Obama’s health-care plan is drawing criticism from one of his own advisers, Harvard University’s Martin Feldstein. In today’s Washington Post, Feldstein warns that “For the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, the Obama health plan is bad news. It means higher taxes, less health care and no protection if they lose their current insurance because of unemployment or early retirement.” Obama’s plan would “cost more than $1 trillion,” and raise the top federal “income-tax rate from 35 percent today to more than 45 percent,” he notes.
As CNN earlier noted, Obama’s plan would take away “5 freedoms,” including the freedom to choose your doctors, the freedom to choose what’s in your plan, the freedom to keep your existing plan, the freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, and the freedom to choose high-deductible coverage.
Earlier, we described how Obama’s health-care plan would destroy many affordable health-care plans, raise taxes on the middle class, and break Obama’s campaign promises, as well as his recent pledge that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to rush the health-care bill through Congress before most people can even figure out what’s in the bill. That’s how she pushed through Congress the $800 billion stimulus package, which contained hidden provisions that ended welfare reform, and which is now projected to cut the size of the economy “in the long run.” (The stimulus package was supposed to deliver a short-run “jolt” that would quickly lift the economy, but unemployment rose rapidly after its passage, and the package has actually destroyed thousands of jobs in America’s export sector, as well as subsidizing welfare and waste.)
Obama’s planned tax-increases on some health-insurance plans, and abandonment of his campaign pledges about health-care, are part of a long line of broken promises by Obama, such as his pledge to enact a “net spending cut,” which he broke in a big way with proposed budgets that will explode the national debt through $9.3 trillion in massively increased deficit spending.
Obamacare would also apparently restrict resources for end-of-life care for the elderly, and mandate wasteful end-of-life counseling for the elderly (such as lecturing them about the right to hasten their own death by refusing nutrition).
Earlier, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office gave an honest but “devastating assessment” of the incredibly high cost of the health-care plans backed by Obama, which would cost well over a trillion dollars, to cover just a fraction of the uninsured.
Obama is angry about that truthful conclusion, as well as the CBO’s finding that his wasteful stimulus package will actually reduce the size of the economy “in the long run.” (Obama had claimed that only his stimulus package could save America from “disaster” and “irreversible decline“).
So Obama recently invited CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, a Democratic appointee, to the White House to pressure him to reduce his cost estimates.
It is doubtful that Obamacare would live up to any of Obama’s claims. His other legislation hasn’t. His stimulus package has been a fiasco, as much of the public now realizes: just 25% say it has helped the economy.
You obviously misunderstood–of course you will be ALLOWED to keep your current insurance but no one will be able to afford it after Obama ‘reforms’ the system. If you are still trying to find even one campaign promise the Pres. has fulfilled, you are on a fool’s mission. Maybe in the future the voting public will look behind the glib oratory and ask HOW those ‘promises’ are to be implemented and what it will cost them. This time, however, it appears that there was never any intention to keep those promises.
You obviously misunderstood–of course you will be ALLOWED to keep your current insurance but no one will be able to afford it after Obama ‘reforms’ the system. If you are still trying to find even one campaign promise the Pres. has fulfilled, you are on a fool’s mission. Maybe in the future the voting public will look behind the glib oratory and ask HOW those ‘promises’ are to be implemented and what it will cost them. This time, however, it appears that there was never any intention to keep those promises.
(No, I have not submitted these comments before but I’m glad to see that others agree)
Ooops—sorry!
The private sector and competitive market forces, not the federal government, are the best means to meeting our country’s rapidly expanding health care needs. One of the things I think we can do to help make that happen is support American businesses and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (http://bit.ly/oanAT). They’re doing things to reach out and show people that they can get involved, too.
O’Bama made all these promises. With the new health care plan all seniors are to take a counseling session every 5 years on how to end your life early. I am just appalled at this “Hitler” like President. Didn’t we imprison Jack Kevorkian for the same thing? It looks like we are losing our democracy government and becoming more socialist.
Our parent’s & our own lives will be affected by this reform & not necessarily in a good way. If anyone has the telephone #’s to who & where we should call please post them. Let’s take back our rights as citizens & put someone in there who actually cares about the ill & elderly. By the way, for those who didn’t hear it I’ve posted it so that there is no question as to what page 425 on the reform has to offer:
http://fetch.noxsolutions.com/ft/mp3/BetsyMcCaughey_071609.mp3
The conventional wisdom is that while the health-care bills stink, they’ll pass anyway, because of the political need by Obama and Congressional leaders to pass something, anything, in order to say that they “did something” about health-care reform in time for the 2010 election.
