WHY I OPPOSE GOVERNMENT-MANDATED HEALTH CARE

WHY I OPPOSE GOVERNMENT-MANDATED HEALTH CARE

08/18/09

By Greg Drake

There is a tremendous amount of noise coming out of Washington DC these days, and the winds are not of positive change. Rather, in my view, they are the winds of Socialism, a naked power grab that is being perpetuated by a group of Americans who seek not to improve the country, but who seek to neuter it, to Europeanize it, and who wish to exalt the state over the individual, standing the precepts of the Founding Fathers, and the very core principles of this Nation, on their ear.

I normally would limit my discussion of politics to a select few individuals with whom there would be acceptable discourse. As most of us know, talking politics with those you know can be a dicey proposition at best. At this time, however, with the Health Care debate beginning to reach a crescendo, I cannot follow that normally sage wisdom. The very future of the country is at stake, and what is also at stake is no less than the kind of world and nation we leave behind for our legacy, our offspring. I cannot let my daughter, my stepchildren, and those I love feel like I did not make an effort to keep that world from coming---a world in which decisions which are at the very core of living---decisions about one’s health, one’s property, ones’ God-given right to profit from the fruit of their own labors---are taken out of their individual hands and placed in the hands of government bureaucrats who have no more interest in my health and well-being than I do in theirs.

We cannot let the hand of government weigh heavily in our lives, or those of our children and parents. That, however, is the very thing the present Administration, and the Democrat leadership in Congress, seek today. And nowhere is this attempt to control everyday life more evident than in the Health Care Bill that is pending in the House of Representatives. It is a bill that takes decisions about medical care out of your hands. It is a costly, naked power grab. And it is being fraudulently presented to the American people by the Democrats in general, and by President Obama in particular.

I am sure you have seen reports about the anger that has been generated by the town hall meetings. It is justified. We have a Congress and a President who seem hell-bent on ramming a health care bill that people don’t want down their throats (or up any available orifice); much of the anger, I believe, centers around the fact that people instinctively know when their precious decisions are threatened by the government; they also get angry when the government lies to them, and the lies about the Health Care bill being bandied about by the Administration are breathtaking.

Say all you want about Bill Clinton wagging his finger on national television and denying having “sexual relations with that woman,” or Richard Nixon’s intonations about not being “a crook.” At least there the lies were largely about their own behavior. With the present Health Care bill, the lies are about legislation that will impact your life (and your death), that of your children, that of your parents, and even how your raise your children---and the Administration and the Democrats sponsoring the legislation are lying about it because they have to, for if Americans fully knew what the Bill contained, there is no way they would put up with it.

Unlike a number of legislators, and even the President himself, I have read the bill, all thousand-plus pages of it.

I have never, in my nearly 53 years of existence, seen nor heard of a more day-to-day, intrusive power grab than that represented by the bill.

“Power grab?” you ask. Whatever do I mean? Here’s why I say that, without reservation and without hesitation.

Prior to addressing the particulars of the bill, I think an important preliminary observation must be made so that this whole matter may be viewed in proper context.

President Obama has said that Health Care reform is the single biggest factor in our economic recovery. I don’t believe that for a minute. This nation faced other financial crises of far bigger proportions. Remember the 23% “Misery Index” of 1980? Gas line in the Seventies? “Odd/even” gas days? The Great Depression? The Seventies Recession? All of these far exceeded the economic problems we face today; all were solved. None was solved, however, with some kind of radical overhaul of the Health Care system of the nation.

However, for those of you who do believe the President in this statement, consider this: How does providing Health Insurance---not care, which they already have (see below), but insurance---to a purported 47 million Americans (a bogus figure; again, see below) help the economy? More to the point, President Obama has also said that providing such health Care to 47 million Americans will result in cost savings. How do you believe that? There is no way to save money by insuring an additional 47 million persons unless you ration it---which he denies the bill does, but he is lying about that also---or if you simply place the costs of it on the backs of generations to come, which is what is being proposed. Hell, even the Congressional Budget Office makes a mockery of President Obama’s claim that it will cost $1 Trillion (!) over ten years---not that that is any small figure. The CBO says it will cost at least $1.6 Trillion---and the first ten years of the legislation will be the cheapest!

So the Administration is lying at the outset when it says that reforming health care will save money. It won’t. More on that later. But of course, that is only a small reason to vehemently oppose this legislation or other legislation to reform the nation’s Health Care System in such radical fashion.

Let’s look at why legislation gets passed in the first place. I would submit there are three reasons why legislation gets through Congress: 1) The President proposes it; 2) National Security is at stake; and/or 3) To meet a pressing and widespread need of the populace. None of those is present here.

