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A couple of good videos off YouTube to kick off this week’s post on the health insurance situation in Congress.
And this from the Foundry, showing the percentage of people projected, over time, to be supported by private verses government run health care.
The Foundry also has a quote from the New Yorker, a strongly left of center magazine, on the real costs of the health insurance proposals.
The future cost savings that the Administration and its congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand. Over time, the reform, as proposed, would almost certainly add substantially to the budget deficit, thereby worsening the long-term fiscal crisis that the country faces. -The New Yorker, via The Foundry
If you want a perfect example of what the American health care system will look like if these bills pass, just take a long look north of our border, into Canada. I understand it works good enough in smaller, more rural communities, but for larger cities, it’s a complete disaster. One of the major concerns is the number of doctors who will remain in practice, and the number of students who will choose medicine as their career, if this sort of legislation goes into effect.
After more than a decade of public health care with mandatory coverage, so many Canadian doctors have left the practice and so many young people have entered other fields that Canada ranks 26th of 28 developed nations in its ratio of physicians to population. Once, Canada ranked among the leaders in the number of physicians — but that was before government health care drove doctors out of the practice in droves. … A recent survey of doctors by the Pew Institute found that 45 percent of all practicing doctors would consider retiring or closing their practices if the Barack Obama health care bill passes. This scarcity of medical personnel heightens the likelihood of draconian rationing, lengthy waiting lists and lower quality medical care for all of us, particularly for the elderly. -Townhall
If the 1,990-page House Health Care Bill becomes law, the average American will receive worse health care, American physicians will decline in status and income, American medical innovation will dramatically slow down and pharmaceutical discoveries will decline in number and quality. And, of course, the economy of the United States will deteriorate, perhaps permanently. However, we are also certain that there is one American group that will thrive — trial lawyers. The very existence of a 1,990-page law guarantees years of, if not more or less permanent, lawsuits. And the law actually specifies that states that do not limit attorneys’ fees in cases of medical malpractice shall be financially rewarded. What we are seeing here, therefore, is something unprecedented in our history: Many trial lawyers will earn as much as most physicians, and fewer and fewer physicians will earn as much as successful trial lawyers. -Townhall
If the idea is to reduce the number of uninsured Americans, then why do these various health insurance proposals all count on raising revenue through fines on people who they anticipate won’t get insurance coverage anyway?
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) health care plan presumes that about 8-to-14-million American workers will pay fines rather than buy health insurance. Unless they do, there’s a $167-billion hole in her financing plan and everything falls apart. -The Foundry
You know you’re in trouble when they’re planning on raising money by taxing snack machines!
Along with all this pain in terms of costs, what about the long term damage these plans, if passed, would cause to the very foundations of our Governmental system?
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has served in the Senate for 33 years and is a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not believe the Democrats’ health-care reform plan is constitutionally justifiable, noting that if the federal government can force Americans to buy health insurance “then there is literally nothing the federal government can’t force us to do.” -CNS News
Or maybe that’s the point. As CNS also reports, one Senator has said he’s not able to answer any questions about whether or not the new taxes, in the form of mandated coverage, are Constitutional, while another one says it’s definitely Constitutional, just like the draft. Maybe a lot of the problem here is the folks who sit in Congress have about as much literacy on the way our government is supposed to work as the man on the street does.
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