Posted: 7/24/2009 3:36:30 AM EDT
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The Washington post - by Charles Krauthammer What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage, less cost. But you can't fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes. President Obama premised the need for reform on the claim that medical costs are destroying the economy. True. But now we learn –– surprise! –– that universal coverage increases costs. The congressional Democrats' health-care plans, says the CBO, increase costs on the order of $1 trillion plus. In response, the president retreated to a demand that any bill he sign be revenue-neutral. But that's classic misdirection: If the fierce urgency of health-care reform is to radically reduce costs that are producing budget-destroying deficits, revenue neutrality (by definition) leaves us on precisely the same path to insolvency that Obama himself declares unsustainable. The Democratic proposals are worse still. Because they do increase costs, revenue neutrality means countervailing tax increases. It's not just that it is crazily anti-stimulatory to saddle a deeply depressed economy with an income tax surcharge that falls squarely on small business and the investor class. It's that health-care reform ends up diverting for its own purposes a source of revenue that might otherwise be used to close the yawning structural budget deficit that is such a threat to the economy and to the dollar. These blindingly obvious contradictions are why the Democratic health plans are collapsing under their own weight –– at the hands of Democrats. It's Max Baucus, Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who called Obama unhelpful for ruling out taxing employer-provided health insurance as a way to pay for expanded coverage. It's the Blue Dog Democrats in the House who wince at skyrocketing health-reform costs just weeks after having swallowed hemlock for Obama on a ruinous cap-and-trade carbon tax. The president is therefore understandably eager to make this a contest between progressive Democrats and reactionary Republicans. He seized on Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that stopping Obama on health care would break his presidency to protest, with perfect disingenuousness, that "this isn't about me. This isn't about politics." It's all about him. Health care is his signature reform. And he knows that if he produces nothing, he forfeits the mystique that both propelled him to the presidency and has sustained him through a difficult first six months. Which is why Obama's red lines are constantly shifting. Universal coverage? Maybe not. No middle-class tax hit? Well, perhaps, but only if they don't "primarily" bear the burden. Because it's about him, Obama is quite prepared to sign anything as long as it is titled "health-care reform." This is not about politics? Then why is it, to take but the most egregious example, that in this grand health-care debate we hear not a word about one of the worst sources of waste in American medicine: the insane cost and arbitrary rewards of our malpractice system? When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, in higher doctor fees to cover the insurance. And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing –– and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers –– where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, which then pass it on to you in higher premiums. But the greatest waste is the hidden cost of defensive medicine: tests and procedures that doctors order for no good reason other than to protect themselves from lawsuits. Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law. Tort reform would yield tens of billions in savings. Yet you cannot find it in the Democratic bills. And Obama breathed not a word about it in the full hour of his health-care news conference. Why? No mystery. The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers. Didn't Obama promise a new politics that puts people over special interests? Sure. And now he promises expanded, portable, secure, higher-quality medical care –– at lower cost! The only thing he hasn't promised is to extirpate evil from the human heart. That legislation will be introduced next week. DING!!! |
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Quoted:
Fourteen paragraphs that ignore the basic fact that no matter how sick (or poor) you are, you're still not entitled to my money to pay for it! I use the highlighted part to BEGIN my speech to people at the hospital where I work. Then I go on to the part about your smoking for 40 years doesn't mean you get to the front of the line for lung cancer treatment..........or your obesity or your crack smoking isn't a "disability"........... 
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No, it's sinking because he's demanding health care be rushed through Congress unscrutinized like the stimulus bill was. Just like the stimulus, he's making huge promises and telling us not to worry about the costs. People are worried that health care being taken over by the government will be like the stimulus, a huge waste of money that makes us no better off. No one trusts Obama anymore, thank god. |
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Hannity's show last night had some good examples of how even though there are some shitty Doctors in the US, the ability to get Second Opinions and Choice can mean the difference between life and death
He also had examples of how bad Canada's Healthcare System is This Canadian Woman testified in front of the US Congress (IIRC ) with this classic statement: " Our Gov't decided to give everyone equal Healthcare, well now we all suffer equally " |
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the master rhetorician
Brilliant description. In response, the president retreated to a demand that any bill he sign be revenue-neutral. But that's classic misdirection: If the fierce urgency of health-care reform is to radically reduce costs that are producing budget-destroying deficits, revenue neutrality (by definition) leaves us on precisely the same path to insolvency that Obama himself declares unsustainable.
Damn it! Why didn't I catch that! It's so friggin' OBVIOUS! 
Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago
He was a doctor? Wow. Never knew that. 
The only thing he hasn't promised is to extirpate evil from the human heart. That legislation will be introduced next week.
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I hope Obamacare, just like HilaryCare and every other proposal like this SINKS.
This is an updated speech that Leonard Peikoff gave back in '93 in relation to Hilary's proposal. http://www.westandfirm.org/Peikoff-01.html It's definitely worth your time. Here is the start as a teaser to get you to the link... "Most people who oppose socialized medicine do so on the grounds that it is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical; i.e., it is a noble idea––which just somehow does not work. I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical––it does not work––but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral. This is not a case of noble in theory but a failure in practice; it is a case of vicious in theory and therefore a disaster in practice. I want to focus on the moral issue at stake. So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan––not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it––to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance." Why are we fighting this battle again? Because we didn't finish the job in 1993. We never made the point that HilaryCare –– and any proposal like it (see Obamacare) is IMMORAL. Once we get that point across we'll never have to fight this battle again. - CD |
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People are concerned and justifiably, that the govt has thought through thorughly the costs and implications of "universal health care," aka socialized medicine. And BHO/Nancy Pelosi wants to shove it down the people's throat without debate and questions answered. "universal health care"/socialized medicine has the potential to really screw up the medical world.
Even thought its adovcates say tax the "rich" to pay for this program, there is not enough rich people in the USA to pay for the entire program, and the costs will be borne by just the regular middle class working Joe/Josephine. Notice that the program defines the rich as a couple making $250,000/year, but that amount doesn't move with inflation. Just who are the "rich," anybody that earns money. Many ordinary people in Calif probably already make that amount or close to it. Of there are always more questions than there are many answered. |