Friday, September 25, 2009

Who’s Lying About Healthcare Reform?...







Just this week the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Max Baucus (meanly depicted at left) and his health care committee that his plan to cut $127 BILLION from Medicare Advantage (a program that gives almost a quarter of all seniors private health insurance options) would result in LOWER BENEFITS and some 2.7 MILLION Americans LOSING COVERAGE.

When the insurance company Humana sent its customers a mailing telling THEM exactly what the CBO told Senator Baucus’ committee, Senator Baucus ordered that those mailings be immediately halted and directed Medicare regulators to investigate Humana for apparently trying to educate their customers.

Jonathan Blum (the current acting director of the offices of Medicare and Medicaid Services) called the Humana mailings “misleading and confusing to beneficiaries...” and banned all Advantage contractors from telling their customers what the CBO just told the Baucus committee!

Meanwhile, AARP’s website erroneously claims that it’s a “fact” that “none of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress will cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs.”

According to the CBO, what AARP is claiming is UNTRUE, or to put it in the parlance of the other side, “A LIE.”

Douglas Elmendorf (director of the CBO) has said that cuts to the Medicare Advantage program “could lead many plans to limit the benefits they offer, raise their premiums, or withdraw from the program.”

Again, why all these lies and obfuscations from the health care reform advocates?

Look, the bottom-line is that neither government nor industry likes the current system of employer-paid healthcare. Government covets all that untaxed compensation and our businesses and industries are looking to shed those costs to become more competitive in the global economy.

The primary (almost the sole) reason for the skyrocketing cost of American healthcare is, simply put that we GIVE AWAY far too much advanced and high-tech medical care to people unwilling and unable to pay for it. Like it or not, THAT'S our current "healthcare problem" in a nutshell.

Honesty demands that we acknowledge that “cost cutting” actually means rationing and restrictions in health care reform parlance.

And to be honest, there’s NOTHING at all wrong with that.

IF DONE RIGHT (with a combination of a strictly rationed and restricted expanded public option along with available private supplemental insurance), such an expanded public option would (1) make the American workforce even more cost-effective, productive and competitive in the global marketplace, (2) make America’s businesses and industries far more globally competitive virtually overnight and (3) eradicate BILLIONS in “untaxed compensation” that most full-time workers (especially government workers) now get.

Such an expanded public option, so long as it is tightly rationed and heavily restricted, would also serve to REDUCE the costs of illegal immigrants and others unwilling/unable to pay for advanced care by rationing ans restricting the amount and level of care they could get, and it would introduce new restrictions and rationing of care to Medicaid in particular, but also to Medicare, as well.

This COULD easily save the U.S. BILLIONS of dollars and transform our industries into global juggernauts very quickly. So long as supplemental private insurance is available to those willing and able to pay to avoid the restrictions and rationing that’ll come with the “free” expanded public option, the people MOST negatively impacted by those restrictions and rationed care would be the least productive and the most reckless and irresponsible among us (“...it’s saying no one’s going to carry YOUR burdens anymore...” – President B.H. Obama). And those very Reaganesque sentiments would not be at all a bad thing for the U.S. economy overall.
So WHY the lies? Why tell people they’re going to get BETTER healthcare and cheaper healthcare, when, in fact, we’ll be doling out LESS care, MORE rationed and restricted care, in exchange for a more vibrant economy and more “fairness,” and by “fairness” I mean, an end to those unwilling/unable to pay mooching off those who can...and do? Why sell something that DOES have its own substantial merits as something that it’s not?

Unless...you’re trying to keep all the dupes who THINK they’ll be getting something MORE for less, or even “free,” continuing to believe that delusion.

6 comments:

Skunkfeathers said...

They continue to LIE, because they have decided -- in the wake of tea partys and "angry mob" townhall meetings, that WE CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

When the fact is, THEY DON'T HAVE THE CAJONES TO TELL THE TRUTH.

JMK said...

Here's the thing SF, both business and government have BOTH wanted to scrap the current healthcare delivery system for a looooong time.

Business doesn't like the added costs, as it adds a competitive drag coefficient to doing business in the global market-place and government covets all that untaxed compensation.

The irony is that I apparently could sell their plan than they can.....and that shouldn't be.

What we have now is a healthcare system with incredible cost-overruns, mainly from the FAILING existing "public option" (Medicaid and Medicare are both in deep, DEEP deficit) AND the giving away of free care to anyone who can't/won't pay, which includes both illegal immigrants and those who simply opt out of their company plans to save money, then get into an accident or other expensive medical crisis.

The clearly stated objective of the current health care overhaul attempt is "cost cutting."

There's ONLY one way to cut costs that makes sense and that's to ration and restrict care to those unwilling/unable to pay and the EASIEST way to do that would be to expand the "existing public option" while introducing draconian restrictions and rationing of care to ALL who don't avail themselves of private supplemental insurance.

That SEEMS to be their objective, as President B. H. Obama recently said, "...it's saying that no one is going o carry YOUR burdens anymore..."

Sure, there is another way, to ration the care of those who produce to pay for more care for those who can't, but that makes no sense at all and is really NOT being offered at this time. At least not that I've seen.

Yes, what's coming down the pike is some thin gruel, some bitter medicine, BUT allowing medical costs for all the "free care" we're currently doling out, to continue to spin wildly out of control will bankrupt us all and in pretty short order.

There IS an argument for the kind of overhaul I've said I'd support, one that rations and restricts all "free care," while making private supplemental insurance available to those willing/able to pay the premiums.

Why they don't make those arguments DOES concern me greatly, because I don't think it's that they can't....or even lack the...uh......fortitude to do so.

I think some are trying to fight for the least amount of cost-cutting and thus the larger burden for the most productive and affluent among us....and that's not right and it's NOT a cause worth fighting for.

Skunkfeathers said...

Frankly, I don't trust government -- and at present, THIS ONE -- to meet, or get even close, to their stated objectives. Budget hawks continue to tell them their numbers are badly out of sync, and they continue to ignore the numbers, and lie to try to sell their public option.

And when Barry actually holds up Medicare and Medicaid as proof the government can do this...is he that stupid, or is he the worst liar I've heard since Slick Willie?

Attorneymom said...

I was able to get some ish off my chest on The Manning Report with Pastor James Manning. After that show, my political career is over. LOL. Check it out.

Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEa2JwcRIgo

Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfz5Q3fu2N0

Part III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_LkxXN1z1Y

Part IV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTLhTjZlC4U

Part V
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbhI8FoEIRc

Part VI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39lYlZcQWl4

JMK said...

"Frankly, I don't trust government -- and at present, THIS ONE -- to meet, or get even close, to their stated objectives." (SF)
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I agree with you there!

But the problem is that we're already paying through the nose, GIVING AWAY hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars in healthcare to anyone who will not/cannot pay.

The objective of the government AND industry right now is to CUT those costs, NOT give more away. When President Obama said "...it's saying that no one's going to carry your burden for you any more..." that was (1) making clear that "free care" will be rationed care AND (2) he doesn't believe that fining those ineligible for the public option, who opt out of buying their own insurance isn't a tax, so much as "an incentive" to get those people on board with getting themselves covered.

You're right, I DON'T think much of government run anything, but a "bare-bones," tightly restricted and strictly rationed and system would allow us to CUT costs by rationing so much of that "free care" we now give away.

Not a perfect solution at all. Maybe not even a preferable option....but thata seems to be the path we're on right now.

JMK said...

I will check those out AM, and I doubt it's as bad as you think.

You have a strong voice and you put yourself across well....there'll definitely be other opportunities for you, without question.

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