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The Obama Plan Health Plan Is About Insurance And Not Health Care

Under Obama’s proposed health plan, employers would have to insure their employees, or pay into a fund that did it for them.

Individuals would be required under penalty of law to buy a private insurance policy, and if they couldn’t afford one, or preferred not to use one, then there would be something called a Public Option.

The Obama Public Option Is A Bait-And-Switch Scam

The term Public option, refers to a proposal presently before Congress that would create an enormous Medicare look-alike program, which would offer alternative health insurance to the non-elderly, thereby purportedly putting it into competition with the 1,000 to 1,500 health insurance companies that sell health insurance today.

Just Another Reworked Medicare

The idea has been around for a long time and was previously called,

“Medicare Plus” in 2001 and “Health Care for America Plan” in 2007.

In practice however one would expect the private insurers to recruit the younger and the healthier, and the Public Option would only get patients that they didn’t want.

a) The middle aged
b) The poor
c) Those with pre-existing conditions

Private Insurers vs. Medicare

Private health insurers presently spend around 33% of every health care dollar on non-health related things such as,

a) litigation
b) advertising
c) lobbying
d) bad investments
e) bonuses

Medicare spends 2 or 3% on its administrative overhead.

It is estimated that the House version of the public option will cover only 10-12 million people, which would be far too small a number to put any significant pressure on private insurance companies, to say nothing of the 16 to 17 million that would remain uninsured.

According to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), the Senate version of the Democrat’s which doesn’t have the public option, would leave thirty three million people uninsured.

How Would The Obama Health Plan Be Funded?

Supposedly by,

a) Cuts in Medicaid
b) Taxing those who earn more than $300,000 per year

What needs to be said is that the U.S. already spends more on health care than other country in the world, whilst leaving a greater portion of its population uninsured, than in any other first world country.

Single Payer Health

Single-payer health care is used to describe the payment of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers from a single fund, and the patient is entitled to the full range of medical services without the need for private health insurance.

The single payer idea has the greatest level of support amongst medical professionals, and opinion polls indicate that the public would prefer be in a privately-run health care system than in a government-run one by a margin of 64% to 19%.

According to a study by the California Nurses Association the adoption of the Single Payer system would cause the loss of 550,000 jobs in private insurance, whilst creating 3.2 million new jobs in actual health care.

Moreover, the Single Payer system would pay around $100 billion in annual salaries, thereby generating enormous tax revenue for local governments.

The health plan that is presently being debated, even if approved, wouldn’t cover the uninsured until 2013.

As early, or as late as that, depending on how you look at it.

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Given what is already known about the health bill that Obama is forcefully trying to get approved, we can clearly state with a good deal of certainty what the effects of the bill’s passage would mean.

a) Taxes will have to be raised.

b) Federal spending will spiral out of control.

c) Unemployment will increase dramatically.

d) Wages will be reduced.

So it’s not surprising that a recent poll showed that 38% of Americans strongly oppose the bill, whilst only 22% strongly favor it, especially when you consider that nobody would benefit from any of the changes until at least 2013.

Taxes

A conservative figure of $583 billion would have to be collected by way of higher income taxes, and although the White House claims that only the rich would have their taxes raised, it patently untrue.

More than half of those that would have to pay substantial additional taxes would be small business, and it would in fact be a tax on job creation.

Anybody that’s left uninsured will be obliged to pay a 2.5% penalty, so those that are unable to pay for health insurance will subsidize those that already have it.

Federal Spending

A budget office analysis that was released Friday July18,  said the intended House bill would “result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over 10 years”, partly because of an increase in Medicare spending that would be needed in order to avert sharp cuts in payments to doctors.

Moreover the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas W. Elmendorf, stunned listeners one day earlier when he was asked by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., whether costs would be lowered and he replied, “The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs”.

On the same day that the health bill was released, the Treasury Department announced that America had for the first time, amassed a one year deficit of $1 trillion, and it’s only July.

Unemployment

The bill contains a pay-or-play provision that would require all but the very smallest of businesses to provide health insurance, or else pay a fine equal to 8% of payroll.

Based on The White House’s own lowball internal estimates, the effect of hitting employers with an additional $300 billion in costs would result in the loss of a further 5 million jobs.

Wages

The health bill also mandates that employers offer health plans with greater benefits, and the Congressional Budget Office noted that employers will effectively pass along the costs of those increased benefits to workers, by paying lower wages.

The fact that Obama rammed a half read stimulus bill though both houses, and is now attempting to do the same with the health bill, has not been lost on Americans.

According to a July 13 CBS News poll;

a) The president’s approval rating now stands at 57%, which is down 11 points from April.

b) Approximately one half of Americans think the recession will last an additional two years, or more.

c) 52% think Obama is trying to accomplish too much.

d) 57% percent think the country is on the wrong track”

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