Health Care Reform
Last night, President Obama pretty much ran ABC and discussed his health care plan. Of course, the subject of a network basically serving as a platform for a President without real, substantive debate regarding the policy is a subject for elsewhere. However, the policy itself needs some serious discussion.
The President’s question and answer period seemed, from the little I could watch, mostly softball questions, but unintentionally softball. ABCNews had brought in folks, but they were regular people like you and me. There wasn’t a real discussion in my opinion, since most of these people asked a question and got an answer…and that was really about it. Part of that was that the audience probably wasn’t that well versed in policy, and I doubt they were political junkies either, which is fine…the target audience is regular folks like them.
Now, all that said, it’s time to have that discussion the President said he wanted. If you watched it, or read about it after, this is the place to have the discussion.
I’ll give it a start:
One thing that I did hear was when someone asked a question about the government making decisions about who gets treatment, he said that someone was making that decision already, if not government then health insurance. This isn’t true. All health insurance can do is tell you what they will and won’t pay for. The only people who decide health care today are Doctor’s and, to a lesser extent, patients. That is often weighed against what insurance will pay, but not always. So while people may get stuck with a bill that the insurance won’t pay, they’re still getting the treatment they need regardless of anyone else.
Another thing I heard was something I’ve heard from the President for a while, that if you’re happy with your current health care plan, this won’t change anything for you. Unfortunately, this is probably sincerely said, but also probably wrong. The President’s plan may also provide disincentive for companies to provide health care coverage to employees. After all, they can get that from the government, so they may offer something else as compensation instead. If the company you work for does this, then it most definitely has impacted your insurance after all. I don’t think it’s a lie, but I think it’s wrong.
What about you?
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June 25th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Tom, it will come as no surprise that I am strongly against government run healthcare. I firmly beieve that if Americans take the time to do their homework they will also be. We can’t allow people to ignore this as it will be a huge step in taking away our freedom’s.
An ABC/Washington Post poll shows that strong support for “a universal health insurance program” drops dramatically if it means any limitations on choice of doctors or rationing of medical care, both of which would undoubtedly happen under ObamaCare.
If you don’t mind giving up your right to select your doctor/hospital/medicine, then surely you will be outraged at the huge hit this will take on your wallet!
Every government health care program (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP) has busted every budget estimate ever made for them.
FreedomWorks has posed 3 questions every citizen should make their representative answer on ObamaCare:
1. The Congressional Budget Office has said the proposed government takeover of health care could cost $1.6 trillion. Other estimates put the cost much higher. Various officials have proposed raising taxes on soda and alcohol, a higher payroll tax, taxing current employer-provided health plans, and even a new national sales tax to fund this massive government program. Do you support any of these middle-class tax hikes to fund government-run health care? If not, how would you pay for it?
2.Under Obama’s plan, can you guarantee that I would get to keep my current health care plan and doctor? President Obama himself has actually said both “yes” and “no” to this question.
3. Provisions in the Obama plan call for “comparative effectiveness research” to be used to decrease costs. “Savings” are achieved by denying treatments based on criteria such as cost, a patient’s health and/or a patient’s age. Isn’t this health care rationing? Can you guarantee that a new government plan will not deny care to individuals in order to control costs?
“We want to put every Member of Congress on the record. What is their understanding of the Obama health care plan? How will it effect how patients get treatment and how will it impact your pocket book?
We don’t have much time to waste, since Obama wants to have a bill on his desk within a matter of weeks! Please download the Health Care Action Kit and bring copies with you to town hall meetings, district office visits and the taxpayer tea parties occurring in your area. Help us build opposition to the takeover of our health care system, and send shock waves back to Washington, D.C. with a message that we refuse to become a European-style welfare state.
July 4th is a time to remember who we are as a people, and what makes us special: our freedom. Let’s re-dedicate ourselves to that principle and work together to defend our freedom this Independence Day by derailing the plan to give the federal government control over our health care.”
This comes from Dick Armey of FreedomWorks
http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/three-questions-politicians-must-answer-before-the
This proposed legislation is about putting private health insurers out of business and turning our health care system into something like England’s or Canada’s, where people can’t get state of the art medicine or treatments, where surgery has waiting lists of months or years, and where anyone who can afford to comes here for any life-and-death procedure, or any quality of life procedure which can be done here in weeks rather than waiting months or years at home.
Please take the time to contact all of your representatives and tell them this is NOT what you want.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Good points Donna. While I don’t ascribe the nefarious purposes many do to the President and the Democrats in Congress, I do think there are unintended consequences that will hammer us, like eventually shifting us to a single payer system.
It’s important to note that many of the same defenses of this plan where used in defense of medicare as well, namely in reference to concerns about price controls. It won’t happen, they said. It did happen. I just can’t take any of them at face value.