The health-care bill violates privacy in many ways, discriminates in many disturbing ways, and eliminates basic legal protections, says the National Center for Policy Analysis:
“These are some items in the Health Care Bill that our Congress has not read.
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS THAT SELF-INSURE!!
This is true. The HOUSE bill requires a report on “the financial solvency and capital reserve levels of employers that self-insure.”
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get
This is true. The HOUSE bill creates a “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” that will “recommend covered benefits and essential, enhanced, and premium plans.”
Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Govt WILL RESTRICT ENROLLMENT of Special needs people
This is mostly true. Government already has the authority to restrict enrollment. This provision in the HOUSE bill will extend that authority until 2013.
Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you.
This is true. The Health Choices Commissioner (a new government bureaucrat created in the HOUSE bill) will establish “qualified health benefits plan standards … including the enforcement of such standards.”
PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC WILL BE PROVIDED TO ALL NON-US CITIZENS, illegal or otherwise
The HOUSE bill requires all health care to be provided “without regard to personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services.” This could be interpreted as requiring health care to be provided to illegal aliens.
Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill- ALL NON-RESIDENT ALIENS will be exempt from individual taxes. (Resident Americans will pay)
Amazingly, this is true. The HOUSE bill says the tax “shall not apply to any individual who is a non-resident alien.”
Pg 58 HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access to individuals finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued
This is mostly true. Although it isn’t a mandate. This section in the HOUSE bill lists this as a “goal” of health reform, to “enable the real-time (or near real time) determination of an individual’s financial responsibility at the point of service and, to the extent possible, prior to service, including whether the individual is eligible for a specific service with a specific physician at a specific facility, which may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card;
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your bank accounts for electronic funds transfer, no choice
This is true. The HOUSE bill would “enable electronic funds transfers, in order to allow automated reconciliation with the related health care payment and remittance advice.”
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating an HC EXCHANGE to bring private HC plans under Govt control.
This is true. The HOUSE bill creates an artificial government-controlled market (an “exchange”) that will operate outside the free market.
PG 84 Sec 203 HC bill - Govt mandates ALL benefit pkgs for private HC plans in the Exchange
This is true. The HOUSE bill mandates that “the Commissioner shall specify the benefits to be made available under Exchange-participating health benefits plans.”
PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs. for of Benefit Levels for Plans
This is true. There are several benefit level specifications that the government will require in this section of the HOUSE bill.
Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan
This may be true. The HOUSE bill creates an outreach system to sign up people for health insurance. It doesn’t specifically mention ACORN, but it is certainly possible ACORN could be used.
pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue Government on price fixing. No “judicial review” against Government Monopoly
This is true. “There shall be no administrative or judicial review of a payment rate or methodology established” in the HOUSE bill.
pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill -DOCTORS/ AMA - The Govt will tell you what your salary will be.
This is true for doctors who participate in the public plan.
Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employers MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE
This isn’t exactly true. If employers don’t offer coverage or otherwise contribute to employees’ health insurance, they must enroll into a public plan.
Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for HC for part time employees AND their families.
This is true, except it is on page 146.
Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer with payroll 400k & above, who does not provide public option, pays 8% tax on all payroll
This is true.
pg 150 Lines 9-13 Businesses with payroll btw 251k & 400k who doesn’t provide public option pays 2-6% tax on all payroll
This is true. The HOUSE bill includes a sliding-scale tax schedule for businesses with payrolls starting at $250,001.
Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable HC according to the Govt will be taxed 2.5% of income
This is true. The HOUSE bill requires you to have “acceptable” insurance, or you will be taxed.
Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans finances/personal records
This is true for people who received subsidized insurance through the exchange.
PG 203 Line 14-15 HC - “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax”
This section in the HOUSE bill doesn’t want the tax to be treated as a “tax” for purposes of other sections of the tax code. Complicated, but funny how they worded it.
READ THE FOLLOWING LINES SLOWLY….
Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill- Govt WILL REDUCE PHYSICIAN SERVICES for Medicaid Seniors, and low income people.
This seems true. This section is fairly complicated though, so we should look at it more carefully.”
Government health-care entitlements invariably cost more than promised. That’s buttressed by a recent commentary in the July 30 and 31 editions of Investors Business Daily by former Rep. Tim Penny (D-MN) and Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-MN), “Gov’t-Run Care Is A Study In Soaring Costs.”
They note that Medicare costs 10.7 times as much today as its sponsors predicted it would, and more than 85 times as much as when the Medicare entitlement was first created.
State universal-health-care mandates, such as in Massachusetts, have invariably ended up covering fewer uninsured people, at a far higher cost, than their sponsors predicted.