Let Your Voice Be Heard

This is outstandingly outstanding:

Sweet!  This is one of the best messages I've heard on what's at stake with the government takeover of health care, and it's a breath of fresh air to hear the plain talk of Ronald Reagan from someone who actually lives those values, unlike so many who claim to be conservative.

So let's talk about ObamaKennedyDeathCare.  Since the new House bill came out, it's gotten even less popular with the American people, who now oppose it 54% to 42%.  It really says something that the more the Dems talk about it, the worse it gets.  It's no wonder they're trying to hide it as much as possible.

It's a gift to trial lawyers, and a curse to pretty much everyone else.  Part of that curse is how millions of uninsured Americans will suddenly have to pay new taxes.  And these aren't 'the rich', either - it's you and me and the rest of the middle class.

And it's not just political pundits who are less than thrilled with it.  Consider the words of the Chief Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS):

• “The actual future impacts of H.R. 3200 on health expenditures, insured status, individual decisions, and employer behavior are very uncertain.”
• “The legislation would result in numerous changes in the way that health care insurance is provided and paid for in the U.S., and the scope and magnitude of these changes are such that few precedents exist for use in estimation.”
• “Consequently, the estimates presented here are subject to a substantially greater degree of uncertainty than is usually the case with more routine health care proposals.”
• “… the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful.”
• “Many of the provisions, particularly the coverage proposals, are unprecedented or have been implemented only on a smaller scale (for example, at the State level). Consequently, little historical experience is available with which to estimate the potential impacts.”
• “The behavioral responses to changes introduced by national health reform legislation are impossible to predict with certainty.”
• “In particular, the responses of individuals, employers, insurance companies, and Exchange administrators to the new coverage mandates, Exchange options, and insurance reforms could differ significantly from the assumptions underlying the estimates presented here.”

The bottom line:

It is becoming clearer as to how much of a gamble the politicians in Washington are willing to take with our lives, our fortunes, and our futures.

And hey, the federal government has done so well with things they could calculate and predict lately that there can't be any harm in allowing them to actually gamble, can there?

Topping out the total awesomeness factor, the House bill would give a new 'health czar' the equivalent of super powers:

Among the fallacies in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s health care bill is the pretense that bureaucrats are smarter than the rest of us. An unelected bureaucrat would be given czar-like control over our lives, our health, and our pocketbooks. Even super powers.

This new all-powerful “health choices commissioner” would be entrusted with more power than most superheroes. The laundry list of that special power is proof that it’s a government takeover of health care.

This presidential appointee will both control the new government-run insurance plan AND decide how private insurance companies are to operate, by creating the standards for their coverage and enforcing compliance. Likewise, employer-run health plans would answer to super-czar.

In other words, this health czar will control both the government plan and all of its competition. So much for claims about a level playing field!

Rather than having Medicare dictate payment amounts to doctors and hospitals (as Pelosi originally intended), her new 1,990-page bill says the czar will “negotiate” rates. That will take an an awful lot of staff. America has 788,000 active doctors and 5,708 hospitals.

But that’s not all. The new czar would also:

• Oversee the millions of Americans who would qualify for insurance subsidies
• Audit the country’s 1,300-plus health insurers
• Have power to collect whatever data the office deems necessary, which could involve review of medical records
• Assess fines
• Define our terms for us. This commissioner/czar would dictate all the definitions used in health insurance policies. After all, if you control the language, you control the debate
• Appoint a national health ombudsman to examine consumer complaints, but only in “a linguistically appropriate manner”

The conclusion:

"If you read the bill, . . . it turns out that the Health Choices Commissioner’s job is, essentially, to make your health choices for you.”

The new super-bureaucrats may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. But they can put a lot of tall barriers between each of us and our doctors.

Keep in mind this is an unelected, unaccountable, un-transparent person, answerable only to the President.  Call me crazy, but this is a wee bit too much power in any person, much less someone who can happily skip off through the meadow, laughing about the fires he just set behind him.

The bottom line on this is that this is an unprecedented expansion of government power and intrusion into the lives of American citizens.  RedState:

The House Republican Conference has compiled the following list of the 110 new Obamacare boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs created in H.R. 3962, Speaker Pelosi’s legislation for a government takeover of health care:

1.     Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)
2.     Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)
3.     Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72)
4.     Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76)
5.     Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111)
6.     Health Choices Administration (Section 241, p. 131)
7.     Qualified Health Benefits Plan Ombudsman (Section 244, p. 138)
8.     Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 155)
9.     Program for technical assistance to employees of small businesses buying Exchange coverage (Section 305(h), p. 191)
10.   Mechanism for insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194)
11.   Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 307, p. 195)
12.   State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 308, p. 197)
13.   Grant program for health insurance cooperatives (Section 310, p. 206)
14.   “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321, p. 211)
15.   Ombudsman for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321(d), p. 213)
16.   Account for receipts and disbursements for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 322(b), p. 215)
17.   Telehealth Advisory Committee (Section 1191 (b), p. 589)
18.   Demonstration program providing reimbursement for “culturally and linguistically appropriate services” (Section 1222, p. 617)
19.   Demonstration program for shared decision making using patient decision aids (Section 1236, p. 648)
20.   Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicare (Section 1301, p. 653)

That's just a sample.  The list is, obviously, 111 items long. 

And you thought the government fouled up your life already...you ain't seen nothin' yet.

There's my two cents.