First, President Obama has often referred to “My Healthcare Legislation.” The present bill and its ilk is generally referred to as “Obamacare.” But all of that is a misnomer. President Obama has not proposed any healthcare legislation. And the next time you see him on TV campaigning for “My healthcare overhaul,” remember that he has also admitted that he has not read the present House Bill. And that is the only one that has gotten through a House Committee. So whatever he is denying about it is not based on any reading of it.

Think about the major legislation that has come through the Congress in the past fifty years, or even back to FDR. The entire New Deal was FDR-proposed legislation. Eisenhower proposed the National Interstate Highway System, and the nascent Civil Rights Acts. Johnson proposed Medicare as part of his Great Society. Reagan pushed through the Tax Cut legislation in the Eighties. All major pieces of legislation, all proposed from and originally written by the Executive branch. Not so with Health Care.

Second, there is no National Security Issue at stake here. It is not even marginally National-Security related (think the Space program).

So that leaves only the major piece of legislation, affecting one-sixth of the nation’s economy and the lives of every American, as being justified by some pressing, widespread national need. And that simply is not present here.

There is a difference between health Insurance and Health Care. And the Administration is purposely blurring the lines of distinction between the two in an attempt to gin up a false sense of urgency and need when, in fact, none is present or exists.

Some persons, admittedly, don’t have health Insurance, whether because of affordability, by choice, or by inability to obtain it (or by the unwillingness to pay the high fees to get it). But everyone has access to health care, be it through Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC, SCHIP, State programs, etc. You don’t, for example, hear stories about persons dying in the streets because they were refused emergency care at a hospital. Good Heavens, even illegals in California are not denied Health care, by state law. Doctors must provide health care or risk being dropped from Medicare/Medicaid funding. Bluntly put, there is no pressing health care need. If people want it and need it, they can get it.

Let’s look at that figure of 47 million uninsured, (which refers not to 47 million missing out on care, but only not having insurance). It is a figure bandied about in an attempt to justify the Health CARE reform (emphasis purposeful). In other words, it is a bit of logical and semantic ledgerdemain, sleight-of-hand. By pointing to an Insurance paucity (so they say), proponents of Health CARE reform try to make the nation think there may be some crises. There simply is not.

And, let’s face it, that “47 million” (or 50 million, or 45 million, or whatever over-emphasis they want to put out there today) is a completely bogus figure on which to overhaul one sixth of the nation’s economy and put it under the control of the government. Someone in the Nineties, during the “Hillarycare” debacle, came up with a figure that 15% of Americans were without Health Insurance (again, not health CARE---health INSURANCE). At the time, the US population was about 280 million, so you heard a lot about “32 million uninsured” as the justification for Health Care overhaul. It failed then, and guess what? Again, in the intervening decade and a half, you did not hear about people not getting care, or folks dying in the streets, or any of that nonsense. Yet, here we are again, in 2009, having a President who talks about the 47 million uninsured as creating a Health Care “crisis.” It is utter pap.

Moreover, the figure does not reflect reality. Of that 47million---a bogus figure, but let us examine it anyway---12 million are the illegals that inhabit this country which Senator Spector says he does not want to cover (and we should not, if we truly want to cut down on Health Care costs). So we are down to 35 million.

Subtract another 18 million in the 18-34 age group which historically does not want (and often does not need) Health care. Let’s call it somewhere in the middle---ten million. So we are down to 25 Million.

Subtract another 17 million who choose not to have it because they live in households with incomes exceeding $50,000 per year, and could presumably purchase their own health insurance, but for whatever reason choose not to.

So let’s face it---a more accurate figure of the uninsured US population is somewhere between 10 and 15 million people---about 3-5% of the US population. And remember, this is lack of INSURANCE, not lack of CARE, we are talking about.

So this so-called problem is one of insurance, not care, and impacts realistically about 3-5% of the US population. And to fix this “problem,” the Democrats want the federal government---which they now control---to take over one-sixth of the US economy, and provide health care to all---and to ration it, to boot.

This, despite no National Emergency (think: Declaration of War); despite no sudden crisis (think: funding for Katrina victims); despite no National Security issue (think: Patriot Act), and, as we have seen, despite no genuine need (think: Any major legislation). In addition, this is all coming at a time when the United States can least afford it.

Moreover, the people don’t want it or feel they need it. Recent polls show that 80% are at least “reasonably satisfied” with their insurance coverage (68% rate it “good” or “excellent”); 74% say their quality of health care is “good” or “excellent” while just 19% rate the US Healthcare system as “poor.”

The United States Healthcare system is the best in the world, bar none. Others come to this country to receive health care they cannot obtain in their own. They don’t go to Canada. Or to Cuba. Or to Russia. Or to Britain. Or to Sweden.

