THE “DEBATE” OVER HEALTHCARE REFORM Part 1

THE “DEBATE” OVER HEALTHCARE REFORM Part 1

On my last post we reviewed the numbers of citizens that do not have healthcare insurance coverage. While not scientific, I believe I demonstrated that there really are NOT 47 million American citizens that are uninsured using the governments own data. I put the number closer to 8% or around 24 million, which is still a big number to be sure. We should address this issue, but not in the manner being pushed by the current Administration, House and Senate. There are many free market, common sense solutions to this problem if that is what we really want to do as a nation. Most of the country is satisfied with their healthcare coverage, services and medical providers.

On this post, I want to demonstrate that at least some of what the proponents of the current reform efforts are saying is really propaganda. HR 3200 is one of several versions of competing bills in the House. Of course this is far from a final bill, which will have to be cobbled together from the various House bills and the Senate version as well. But I think this draft provides us with a window into the political elites’ motivations. The bill includes the framework for the new government healthcare bureaucracy, criteria that the private sector (soon to be extinct if Washington has its way) must comply with to continue providing coverage, the scope of that coverage, the premiums that they can charge for the coverage, punishments for non-compliance and also the dreaded public option. Here is a link to the bill, another 1,000+ page monstrosity that probably only a few people have read:

energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf

Let’s use the promise that those that have coverage now can keep it to begin investigating what we hear from the left about this plan. BO himself has promised, not just once but several times that if you like the insurance you have now you can keep it. Well, maybe that will be the case initially, but not permanently. Starting on page 16 of the bill, Section 102, which in typical Orwellian fashion is entitled “Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage”, they define how current insurance plans will be “grandfathered”, subject to some onerous conditions.

1) New enrollments in the plans that are in existence now will not be permitted after reform goes into effect. I think what this means is if you were to change jobs after this is in effect you could not be placed into a new employers health plan.

2) If the employer’s health insurance terms and conditions are changed in any way, that plan is no longer grandfathered and I assume the plan is either discontinued or you must leave the plan.

3) The new Commissioner of this program will set premium rates for the grandfathered plans.

4) After a 5 year “grace-period the private plans must meet all of the requirements for a “qualified health benefit plan”.

Unless I miss my guess, these provisions are designed to eventually drive private insurers out of the market which would place more people in the public plan. I am not alone in this assessment of the plans provisions. See this opinion piece in IBD:

www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=482329

Now we have looked at the part of the bill regarding the provisions on keeping current coverage. This is only one issue of many the public is concerned about. I cannot emphatically state how many other parts of the bill we are being deceived about. But regarding this one issue my conclusion is the “one” is lying right to our faces. Why would he do this? Well, he probably realizes that the American people do not really embrace single payer healthcare. But this is what HE wants. He said it over the years and was recorded doing so. See the next link.

WH Fights Back Against 2007 Obama Video. You Be the Judge
www.thefoxnation.com/white-house-fights-back/2009/08/04/wh-fights-back-against-2007-obama-video-you-be-judge

Did you notice that in the second video, Linda Douglass never refutes that the President wants to move us to Universal Health Care? She just claims that he did not say what he said because the video was somehow edited and took triple A out of context. It looked like a series of clips yes. But taken out of context? And talk about heavy handed. The White House has asked people to pass along misinformation about Obama Care. The main ones spreading disinformation are the people trying to ram this down our throats, like the President himself.

In summary, with the last two posts we have seen that 1) a major premise of the healthcare overhaul is a distortion of fact and 2) a key provision, keeping the coverage you have now is not the intention of those in D.C. It is clear to me that healthcare reform is not about health or care, but taking absolute control of our lives and thus making us slaves of the state. If it was not it would simply address the problem of the currently uninsured. What the current approach is designed for is to take the next step toward socialized universal healthcare in the Canadian or English model. Make no mistake about it. The Progressives are patient and they never stop pushing for more and more control over the American people. They take our liberty away in small bites that we do not seem notice until we realize what is happening. I think that normal, average everyday Americans are waking up. Until next time, take care, stay aware and involved.