How not to fix health care
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Ever been pressured by a salesman to purchase something immediately or risk losing a sweet deal? That’s a tell-tale sign that something behind the deal will cause you grief later on and you should just walk away. President Obama is the latest salesman knocking at your door. He’s trying to rush through Congress a health care reform bill that someday (sooner than later) Americans will regret buying into.
What’s wrong with the Obama-Democrat health care proposal? Space will allow me to address only four major problems with the 1,018 page bill.
1. Employer mandate. Most employers (payrolls of $250,000+) would have to provide insurance for their employees or pay a tax (8 percent of payroll). This idea is probably the best way not to fix health care. Employers began providing health care in the 1940’s when government imposed wage caps on companies. Since they could not pay their employers as much as they wanted to, employers began to offer “fringe benefits” such as health care. Later on, Congress made employer health care benefits tax deductible. Since then, Americans have come to expect health care as an employee benefit rather than purchase it on their own.
This employer-based system encourages people to spend more than necessary on health care and to overuse insurance by tapping into it for basic medical procedures rather than just for emergencies or major procedures. It causes doctors to be more accountable to insurance companies than to patients. It usually forces employees to open a new insurance policy every time they change jobs (non-portable). All these problems have contributed to skyrocketing health-care costs. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever to require employers to provide health insurance because doing so will only perpetuate and exacerbate the problems we are trying to solve.
2. Individual mandate. Under the Democrats’ plan, every American would either have to purchase health insurance or pay a tax (2.5 percent of their income). This idea is disturbing because it uses government to force people to do something they may not want to do or be able to do. For example, almost one-third of uninsured Americans are between the ages of 19 and 29 and are likely healthy and don’t want to buy insurance or don’t have enough money to pay for it. President Obama recognizes this fact and still wants to force them to pay up because their cooperation might help other people obtain insurance.
Actually, the Democrats’ plan is an ingenious way to dupe Americans into adopting entirely government-run health care: require every individual to purchase insurance and every employer to provide it, then when millions of Americans still don’t have insurance, which will be illegal, government, in its great benevolence, will have to step in to help them. As government so often does, it creates a problem and then steps in to save the day by “fixing” a problem it created, which ends up creating more problems to be fixed. As the Washington Post has astutely observed, “in a nation that prides itself on having freedom of choice, it is striking that such a wide and diverse coalition has formed around the individual mandate.”
3. Public option. Again, the public “option” is government’s way of slowly transitioning the nation to a government-run health care system without you noticing. Certainly, insurance and pharmaceutical companies share in the blame for our health care woes, but space does not permit to describe how government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and many others have distorted the health care market. Government health insurance is not the answer.
4. Rising health care costs. The main objective of the Democrats’ plan is to help insure people who can’t afford the escalating costs of health insurance. Unfortunately for them, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reported that not only will their current plan not contain costs but could cause them to rise even more. And according to CBO estimates, Congress would spend at least a trillion dollars to help insure 69 percent of the uninsured for 9 years at a cost of $27,000 per person, or $3,000 per year, and 17 million Americans would still be uninsured. Today, most people can buy decent health insurance for $1,200-2,000/year.
In the end, all this bill does is shift the exorbitant costs of health care from the private sector to government and restricts the liberty of Americans to pay for their health care in a manner best suited to them and their families. As someone wise once told me, “never make an expensive purchase without taking ample time to think about it first.” Our chief executive and representatives in Washington might want to sleep on this health care proposal — for a long, long time.
What do you think?
*My next post will offer some alternative solutions to our health care problems.
This speech by Ronald Reagan is particularly pertinent to today’s health care battle:
It tends to make a lot of good people despondent and at the least susceptible, when they read, watch and listen to the maverick storm of media ads, thumping down President Obama’s health care initiative? Much of the rambling artifacts are the Simon and Lois ads of the Clinton administration, heavily armed against any revisions in this issue that wealthy insurance companies and subsidiaries won’t tolerate.
They insulted the senior citizens with their propaganda and bald faced lies about the European government run health care system. Being originally an Englishman myself, I guarantee in the 1960’s, we had a unique form of medical services, inclusive of eye and teeth. Even government run medical care in Australia was exceptional. It did plummet down somewhat, when business starting recruiting foreign labor from the commonwealth and Northern Europe. Many were out for a free financial ride and got it, along with their large families that British citizens have to support with their limited pounds sterling.
Just as the anti-governmental health care extremists have been pounding the airwaves, the open border, globalist is now subjecting the American people to a torrent of inflaming immigration polls. But like all polls they can be intentional manipulated, in exactly how the questions are worded? Sure they can keep their co-pays, deductibles and pre-existing small-print clauses, squeezing every penny from a hurting economy, but tell the–BLOODY TRUTH!
It’s a sad fact that you cannot trust the Liberal slant regarding this searing problem, although not all Liberals are favorable to another AMNESTY? The Democratic leadership, hiding liberal views behind closed drapes tried to annihilate any good, workable illegal immigration enforcement laws. In an earlier session of the Senate an error was made with E-Verify, so it’s was fortunate to survive Sen. Reid and Pelosi’s notion? Anything that has an impact on removing illegal immigrants is intercepted by business oriented free traders.
GOOGLE—illegal immigration–to find out their sinister intention, to just throw open the gates, ports and airline entrances to cheap labor, that also become the downfall of the European Union. the polling I have seen has been calculatedly –ENGINEERED–to get results, that they can brandish around, declaring the majority of Americans believe in a path to citizenship and open borders? Already the Democrats are ready to flag the Save Act, 287(g) local police enforcement to weaken these laws.
Currently both issues have heavy fallout, and you the voter should let your Senator or Representative know your opinion on either matter at 202-224-3121—BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. Both have massive consequences in costs and quality of life in your future and generations to come.WE MUST SAY NO AMNESTY! SEAL OUR BORDERS AND NO MORE FREEBIES TO ILLEGAL ALIENS. THEY ARE THE CRIMINALS, NOT AMERICANS WHO SACRIFICE TAXES? GOOGLE–NUMBERSUSA for details our government and the media have a nefarious talent, for keeping facts under wraps?
Comment by Brittancus — July 22, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
health care in USA is quite advanced.
Comment by Treatment Shop — July 22, 2009 @ 7:35 pm
So tell us, what is the Republican plan to solve the health care crisis? Oh, right, there isn’t one.
Comment by rmwarnick — July 23, 2009 @ 8:54 am
Why is it that progressives for at least 150 years have always been so obsessed with having ‘a plan’ and planning the lives of others? The best ‘plan’ our politicians could have is to restore liberty and get reduce the footprint government has on our individual lives.
Comment by Reach Upward — July 24, 2009 @ 1:06 pm
Here’s a very interesting article that outlines 5 freedoms the health care plan will take away:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/index.htm
Comment by Matthew C. Piccolo — July 29, 2009 @ 9:10 am
Thx. Interesting post.
Comment by Steve — August 6, 2009 @ 7:52 pm
Comment by Janene — August 12, 2009 @ 11:49 am
Comment by Matthew C. Piccolo — August 13, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
What is it with Mormons resisting anything President Obama does? Just because he isn’t a conservative? I’m finding it hard to swallow that the church I was raised in is buying into the Glenn Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity way of thinking. Dont let an evil democrat do anything good for this nation lest he or another evil democrat be re-elected and not uphold our moral vales. With every blog I read, and every conversation overheard in the lobby of my local ward I grow further from this church. Thanks to stuff such as what is written here. I can see the cracks…..
Comment by Jared — September 3, 2009 @ 1:14 am