For the past few months, I have been following the debate on Health Care reform. I am an average citizen who happens to be one of the people most affected by the current state of health Insurance. I am now and always have been an independent businessman. I have never been employed by a large corporation, nor have I ever been a member of any trade union. As a result, I have effectively been shut out of the normal employer or union purchased, third party payer, health insurance industry.
Purchasing insurance as an individual or for the small number of people I have employed over the years is impossible at competitive rates. I have been declined coverage and paid a huge premium for my independence because I didn’t have the power of a large economically desirable group behind me. I have even been told point blank by a hospital that as a self payer I would be charged 3 times more than insurance companies to offset the cost of indigent care. I look forward to a reform in the health insurance industry, but am not in favor of the proposal being offered by the house and promoted by the President.
President Obama went before a joint session of congress last week to promote his plan for his idea of reform and I listened intently to what he is promoting. I would like to offer my reaction below.
I have some friends who claim that 85% of the population "doesn't have a clue" and that this is the constituency President Obama appeals to. I disagree. I may be an idealist, as some have claimed, but I think the citizens of America are smart enough to see this "plan" for what it is -- BAD POLICY and overreaching on the part of our president.
Thomas Sowell states of President Obama's speech, "To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone's intelligence." I fully agree and am even more perplexed, when you add his statement that he will do so with additional “wellness benefits”.
To make this claim after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already shown this to be impossible is not only disingenuous, but extremely foolish. The Congressional Budget Office, considered to be bi-partisan, says Obama’s reform plan will add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years, but will not succeed at shrinking the overall costs of our nation's health care. To state that he "will not sign a health care bill which adds one dollar to the deficit, now or in the future" is at best arrogant and at worst an attempt to deceive. Either that or he has to fold his cards and go home without a bill.
He didn't explain how he was going to stop the "hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud" in the current health care system across America. If the government knows this fraud and waste exists, what are they doing about it? Why haven't they stopped it already? And since they haven't, what makes the President think he can? He may think he very highly of himself and his Czars, but he hasn't shown up anywhere with a magic wand that I have seen. And magic is going to be necessary to pull off this feat.
“There remain some significant details to iron out.” Are the words of the President, again with a straight face, as he told legislators that he was finally delivering not lofty rhetoric, but his plan for health care reform. Of course he doesn't explain how exactly all the savings will materialize. One only needs to look at the TennCare program in Tennessee to see that this doesn’t work. Want another example, how about the state program in Massachusetts which provides for universal care? It is well on its way to bankrupting the state. So I ask, when has a Federal plan ever cut costs effectively? I would welcome anyone in the US to show me an example.
Purchasing insurance as an individual or for the small number of people I have employed over the years is impossible at competitive rates. I have been declined coverage and paid a huge premium for my independence because I didn’t have the power of a large economically desirable group behind me. I have even been told point blank by a hospital that as a self payer I would be charged 3 times more than insurance companies to offset the cost of indigent care. I look forward to a reform in the health insurance industry, but am not in favor of the proposal being offered by the house and promoted by the President.
President Obama went before a joint session of congress last week to promote his plan for his idea of reform and I listened intently to what he is promoting. I would like to offer my reaction below.
I have some friends who claim that 85% of the population "doesn't have a clue" and that this is the constituency President Obama appeals to. I disagree. I may be an idealist, as some have claimed, but I think the citizens of America are smart enough to see this "plan" for what it is -- BAD POLICY and overreaching on the part of our president.
Thomas Sowell states of President Obama's speech, "To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone's intelligence." I fully agree and am even more perplexed, when you add his statement that he will do so with additional “wellness benefits”.
To make this claim after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already shown this to be impossible is not only disingenuous, but extremely foolish. The Congressional Budget Office, considered to be bi-partisan, says Obama’s reform plan will add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years, but will not succeed at shrinking the overall costs of our nation's health care. To state that he "will not sign a health care bill which adds one dollar to the deficit, now or in the future" is at best arrogant and at worst an attempt to deceive. Either that or he has to fold his cards and go home without a bill.
He didn't explain how he was going to stop the "hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud" in the current health care system across America. If the government knows this fraud and waste exists, what are they doing about it? Why haven't they stopped it already? And since they haven't, what makes the President think he can? He may think he very highly of himself and his Czars, but he hasn't shown up anywhere with a magic wand that I have seen. And magic is going to be necessary to pull off this feat.
“There remain some significant details to iron out.” Are the words of the President, again with a straight face, as he told legislators that he was finally delivering not lofty rhetoric, but his plan for health care reform. Of course he doesn't explain how exactly all the savings will materialize. One only needs to look at the TennCare program in Tennessee to see that this doesn’t work. Want another example, how about the state program in Massachusetts which provides for universal care? It is well on its way to bankrupting the state. So I ask, when has a Federal plan ever cut costs effectively? I would welcome anyone in the US to show me an example.
In fact, while he kept referring to "my plan" or “our plan” he never explained which plan he meant. A plan he devised in the Whitehouse no one has ever seen? One of the two House plans? HB-3200 is over 1000 pages of theory, but don’t offer and substantive detail on how the plan will be incorporated. The “plan” whichever one to which President Obama is claiming authorship is not actually a plan, but a broad brush theoretical goal, promoted with rhetoric and absent any detail on how it can be realistically implemented and achieved. If history is an indicator, this is a recipe for an incredible increase in costs, not a reduction.
More to come in a few days. Come back for the next installment.
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