Health Care, it Sounded so Good

Before the economy collapsed Obama’s big issue in the campaign was universal health care. It was the left’s saving grace, they promised health care for everyone, how could they lose.

Upon arriving in Washington it seemed like government run health care would be a lock. However, it appears the public is backing off of their support for a universal plan.

Wanting universal health care is like wanting to go skydiving, it sounds great until you’re looking out the side of a plane with a parachute strapped to your back. Government run health care for all sounded good in stump speeches and debates a year ago, but now it seems frightening and expensive.

A recent Rasmussen Poll showed that only 44% of Americans are at least somewhat in support of the health care reform in Congress. Meanwhile 53% are somewhat opposed to it.

The reason the tide is turning on health care support is because people are finally realizing that universal health care is not only expensive, but that it would put the government in control of sensitive doctor-patient issues.

Let’s start with the expense of health care. The Congressional Budget Office has released several reports on ObamaCare and none have been exceptional helpful to the Obama administration. First, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf came out and said that health care reform in Congress would increase the government’s health care costs, not decrease them.

When the Obama administration attempted to add a piece to the legislation that they said would help save money, the CBO released a report saying it would only save $2 billion out of a $1.5 trillion price tag.

The CBO report on the health care bill showed between 2010-2019 it would increase the federal deficit by over $1 trillion. It should be a shock to no one that universal health care would increase the federal deficit. After all, Medicare is one of the biggest drags on the budget now, why would paying for the health care of millions of people decrease that cost?

However, cost should really be the least of your worries when it comes to government run health care. The freedoms you lose to control your health care should be your greatest concern.

Under the currently proposed plan, the government would force you to have “qualified” insurance. Guess who gets to determine what “qualified” insurance is? The bureaucrats in Washington.

The Senate bill would require coverage for prescription drugs, mental-health benefits, and substance-abuse services. It also requires policies to insure “children” until the age of 26. That’s just the starting list.

All of that would be required in your health care plan. However, Obama has always said that if you like your private insurance, you can keep it. That’s a lie. If you like your private insurance but it doesn’t have mental-health benefits, it’s not qualified, and therefore you have to find a new plan.

By the way, those requirements for a “qualified” plan will only make your private insurance cost more.

The plan also puts requirements on the doctors you can visit.

The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges — and as we’ve seen, that will soon be most Americans — must get their care through something called “medical home.” Medical home is similar to an HMO. You’re assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists.

Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective. The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago.

The whole health care debate has been spun as an added competitor to the market. However, that added competitor gets to make the rules, and you can bet they’ll tilt those rules in their favor. This plan isn’t added competition to the market, it’s the beginning of the health care market’s death. The current health care proposal fires a slow motion bullet towards the heart of private health insurance.

There’s no better proof of that than Nancy Pelosi. Just today she lashed out at the health insurance industry saying…

“It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure,” she said, adding, “They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening.”

Of course they’re against it you botox-injecting hag, it will put them out of business. Pelosi knows that’s true, but the democrats have been lying through their teeth about it for years. They want a single-payer system, they’re just taking the scenic route. This bull about the government adding another option is as fantasy as Harry Potter. It’s a smoke screen for a complete government run industry.

I’m just glad the American people are finally waking up from the left’s health care dream.