California Conservative

Tom Daschle will likely be confirmed to be Obama’s first HHS Secretary. That should be everyone’s worst nightmare. This statement should scare everyone:

Daschle, a close advisor to President-elect Barack Obama, is expected to be nominated for this Cabinet-level position if he passes the vetting process. His top priority as HHS secretary would be healthcare, one of Obama’s signature policy issues during the campaign.

“I hope to have the plan enacted by next year, and then it will take several years to implement,” said Daschle, as he waited to board a plane in Washington, DC bound for Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

When asked if the U.S., in this current economic climate, could afford to reform the healthcare system, Daschle said it is imperative. “We can’t afford not to do it,” he said. “If we do nothing, we’ll be paying twice as much on healthcare in 10 years as we do today.”

Government meddling in health care is a disaster waiting to happen. The dirty little secret that Democrats won’t talk about is that government mandates, both at the state and local level, are a primary reason why health insurance premiums skyrocketed. If the government wants to help out, the best thing they could do is reduce the number of mandates they impose on insurers. (In Minnesota, there are 63 government mandates on insurers.) Letting people choose the type of coverage they want would reduce health care and health insurance premium costs.

It would shrink the number of uninsured, too, which would reduce the amount of costshifting that’s part of the current system. The sooner we get costshifting under control, the sooner we get the health care industry under control without starving it as opposed to the bureaucratic model that dries up health care funding.

It’s wise to remember this: If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free.

Technorati Tags: HHS, Health Care, Tom Daschle, Barack Obama, Mandates, Cost Shifting

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 7:52 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Health Care, Liberals, Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.