Friday, March 19, 2010

Why the current "demon pass" healthcare should be voted down

The "demon pass" health care bill should be voted down. Here is why.
(USA Today has a great summary of the recent changes as of 3/19/2010)
  1. Forcing insurance companies to accept patients with pre-existing conditions destroys the concept of insurance. We will no longer have insurance in the U.S. but instead we'll have an inefficient form of socialized medicine that will magnify all the bad aspects of our current system.
  2. This bill is a blow to freedom.
    • It takes away individual freedom by mandating that everyone purchase insurance. People are forced into economic relationships against their will. It forces priorities onto people that they may not otherwise choose for themselves. This directly interferes with freedom of conscience and the the pursuit of happiness. **
    • It forces companies to provide benefits outside of normal market forces. This is an affront to free enterprise and can only have the side effect of increasing unemployment and depressing wages.
    • It forces insurance providers to run their business in a way the government sees fit. They become agents of the government rather than agents of free enterprise.
  3. One of the ways the bill attempts to pay for itself is with Medicare cuts. Medicare cuts in and of themselves would be a great way to ensure future solvency of Medicare, but the cuts should not be used to "rob Peter to pay Paul". Medicare is being used as a cow to milk. It is wrong to use this sleight of hand to create yet another entitlement which cannot possibly be anymore solvent than Medicare has turned out to be. (And who believes that these cuts will even stick? Every year congress relents and delays cuts that were supposedly already made in the past.)
  4. New taxes. An increase on the Medicare payroll tax on high income earners. Does anyone believe high income earners will just "eat" tax increases without changing their behavior? A new excise tax on health insurance. Taxes and surcharges on individuals and companies who don't comply with mandates. When push comes to shove, these initiatives will backfire in ways that reduce the optimistic CBO revenue estimates. Which leads me too...
  5. Exploding national debt. If you really believe this bill will "cut" the deficit (and the word "cut" here is like when a furniture store has a "sale" after marking up prices) then you haven't been paying attention to the last 30 years of entitlement history.
This assault on freedom will damage what our nation stands for possibly beyond repair. Rather than solving current health care problems, it will exacerbate them by further decreasing the incentives for consumers to be cost-conscious and for providers to be transparent.

See:
Right to Health Care: When Freedom is Slavery by Another Name
My Freedom Based Vision for Health Care Reform

**Some folks may in fact want to trade health for comforts of another sort. It is not up to the government to make those choices for them. By the same token, the government cannot be on the hook to bail out people who change their minds about being uninsured when it is too late...their care must be at the whim of whatever society can afford but be NOT guaranteed.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The Democrats' passage of health care "reform" with no Republican votes means this battle has just begun. A majority of the American people disapprove of the Obama-Pelosi bill, 59% based on a national poll just before the bill was passed. The Republicans are not being "obstructionist", but merely representing their constituents, who are skeptical of the bill for a number of reasons.

This health care bill is a "game-changer", which can be compared to Social Security and Medicare, which also made significant changes in federal law. Social Security and Medicare passed with bipartisan support, resulting in a smooth transition to the new system and a consensus that the law was necessary and just. In contrast, no House Republicans voted for this health care bill, which guarantees popular and partisan unrest over the measures.

Passage of such a divisive and unpopular bill represents a failure of leadership by the President and the Speaker of the House. They are attempting to socialize medicine and implement European style wealth redistribution by fiat. Some supporters of the bill have essentially admitted that it is flawed and a work in progress. However, the bill's supporters want to seize this fleeting opportunity to change the fundamental assumptions of American government and its relationship to the people.

In the view of President Obama and the House Democrats, Americans can't be trusted to purchase health insurance and contract privately for services with providers. Instead, the government will dictate by fiat prices and availability of service. The result will likely be a system, much like Canada, where Americans are "guaranteed" health care, but have long waiting lists for procedures such as heart bypasses, elderly people are denied care based on a cost-benefit analysis, and the supply of physicians and hospitals is static or declining.

It will take years for the average voter to fully appreciate the changes in the system. There will be a backlash against government control of the private economy - Americans are independent thinkers, who moved to this country to escape oppressive central governments. We will see major changes in the House, Senate and likely the presidency in 2010 and 2012. The Obama-Pelosi bill has only started the debate, and has initiated a long, bitter and partisan battle about the role of government in individual American lives.