On Monday, President Barack Obama pitched his scheme for a government \u201creform\u201d of American health care and medical insurance to the American Medical Assn., continuing a public-relations blitz designed to push the pricey scheme through Congress. <\/p>\n
As is becoming typical of his approach, the president warned all parties — doctors, hospitals, insurance companies — that each would have to \u201csacrifice\u201d something under his plan, but then attempted to sweeten the pot by offering something back — in the doctors\u2019 case, some partial protection from the fear of malpractice suits that now lead doctors to order (\u201cjust in case\u201d) expensive medical tests most parties consider unnecessary. <\/p>\n
Mr. Obama stopped short of endorsing an actual cap on malpractice \u201cpain and suffering\u201d awards, though. He IS a lawyer, after all — and a lawyer well-funded by other lawyers. <\/p>\n
Americans — occupants of the wealthiest nation in the world — are now estimated to spend $2 trillion per year on health care. Mr. Obama\u2019s position is that the current health care system is too costly and that it doesn\u2019t make people better. <\/p>\n
The Obama administration wants to see about $950 billion less spent on health care over the next decade. The president and his men deny this will mean rationing, but any commodity in high demand is always rationed. The question is whether health care shall be rationed by price — those who work and save and make health care a high priority will get more because they are willing and able to pay more — or whether some new and different form of rationing will be imposed, with government bureaucrats or other parties delegated by government bureaucrats deciding who will get how much health care (and who will be prevented from buying as much as they want, no matter whether they can afford it), based presumably on some calculation of \u201cneed.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mr. Obama proposed a mixture of cost-cutting and tax hikes on high wage-earners, to \u201cpay for\u201d his plan. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe president also will insist that there be some public option to cover health care for the 45 million to 50 million uninsured Americans,\u201d The Los Angeles Times reports, using a number which would appear to include Americans who voluntarily drop their health insurance, or who are temporarily without coverage while changing jobs. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut Obama will rule out a single-payer system, much like Canada\u2019s,\u201d The Times reports. \u201cThis is politically a non-starter, though some Democrats favor the approach, branded as socialism by conservatives. <\/p>\n
The Washington Post asked Robert E. Moffit, director of the Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, what he thought of the proposal. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe disconnect in the president\u2019s speech to the American Medical Association was remarkable,\u201d Mr. Moffit replied. \u201cHe reiterated the key elements of his health policy agenda: a new GOVERMENT-run health plan to compete with private health plans in a GOVERNMENT-run national health insurance exchange. It would include a GOVERNMENT mandate on employers to offer GOVERNMENT-approved coverage, as well as a GOVERNMENT mandate on individuals to buy GOVERNMENT-approved insurance. <\/p>\n
\u201cYet the president warned the doctors about the unnamed \u2018naysayers\u2019 who claim he\u2019s trying to bring about \u2018government-run\u2019 health care. Gee, where would they get that idea?\u201d <\/p>\n
What President Obama is trying to do is to slip in a vastly expensive health care \u201creform\u201d which will lead inevitably to a government-run socialized system for everyone — complete with rationing to decide who gets care and who does not, based on such factors as life expectancy and whether the patient morally \u201cdeserves\u201d to be cured or not because he or she smoked, drank, drove motorcycles, etc. — while dressing up the scheme with enough rhetorical lipstick and a curly wig to prevent anyone from pointing out there\u2019s a pig under there. <\/p>\n
Whether he succeeds depends on whether he can convince enough people there\u2019s enough of an emergency to \u201crush the thing through\u201d before anyone has a chance to read and debate the details. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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