Part of the reason for that is the inevitable rationing of treatment:
The American public is even less receptive to the idea of government-controlled health care now than when they soundly rejected it in the early 1990s. But, with Obama's popularity, the media's boot-licking subservience -- and thus, refusal to do their job and report the facts and evidence -- it's still a toss-up.One of the scariest aspects of a government controlled system is when government gets between you and your doctor and imposes rationing on you both. Rationing is when government decides what medical procedures or medicines you are allowed to have, when the government takes the decisions away from you and your doctor. Worse, rationing is guaranteed if Obamcare is forced upon us all.
For examples of the arbitrary and mean-spirited results of government rationing of healthcare we can look to other countries that have universal, single payer systems like those that most Democrats and their supporters want to impose on us. Let’s take the case of Mr. Leslie Howard, 76, from Acomb, England. Mr. Howard spent his life in service to his government in the military and the police force.
In order to save his eyesight, Mr. Howard needed a drug treatment to reverse his macular degeneration but was told that government rules stated he’d have to go blind in one eye before the government would permit funds to be released for the treatments. I guess the government felt that half his eyesight was worth saving, but the other half was not cost effective? Perhaps the British government felt it was doing Mr. Howard a big favor by saving at least one eye?
Of course, the decision to make a veteran half blind in order to save some cash was not made by doctors nor by the patient. It was made by some remote, unconcerned, government lackey whose only interest was the bottom line. Sadly, this is the sort of thing that will happen here as it has happened there and in every other country in which universal healthcare is the norm. Health decisions are made by government fiat, not by patients and doctors.
Perhaps the biggest obstacles to Obama's takeover plans are those notable people who are now jumping ship. His initial HHS nominee, Tom Daschle, who actually proposed just this sort of system, has now stated that it's not going to work. The American Medical Association has publicly stated it will oppose Obama's plan. Even on the Left, some people are just honest enough to realize that this plan has too high a cost to be beneficial, even if they gain power from it.
And indeed, that is a key question: how is Obama going to pay for this program?
There are other alternatives. For example, Safeway recently implemented a new system with its employees that has been wildly successful in cutting costs and making their employees happy with their health care coverage. Obama's plan would kill Safeway's program...but he doesn't tell you that.
And that brings us home to my final point for now: Obama is lying. He isn't interested at all in fixing the health care system. He want power and control. To control people's health care is to control people.
One clear example is his flip-flop from the campaign on actual mandates for health care. In February 2008 he said this:
...understand that when Senator Clinton says a mandate, it's not a mandate on government to provide health insurance; it's a mandate on individuals to purchase it. And Senator Clinton is right; we have to find out what works.Now, he says this:Now, Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured because they've concluded that that 20 percent can't afford it. In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can't afford it, so now they're worse off than they were. They don't have health insurance and they're paying a fine. (Applause.) And in order for you to force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh, stiff penalty. And Senator Clinton has said that we will go after their wages.
"People have made some pretty compelling arguments to me that if we want to have a system that drives down costs for everybody, then we've got to have healthier people not opt out of the system."Pretty convenient how he's willing to chuck every principle and promise at the White House door, isn't it? But that sort of reversal is typical. Paul Ryan sums up Obama's tactics on this issue beautifully:
The House Democrats’ proposal is being sold as one that contains costs, gets a grip on our entitlement crisis, and allows those that like what they have to keep it. Yet again, the gap between what they are saying and what they are doing is nothing short of astounding, as what they’ve actually put forward would impose trillions of dollars in new spending, taxes, and debt, would create a new open-ended entitlement, and would force millions of Americans to lose the coverage they currently enjoy. Despite promises and pledges of fiscal responsibility, the Democrats don’t even pretend to level with the American people on who they plan to tax to pay for their proposals.Obama has also asserted repeatedly that his plan will not destroy private health care, but will simply provide a government option to go alongside it. But, here's a reminder of where he's really coming from:
It's no big secret, and anyone with a quarter of a working brain can figure this out. James Capretta also blows the whistle on the sudden changes of direction:
Translation: he has to hide his real motives because he knows most Americans will soundly reject it. So he lies, distorts, and throws up empty and ridiculous straw man arguments.For months now, going all the way back to the early days of the 2008 campaign, President Obama has been promising Americans that, if they like the insurance plan they have, they will get to keep it. He didn’t just mention this once or twice. It was a staple of his pitch, repeated over and over again.
...
The problem for President Obama is that he and his allies want to pass an untested, government-heavy program — but without saying so.
Every bill now being drafted in Congress would establish a “pay or play”-type choice for employers: Employers must either offer government-approved coverage to workers (“play”) or pay a tax to the government instead to partially cover the costs of their premiums for insurance secured through a new “exchange” system. For years, Democrats have argued that this construct would ensure that reform “builds upon” the employer-based insurance system. But, in fact, the Democratic approach to reform would have exactly the opposite effect. Employers would get burdened with new costs and insurance requirements, even as the government used price controls to offer a government-run insurance option with artificially low premiums and provided new subsidies for coverage only for workers getting insurance through the “exchange.” That’s a recipe for dismantling job-based insurance.
This plan is foul. It will kill millions of jobs all over the medical and insurance industries. Its estimated price tag is in the trillions (and we all know government always overspends its estimates), and the only place that can come from is higher taxes on you. It will reduce the quality of care that Americans can get, it will jack up the price that Americans pay, and it will place control of health care decisions in the hands of faceless bureaucrats rather than you and your doctor. It will spawn rationing of health care, thus leading to pain, suffering, and death. And Obama is lying to you to see if he can sucker you into buying it.
Call your Senators and Rep, and demand they reject it.
There's my two cents.
Related Reading:
Government insurance will kill private insurance
Learning from Tennessee's failed government health care
Americans are even less in favor of government health care now than in 1993
How the Obamas dumped patients in Chicago
Three dirty little secrets of the government plan
Obamacare: Disastrous in every way
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