Yet, the Democrats propose to change this current wonderful system ( I realize it has some flaws, but not so much that you throw the baby out with the bathwater) and to instead have the federal government run it. And you know how THAT goes:

Social Security---Broke

Medicare---Also Broke (keep in mind that we have enormous deficits. It preserves the illusion that these programs are funded. They aren’t. They went broke long ago)

Fannie Mae—Recently crashed over the $400 billion dollar barrier for loans that arguably should not have been made but were, because…oh, yeah. Congress mandated that banks make them.

The US Post Office (Hilariously, President Obama pointed out recently that UPS and Fed Ex are doing fine, but the Postal Service is a mess---but which of those three is the most like government Health Care would be? A hint: Fed Ex and UPS are private)

Amtrack.

Every large enterprise that has been sponsored/saved by the federal government is not only less efficient, but also costs more than the government anticipated or estimated.

I defy you to name me one government program that has come in under budget, or which private enterprise cannot do better. I can think of only 3, and even in those, private enterprise has a huge hand: 1) fight a war (weapons are built by private companies); 2) Build an Interstate Highway System (Ditto); and 3) Explore Space (again, ditto).

Yet now there is talk of putting one-sixth of our economy, our health decisions, and the decisions about life, operations, death and child-rearing (that’s right---see below) in the hands of those who:

---Have increased our National Debt four-fold in the past year;

---Committed three quarters of a Trillion dollars for “stimulus” that has not created any meaningful number of jobs, and won’t (and, contrary to the claims of President Obama, has not saved one job), and who have also claimed that passing the Stimulus would keep the unemployment rate at 8% or less (it is currently 9.4%, and that does not count the persons who have given up);

---By and large, have never run a business, never had responsibility for a balance sheet, know nothing about health care (or at least have no particular expertise in it), and who are unwilling to place themselves and their families into the programs they seek to foist on the American Public.

AND, to top it off, they are not being honest about it. Like I said, I have read the bill. And it is horrifying in so many respects that it cries out to be rejected. Yet, in virtually all salient respects, the president and the democratic Leadership---most of whom acknowledge that they haven’t read the bill---are lying about its contents and, by extension, about their intentions in passing it.

Remember, the stated reason (albeit a bogus one) for passing this is to insure that 47 million Americans who are uninsured receive health care. Why, then , is there a need for a 1,000+ page bill that provides for, among other things:

1) The bill mandates an audit of all employers who self-insure (p.22)

2) Health care is rationed (despite what the president says) by, among other things, placing Health care treatment decisions before a panel (p. 30) or a government “Czar” (my word; it seems to be so in vogue these days) (p. 42); by limiting the treatment of cancer patients (p.272); by mandating the establishment of outcome-based measures (p.335); by restricting the enrollment of “Special needs” people (p.354) (and again, contrary to the complaints from the President that insurers are taking into account “pre-existing conditions”); and by specifying treatment you will receive at the end of life (p.430). And that is just a sample.

Think this is not so? Read the bill. I did, and it is in there.

Let’s continue:

3) Health care is to be provided to all non-US Citizens, illegal or otherwise. Arlen Spector declared at a town hall that he was not in favor of this. Either he is lying, or he will fight to change the bill’s provision mandating this. We will see.

In any event, Read the bill. It is in there.

4) The bill calls for issuance of a National Health ID card, without which you will not receive care. In addition,

5) You have to provide the government with access to your bank account, so you can be charged for all this wonderful rationed care. And if they can get into your bank account for that, they can do it for anything else. They can even freeze your account. President Obama says it is not so. He is lying. He needs to read the bill. I have. It is in there (see pp. 58-59).

6) The bill reduces “physician services for Medicaid.” It also reduces the amount for which it will reimburse for certain Medicaid procedures, which means that the procedures will be reduced or eliminated. That means, then, that there will be cuts in Medicaid.

President Obama says there won’t be cuts in Medicaid. He is lying to you. Read the bill. It is in there (p. 239).

7) The Bill provides for a Public Option, and really it is a Single Payer provision. President Obama is on record saying he favors Single payer, with the government option as the only one. Recognizing the hue and cry over that, he has backed away, claiming now that no one will lose their current insurance. Which is technically true---no one will lose their current insurance. But, there are lies of commission, and lies of omission, and this one is a doozy. What he does not tell you is that once there is any change in your current coverage, you have to go into the public insurance option. And employers must enroll any new employees and enrollees in the government insurance program (p. 145). AND, since employers must enroll all employees and their families into insurance programs, including part-timers (p. 126), guess which “option” will soon become the dominant one? Indeed, President Obama, Sen Chuck Schumer, and others have indicated that they anticipate a 15-20 year rollup into a Single payer (read: Government ) program.

So, sure, you can keep your current insurance. But once it changes---deductibles rise, coverage differs, costs go up----BAM! You suddenly are in the Public Option. You have no choice in the matter. Switch jobs? BAM! Into the government program for you!

