Here are highlights from his column in Newsweek, Sept. 21, p. 26 --with my remarks in brackets:
On the 233rd day of his presidency, Barack Obama "grabbed the country's lapels for the 263rd time" --counting all his public speeches. His speech to Congress on health care was the 122nd speech on that subject.[Didn't I tell you I was tired of his voice and the over-exposure of him.]
"His incessant talking cannot combat what it has caused: An increasing number of Americans do not believe that he believes what he says
[Even if I think he's dumb enough to believe what he says, I still think he's wrong. I concluded as he talked to congress that he is either an idiot on the realities of this topic or he believes we are!]
"He used to say that American's health-care system is going to wrack and ruin and requires root-and-branch reform --but that if you like your health care.. nothing will change for you."[He still says the latter.] Geo. Will says BO had to stop saying that since analysts agreed that his plan will give many employers incentives to stop providing coverage for employees. Why should they pay for it if the gov't is paying?
"He deplores 'scare tactics' but says that unless he gets his way, people will die."
[The same magazine, on healthcare in comparable nations, says that the egalitarian view (the virtuous view--i.e. socialistic) of equal healthcare for all as a "right" will, of course, mean RATIONING. Therefore, working hard to buy the healthcare insurance you want, will not advantage the person who wants to put money into his healthcare, in order to have MORE of it and BETTER. (I wonder if there is STILL a double system in other countries --do they have private insurance available for those who want better coverage or have they made such coverage illegal?? --or have they just so impoverished everybody with high taxes that hardly anyone can afford private health insurance, which is what will happen here. Obamacare is currently an incremental approach to a single payer system. There is no way that the so-called "single-payer system" with gov't as the single payer --or a private gov't. option, won't destroy the private insurance industry. And people will all be equally disadvantaged as inevitable rationing occurs --partly because many doctors just won't work 24/7 for the government for the compensation that gov't now pays them for Medicare. There's waste in the system, alright, but it isn't all because of the high cost of doctors.
Meanwhile, Congress will continue to give themselves unlimited Cadillac care while rationing care for the taxpayers who elected them --just like the egalitarian Communist party leaders took care of their numero unos!
Furthermore,
"He praises temperate discourse but says many of his opponents are liars."
Exactly!!! Just like the democrats to go after the So. Carolina Congressman for his emotional outburst, "LIE," when Obama was telling such egregious untruths --forgetting how nasty and discourteous they were to George W. How can Pelosi look herself in the mirror if she demands public reprimand for the congressman who already apologized for being intemperate, while calling a spade a spade?
Will notes that Obama praises Medicare on the one hand --[because people have been satisfied with its present in-the-red, nearly unlimited care] but then goes on to say that BO says,
"...Medicare is unsustainable and going broke, and [says] that he will pay for much of his reforms by eliminating the hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud in this paragon of a program, and in Medicaid. He says Congress will cut Medicare (it will not)by $500 billion--without affecting benefits.
"He has said he will not add a dime to the deficit when bringing 47 million people into government-guaranteed healthcare. But Wed. night, 17 million people went missing, [as Obama said,] "There are now more than 30 million citizens who cannot get coverage." Almost 10 million of the uninsured are not citizens, and most of them are illegal immigrants. Presumably the other 7 million [from the former stat] couild get insurance but chose not to. Democrats propose fines to eliminate that choice.
[Most amazing of all,]
He says a "public option"--a gov't insurance program--would not be subsidized to enable it to compete unfairly with private insurers. (The Post office and the gov't's transportation "public option," Amtrak, devour pubic subsidies.)
Who can believe that sort of statement??? NOT ME! But most perplexing: if gov't healthcare is poorly run now and not sustainable, why would we want the whole system to be in the same boat???
He [Obama] says, "the time for bickering is over." Will notes that "presidents of both parties disparage as mere bickering all inconvenient arguments about what gov't can and should do.
We who oppose national healthcare at this time of great debt and deficit and failing economy, don't disagree that everyone should be cared for --and they are; they just don't pay for it --or some have bankrupted because of lack of insurance or good insurance and not being poor enough to qualify for gov't care. We Americans don't want to see anyone suffer or bankrupt over illness and tragedy --we believe in finding aid for such people and writing off medical debt --but everyone SHOULD pay who can get a job --but FIRST OF ALL, government cannot handle another big expenditure.
Take care of AFghanistan and the economy first, and then let charity and various write-offs undertake for the underinsured --as they so often do. And let people pay some of their burger, movie, video game and Cedar Point money for health insurance.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
6 comments:
PS Some of these 30 million uninsured are healthy. And they aren't helping to pay for the rest of us who are not, when they OPT not to buy insurance. And then they aren't ready to pay for their own healthcare when they get a catastrophic illness. I do believe in REQUIRING health insurance from the employed who aren't on other programs.
