Health Care . . The Gateway Drug

On one hand we have health insurance companies who, as publicly held private enterprises, have managed to make pretty good profits. And while people have antidotal experiences when their insurance company let them down, by and large insurance companies come through for us when we file a claim. Now contrast that with government run programs, such as Medicare, or Obama's example . . the U.S. Postal Service. Both of these have been running at huge deficits. If they were private companies they would have gone out of business years ago. Instead, despite corruption and excessive waste, they are allowed to live on at our expense. We cover the difference through taxes and higher fees. If you were building a case for which system seems to work best, and which system we should be building upon, it seems obvious that private enterprise best serves our country and our needs. But if you owned a company, especially a struggling business trying to stay afloat, would you encourage people to use your competitors over you? No. You want their business. You need their business. And if you were in a position to legally put your competitors out of business, while you would think it wrong to do so, you would still entertain doing it.

No one knows what this health care reform bill will look like when congress votes on it, or what it will look like once it finally hits the president's desk, but even if it gets severely watered down, any doors left open for the federal government to exploit will eventually come back to bite us. Health care is a gateway drug for these politicians wanting a federalized, socialistic health care system in America. Once they get something passed that opens doors for more control, they will never be satisfied until they have full control. So far they have showed us their hand, much like Hilary showed her hand back in 1993. Back then there was no doubt that her plan (and her husband's) for health care was a greatly enlarged presence by the government. You would think in a capitalistic country that leaders would first try to solve problems within the context of capitalism, not socialism; and yet both the Clintons and Obama went right for the centralized government system as their solution.

Much of the fallback being heard at these town hall meetings is resistance toward socialist looking solutions, along with the accompanying spending, excessive taxation, and loss of personal responsibility and freedom. You could make the claim that, because of Obama's health care reform, our country has not been this divided in a long time. So much for the great uniter. I really have to wonder though if Obama really knows anything about what he is talking about. He publicly makes claims that are patently untrue: how doctors make decisions, how much doctors charge for amputating a leg, his own stance on single payer insurance, AARP's endorsement for his plan, This is important stuff, and since Obama is the face and voice for this reform, he needs to be accountable for what is in the bill. It would be good for him to have a 2 hour town hall with detractors to go in depth over significant aspects of the bill as it stands. By detractors I am not referring to a shouting match, but instead a reasoned back and forth. If he is going to make the claim that people will not lose their private insurance, then he needs to walk through those parts of the bill that put severe restrictions on private health insurers, explaining why those provisions are there, and what their ramifications will be on both the companies and on private citizens. Right now he gets away with just saying people will be able to keep their private insurance, and we're supposed to trust him on that, even through the bill seems to indicate something different.

Right now there is a lot of confusion over what the bill says and what people say is in the bill. 1000 pages of confusion. A 5th grader could read and understand our Constitution . . no confusion there. Right now we need some clarity.