8) Advanced care planning, end of life counseling, wills and trust counseling, and orders for end-of-life care are all part of the bill (pp. 425-430). Normally, such counseling is done with doctors. Or families. Or clergy. President Obama and the Democrats, in their zeal to control your life from cradle to grave, want to be the ones to make those decisions for you.

9) Oh, that’s the grave. The cradle? The bill provides for home visitation programs for “families with young children and families expecting children.” The programs, provided via grants to the states, would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills. In addition, the bill says that government agents, ‘well-trained and competent staff,” would “provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains…modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices,” and “skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development.”

Plainly, the bill is nonsense on stilts. Here is a bill purportedly worrying about making sure that the uninsured have health care, yet it goes so far as to provide for panels of “experts” to teach everyone how to raise (read: Indoctrinate) their children.

Obviously I could continue to go on about the particulars of the bill, but suffice it to say that it plainly goes farther than is necessary and constitutes the biggest government intrusion into the private lives of citizens in my lifetime. There are those who decry the characterization of the bill and other initiatives of the Obama Administration as Socialist; I think that any learned person would have to look at them and conclude that “Socialism” is precisely what this bill and many of the Obama initiatives are all about. It is, of course, perfectly legitimate for a politician to proclaim and advocate Socialism; what I resent---strongly---is the attempt to disguise the Socialism as not being what it is, and the constant lying to the American public about the true intentions of the bill, which is---there is no other way to put it--- a naked attempt to grab as much power as possible. I suppose writing this thing may cause someone to report me to the Administration as one of those persons who has said something “fishy” about Health Care, and will therefore cause me to find myself reported to the government’s “snitch” website. I could care less. This issue, and the impact it could have on me and my family and loved ones, is well worth the risk.

I find it heavily ironic that those who would support this legislation are also among those who support abortion, proclaiming that it is a woman’s right, and no one else’s to determine what happens to her body. No matter which side of the abortion debate you are on, let’s face it: It is the highest form of hypocrisy to support abortion rights as being no one’s business but the individual’s, yet run around and declare that the most important decisions in life---the choice of a doctor, the choice of how to raise children, the choice of how and when to die, the choice of hospitals, the choice of level of care, the choice of even whether to seek care, and how much---should be left to the government and, indeed, forced on you.

Think, too, about this: Would you support this bill if it had been supported by President Obama’s predecessor? I highly doubt it. There are those among you, I suppose, who support this bill because you feel you can “trust” the current Party in power to do the right thing. I can only reply by saying two things: First, there is no reason to trust these people, since they have not been, and cannot be, up front about their own bill. And Second, the history of the nation shows us that the party in power eventually goes out of power. Do you, then, want these decisions made by the party currently out of power? I, for one, want no part of it, whether it is proposed by a Democrat or a Republican. If you think that the Patriot Act or some other Bush Administration initiative was an invasion of your privacy (programs which, by the way, are continuing and even being spread under the Obama Administration), you ain’t seen nothing yet. Read the bill. I have.

This bill, then, is nothing more than an attempt by the Democrats and the president to control your lives and to place themselves in power for as long as possible, and at an enormous cost in terms of loss of liberty, loss of choice, and loss of freedom. And the cost is astronomical. The Obama deficits are already higher than all previous administrations combined. Paying for this program, at this time, will not just bankrupt the nation now, but also bankrupt the legacy of your children and grandchildren. It must be defeated.

Is there an alternative? Certainly. The Republicans have proposed limited, far less draconian measures, but they cannot get a sniff of floor time because of the Democrat control of the House, Senate, and Presidency. The best alternative, it seems to me, would be one that focuses on the purported “problem:” If the problem is lack of health coverage for a segment of Americans, let’s set up a program where they can be provided with low-cost health coverage, but only for those who are limited in their ability to get it elsewhere. And, like welfare, let’s put a time limit on it. Two years, four years, whatever seems reasonable. But no one is dying in the streets. And no one is being denied health CARE. Something this simple will go a long way toward solving this purported “problem.”

So, please, I urge all of you: Write your Congressmen. Write your Senators. Attend town hall meetings. Write the President, for crying out loud, not that I think it will do any good. But these people need to know that we, as American citizens, resent and will not put up with this naked power grab. If they pass it, we will vote them out. And quite frankly, given the way the Democrats and President Obama have behaved, they have, in my view, proven unfit to govern. When the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House refer to a majority of Americans—those 53% who are opposed (last poll) to government mandated health care---as “Unamerican mobs” for daring to disagree with them, and have demonized all manner of groups they have disagreed with, they have forfeited the sacred trust we have put in them as our public servants.

We deserve better. So do our parents. And so do our children and grandchildren.

Thanks for your time.