As it is, a wife can buy insurance for her husband and family--or he for her --they can adjust the amount of coverage and deductibles --
we don't have dental insurance because we felt we could pay for it ourselves. But then, by not buying it, we aren't helping others to have coverage.
We require auto insurance --and no one expects the gov't to pay their huge auto repair bills --but there is a desire, apparently, to see all our body repairs paid for by others.
Granted, greed has infected the healthcare industry and some reforms are needed --but not socialism where the non-workers-by-choice get the same healthcare as the workers --and the only ones who get super care, unrationed care, are those in power --the Congress and the administration.
Yes, healthcare is a compassionate entity --but the private insurers take our money, invest it, and hopefully can thus pay for our catastrophies. Gov't doesn't invest money we pay them --they squander it and operate in the red all the time.
DON'T GIVE GOV'T THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY OF THE U.S. EVEN NEWSWEEK SAID WE ARE THE ENVY OF THE WORLD IN OUR INNOVATIONS, ADVANCED CARE, ETC. WE ALSO ARE ONE OF THE MOST CHARITABLE NATIONS IN THE WORLD.
There's an interesting statistic that came out today. 73 percent of U.S. doctors want a public option in the new health care bill.... 73 percent!.. that's a super majority.
I don't believe it.
Believe it or not. It's true!
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/09/14/most-doctors-like-the-public-option.aspx
From your article, Steve: "It's not all good news for public option proponents though: while physicians support Medicare expansion, they still like working with private insurance more. Forty-six percent said their overall experience was better with private insurers, compared to just 21 percent who favored traditional Medicare."
Guess what, Steve. In your blogging, though you are sympathetic to --and are --a left leaner --your Christian upbringing shows! I'd rather live in a country where liberals are like your character ( no doubt because of your upbringing) --rather than like some other HATEFUL and foul-mouthed bloggers on either side of the aisle who need a character overhaul--to be reborn or filled with the Spirit --or something!
I understand the survey results if doctors mean that all people should have to BUY SOME coverage as with a gov't option to pay their major medical expense --or to pay their basic preventative care/ exams, etc. --that's so they wouldn't have to keep writing off those who don't pay --so their charity burden would be reduced. They may be voting on the belief that everyone should pay something.
A gov't OPTION is an insurance plan that the patient pays into --whereas they pay nothing now, either because they don't want to because they are healthy and can afford their basic care when ill --or because they have pre-existing conditions and can't get coverage. It's not for the poor who already have gov't. coverage. The uninsured, nevertheless, typically, now receive care, even though they are uninsured --through some agency or other or their own wallets. Not having coverage -is not the same as being refused "care."
but it's true that insurance companies don't want the most expensive patients with poor prognoses --and that they have refused to pay for some experimental, no-guarantee procedures.
YET, Apparently, in the paragraph above from the Newsweek article, doctors find they can talk insurance companies into covering a procedure/test/specialist, etc. more easily than they can get Medicare to cover it. NOW THAT'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!!!! There is a difference between those with a profit incentive who have competitors needing to keep people happy (insurers) and gov't bureaucrats who can say yay or nay on any given day depending on their mood --and their delight in saying no to doctors who call them to cover patients. Some bureaucrats and lower-level functionaries delight in their power to be obstructionists, you know --especially to doctors who are used to getting their way --whom some bureaucrats/functionaries envy. They're like IRS agents.
Going to the emergency room is not the same as getting health care. You of all people should know that. The poor and uninsured, sure they can go to the emergency room and get triage care and get stabilized, but they aren't going to get ongoing care for their chronic problems. They aren't going to get the diagnostic tests, the MRI's, The cancer drugs, the dialysis treatments, the home care because their poor feet are swelled up like balloons and they can't walk to a car, let alone to the hospital. The poor and uninsured don't get those things, they only get a band aid and some IV fluids, and then get charged 1200 dollars for walking in the door at the emergency room.
And medicaid is underfunded year after year after year, being on medicaid is no guarantee that a poor person is going to get any health care.
To me, it's a question of morality. The whole socialist crap is a total red herring. It's meaningless. We have a government that provides services. You, me, we.. we enjoy and take advantage of those services every day.. Universal health care would be just another service.. like the DOT.
Could you imagine if the highway was privatized? You would have to pay a toll every couple of miles, it would take you an hour to get to perrysburgh from sylvania. That's sort of a good analogy of what the private health insurance industry is all about.. making you pay a toll every couple of miles, and sometimes not letting you pass the toll booth if they don't like the way your car looks.
And you're always talking about these armies of "unworthy people"? Who the heck are you talking about? I don't know about you, but the bible I read, when a blind man, or a leper approached Jesus to be healed, he didn't make a judgement to their worth, he just healed them. Shouldn't that be our primary concern.. just healing people?
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