would be miniscule. The glue putting the ObamaCare package together was 'cost savings' and we are finding out the ugly truth: There are no 'cost savings' to massive additional intrusion into health care; there is only reductions in health care via rationing and via Orwellian 'kill Granny' quality-of-life judgements that with-hold care from those 'on their way out anyway'. Surely we can save money in the healthcare system by not caring for people, but then that contradicts the whole point of the rush to reform anyway - the claim that we had to cover additional Americans with health insurance.

The bill he is pushing is a Trojan horse bill to drive America to single-payer socialized medicine. The fundamental flaw in the entire ObamaCare approach is that it will harm significantly more Americans than it helps, Americans who neither need nor want Government-run healthcare. This flaw is both policy and political. Polls have turned south on Obama in the past 60 days, reflecting the American people rejecting a radical socialist reshaping of our healthcare system. The people do not want wants in this bill: Higher taxes, mandates that kill jobs, restrictions on patient care, unfunded mandates to the state, taxpayer funded abortions. The list of calamaties in the bill goes on and on.

The Congress will recess without a vote on a bill, but a bill will be out there, crafted by the left-wing Democrat leaders like Rep Waxman, waiting to be voted on in the fall - HR 3200. We would be wise to study the bill.

A few rules for what we should NOT do in a healthcare bill:
1. No more taxes. We cannot afford at this time to be loaded down with higher taxes and higher deficits. Bigger Government is not 'reform'.
2. No mandates. No mandates on employers or employees. Mandates have been tried at the state level, and are creating more problems than solutions.
3. No 'kill Granny' policies. No Orwellian 'death with dignity' required sessions and attempts to push an agenda of healthcare denial to the elderly, solely to save costs.
4. No "public option", no socialized medicine. That is a single-payer Trojan horse that will kill off private insurance. Assurances by Democrats that it is not are belied by statements of many Democrats that it is precisely their expectation that Government-run health insurance will take over. The watered-down version of this, 'co-operatives', should be viewed with suspicion as well, since they are Government-managed and required Government subsidy. It's Government health insurance under another label.
5. No taxpayer-funded abortions. This and many other provisions in the bill are
6. No replacement of Doctors' decisions with Government decisions. We do not need a Government board to dictate terms of care. This is another step towards socialized medicine.
7. No unfunded mandates to states.

The Waxman bill breaks ALL those rules. The issue of the uninsured is not a crisis that require such a destructive wrecking of what is good about the US healthcare system. It's an issue that requires a surgical response, and we need to kill this bad bill first, start over and slowly and carefully craft and limited and targeted solution.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Agreed!