I have written several columns in the past few years about our country’s broken healthcare system. For those of you who may recall those columns, I opined that our healthcare delivery system needs to be improved and soon. I even remember stating that a properly designed single payer system with private industry management would be better than the current mess we have although such a system will never be my first choice.
So before I get labeled as “un-American”, “rude”, or “right wing wacko” as those who are against the proposed Obamacare program are being called by the White House spinsters and the national media, and before one of you sends my name to Obama’s new rat out your neighbor campaign being managed directly by the White House, let me explain why I am against the poorly designed government led nationalization of our healthcare system as is being proposed by the radical left of the Democratic Party in Congress and being sold to the American public by President Obama as the plan for which the country has been waiting.
To put it simply, the most recent 1,018 page version of Obamacare as passed by a key House committee is a joke. It is full of so many contradictions, ambiguities, and special interest provisions, that it will create more of a mess than we currently have and will seriously intrude on our privacy rights as citizens and will notably affect the doctor-patient relationship in ways not yet fully understood. Congress should not pass something just to say that it did so. We saw what happened with the $ 800 billion stimulus disaster which has not stopped 3 million more Americans from losing their jobs and even with the $ 3 billion cash for clunkers program which has mainly subsidized foreign car manufacturers.
With regards to House Bill 3200, aka Obamacare, you should be concerned about its passage for a number of reasons. First and foremost is its $ 1 trillion dollar cost. The last thing this country can currently afford is to take on more debt to pay for a program that even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says will still leave nearly 20 million citizens uninsured! Wasn’t this the primary purpose of Obamacare? The second major reason for concern is the intrusiveness of this healthcare scheme into your daily lives. Were you aware that the legislation will authorize employees of a new Health Choices Administration to access your tax returns to ensure your compliance with Obamacare? Or that federal bureaucrats will be empowered to go to your home and tell you how to raise your children? And, of course, there has been much talk about Obamacare encouraging cost-saving “end of life” discussions with your doctor.
Where in the United States Constitution does it say the federal government can or should be involved in your personal health decisions by mandating your involvement in a healthcare program which it controls through its own proposed and subsidized insurance exchanges or by mandating coverage requirements for private plans? It is one thing if we voluntarily join Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA program but it is another thing to force us to ultimately join a government plan as will happen with Obamacare. No wonder the American public is delirious with anger and overwhelming Congressmen and Senators with pointed questions at Town Hall Meetings. It is amusing to see how few of these elected officials are even capable of answering the questions. Perhaps this is why our own Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has decided to not appear at any such public meetings here. Instead, she is promising to hold a conference call by phone during which she will be able to pick the questions.
Thankfully the tide is quickly turning against this attempt to ruin the best of our healthcare system by changing it completely rather than just improving what we have. The AARP has recently reversed its position from originally supporting Obamacare after tens of thousands of its members bombarded its headquarters with letters and emails saying they want to keep their privately run Medicare Advantage HMO plans which Obamacare will eliminate. And even the national media is starting to publicize the perhaps illegal, hardball tactics, which Obama tried to maneuver secretly behind closed doors with the American Hospital Association, big PhRMA (pharmaceutical industry), the American Medical Association, and other key stake holders to buy off their support with threats to hurt them economically if they did not. Yes, we can stop this proposed disaster!
