Health Care Reform vs. ObamaCare Rhetoric
It isn’t a secret that President Obama’s gift is for rhetoric. Another of President Obama’s gifts is his ability for creating strawman arguments. It’s just unfortunate that he rarely lives up to the moderation he professes to believe in. During his visit to Green Bay, WI, President Obama offered the false choice of a public option. It’s many things but, in the end, it won’t be an option. Thankfully, Paul Ryan has responded to President Obama’s rhetoric:
Another favorite refrain of the President is that entitlement reform is health care reform. With health security threatened by the unsustainable growth of Medicare and Medicaid, serious reform of these programs is no longer an option. Last year, I introduced comprehensive reforms of both programs, and yet again – nothing but rhetoric from Washington. What’s worse, the Administration’s current strategy to fixing our entitlement crisis is to add yet another entitlement program to an already unsustainable fiscal future. You can’t create new government entitlements, impose trillions of dollars of new taxes, and call this cost containment. We already spend over two-and-a-half times any other country on health care. The problem is not that we don’t spend enough money, but that we don’t spend it efficiently or effectively.
I recently asked a number of my conservative friends if it’s reform if the end product costs more, is less flexible and leads to rationing. The consensus was that that doesn’t constitute reform. True reforms bring true progress. ObamaCare isn’t true reform because it’s taking a step backwards.
What every person in America needs to know is that the Democrats’ health care plan is all about controlling people’s lives by adding mountains of taxes on the would-be job creators. There’s a provision in the Democrats’ bill that’s called play or pay and it’s aimed at employers. If entrepreneurs don’t offer health insurance to their employees, they get fined.
The Obama administration hasn’t explained why their public ‘option’ is needed. I suspect that they won’t because their explanation isn’t compelling. I further suspect that they won’t engage in that conversation because it’ll expose their desire to control a big part of the economy. The only way that the government plan will save money over the current system is through cost controls. That’s the first step to rationing. This video proves it:
As I said before, it’s intellectually dishonest for President Obama to call this a public option. It’s nothing of the sort. It isn’t even being sold as a trojan horse. As Mr. Hacker states without equivocation, it’s right there for all the world to see.
This Bloomberg article says that the Democrats’ bill includes a huge tax increase:
Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.
If this keeps up, affordabe health insurance will be too expensive.
Let’s summarize. ObamaCare is being sold to the public as having a public option. In private, though, politicians like Rep. Schackowsky and activists like Jacob Hacker tell people that their plan “will put insurance companies out of business.” We also know that a massive tax increase is included in the bill, quite likely because it’s wildly expensive. We know that eliminating private insurance leads to single payer and that single payer leads to rationing of health care resources.
Put in simpler English, we’re being lied to about what the Democrats’ plan is. If the Democrats’ health care reform is enacted, taxes will increase and health care will get rationed.
Earlier in this post, I said that the Democrats’ plan was a step backwards. I’d like to amend that statement to say the Democrats’ plan is a giant step backwards, both in terms of value and freedom.
Technorati Tags: Reforms, Health Care, Single Payer, Public Option, Rationing, Tax Increases, President Obama, Charlie Rangel, Jan Schackowsky, Democrats, Paul Ryan, People’s Choice Act, Freedom, Republicans
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog