Tag Archives: Health Care Reform

2010 Election, National Politics

Competition

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Obama has often made the assertion that a federal-government-run “public option” is a necessary, fundamental part of healthcare reform because “competition is needed to keep the private insurance companies honest.”

If a “public option” is necessary to provide competition in what has until now been a private sector of the economy, why isn’t a private option necessary to provide competition in areas where the government has a monopoly?

Why shouldn’t we have a “private option” in primary & secondary education? Won’t real education reform require vouchers, and competition?

Why shouldn’t we have a “private option” in the government’s massive, compulsory retirement scheme known as social security? Why shouldn’t working men and women have choices about where their social security account dollars are invested?

[crickets chirping]

That’s what I thought. Neither President Obama nor the liberal pack baying for healthcare reform care a fig about competition. The “public option” is a stalking trojan horse that will enable the government to transition to a single-payer system.

But a naked proposal for a single-payer system would never get the votes for passage, so the “public option” must be employed and cloaked in a fig leaf of pretend admiration for “competition.”

2010 Election, National Politics

What could be worse than the government paying for abortions?

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Answer: The government mandating that ALL healthcare insurance pay for abortions.

That is precisely what H.R.3200 (aka Obamacare) will do. After the passage of the bill, although existing policies which did not include abortion coverage might be grandfathered for a while, they would not be allowed to enroll any new subscribers. New polices may only be issued by “qualified plans.” And “qualified plans” must provide coverage for a minimum level of services as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Abortion supporters have invented a clever shell game in which some of the premiums collected by enrollees in the public choice plan will be segregated and used to pay claims from abortion providers before they ever technically become government funds. But this is but a shell game and is fooling no one.

Of far greater concerns will be the government mandates that will require ALL health insurance plans to provide coverage for abortion services. Easy, cost-free access to abortion will undoubtedly cause the abortion rate to rise dramatically.

And it will matter very little that an accounting trick will allow the government to claim that no government funds will be used to pay for abortion. The reality will be far worse. ALL Americans will be forced to pay for abortion.

ALL health insurance plans will be required to cover abortion.

Everyone will be required to purchase health insurance

Anyone who does NOT purchse a health insurance will be fined by the IRS and involuntarily enrolled in a health insurance plan.

God help us!

Is this what a majority of Americans want?

If this is NOT what you want, tell your congressman and senators now, before it is too late.

2010 Election, National Politics

Obamacare will make the problems worse

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Our healthcare system has a few problems.

It’s not in crisis, but there are some areas we could improve.

There are a number of people without health insurance, perhaps as many as 47 million, or 16% of the US population. It’s not clear whether that can be reduced to zero, or even if it should. Like the unemployment rate, the mobility of American workers will inevitably result in a bit of “friction” in the system.

There is some percentage of the US population which makes a conscious choice NOT to purchase healthcare. That number might be as high as 5%.

However, one of the most obnoxious elements of the healthcare bill now pending in congress has been the proposal to stigmatize, penalize, and forcibly enroll individuals who choose not to buy health insurance.

There’s been a charge that parts of the system are characterized by greed. There are for-profit healthcare providers, and for-profit health insurance companies, and they do seek to make a profit. This is not evil. The proper check on greed is competition, not government regulation.

In fact, it is impossible to eliminate greed by regulation. You can only temper, harness, channel, and control greed by creating a market in which there are incentives for efficiency. In short, the game must be structured so that greed impels competitors to seek to lower costs so they can increase their market share.

President Obama and the Democrats have set out to do just the opposite. They are about to replace a competitive market with a government-monopoly bureaucratic system.

The problems with the health care system are the result of too little competition, too much government regulation, and a structure that lets health care consumers spend other people’s money.

The solution proposed by the President will reduce competition, add government regulation, and allow health care consumers to tap and spend the resources of the federal government rather than their own.

It will make things worse, far worse, if it is adopted.

And the American people are beginning to realize it. Let us hope that Congress figures it out as well before they enact a system that would be a huge mistake that would likely wreck both our economy and the federal budget.