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Michael Coburn Michael Coburn is offline
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Default Obama's Top Five Health Care Lies from Forbes :: Rep Joe Wilsonwas correct, Obama is a liar about health care!

On Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:18:18 -0700, martin wrote:

> On Sep 13, 10:13Â*am, "US Army Veteran" > wrote:
>> Lie One: No one will be compelled to buy coverage.
>>
>> During the campaign, Obama insisted that he would not resort to an
>> individual mandate to achieve universal coverage. In fact, he
>> repeatedly ripped Hillary Clinton's plan for proposing one. "To force
>> people to buy coverage," he insisted, "you've got to have a very harsh
>> penalty." What will this penalty be, he demanded? "Are you going to
>> garnish their wages?" he asked Hillary in one debate.
>>
>> Yet now, Obama is behaving as if he said never a hostile word about the
>> mandate. Earlier this month, in a letter to Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont.,
>> and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., he blithely declared that he was all for
>> "making every American responsible for having health insurance
>> coverage, and making employers share in the cost."
>>
>> But just like Hillary, he is refusing to say precisely what he will do
>> to those who want to forgo insurance. There is a name for such a health
>> care approach: It is called TonySopranoCare.
>>
>> Lie Two: No new taxes on employer benefits.
>>
>> Obama took his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, to the mat for
>> suggesting that it might be better to remove the existing health care
>> tax break that individuals get on their employer-sponsored coverage,
>> but return the vast bulk--if not all--of the resulting revenues in the
>> form of health care tax credits. This would theoretically have made
>> coverage both more affordable and portable for everyone. Obama,
>> however, would have none of it, portraying this idea simply as the
>> removal of a tax break. "For the first time in history, he wants to tax
>> your health benefits," he thundered. "Apparently, Sen. McCain doesn't
>> think it's enough that your health premiums have doubled. He thinks you
>> should have to pay taxes on them too."
>>
>> Yet now Obama is signaling his willingness to go along with a far worse
>> scheme to tax employer-sponsored benefits to fund the $1.6 trillion or
>> so it will cost to provide universal coverage. Contrary to Obama's
>> allegations, McCain's plan did not ultimately entail a net tax increase
>> because he intended to return to individuals whatever money was raised
>> by scrapping the tax deduction. Not so with Obama. He apparently told
>> Sen. Baucus that he would consider the senator's plan for rolling back
>> the tax exclusion that expensive, Cadillac-style employer-sponsored
>> plans enjoy, in order to pay for universal coverage. But, unlike
>> McCain, he has said nothing about putting offsetting deductions or
>> credits in the hands of individuals.
>>
>> In other words, Obama might well end up doing what McCain never set out
>> to do: Impose a net tax increase on health benefits for the first time
>> in history.
>>
>> Lie Three: Government can control rising health care costs better than
>> the private sector.
>>
>> Ignoring the reality that Medicare--the government-funded program for
>> the elderly--has put the country on the path to fiscal ruin, Obama
>> wants to model a government insurance plan--the so-called "public
>> option"--after Medicare in order to control the country's rising health
>> care costs. Why? Because, he repeatedly claims, Medicare has far lower
>> administrative costs and overhead than private plans--to wit, 3% for
>> Medicare compared to 10% to 20% for private plans. Hence, he says,
>> subjecting private plans to competition against an entity delivering
>> such superior efficiency will release health care dollars for universal
>> coverage.
>>
>> But lower administrative costs do not necessarily mean greater
>> efficiency. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office analysis last year
>> chastised Medicare's lax attitude on this front. "The traditional
>> fee-for-service Medicare program does relatively little to manage
>> benefits, which tends to reduce its administrative costs but may raise
>> its overall spending relative to a more tightly managed approach," it
>> noted on page 93.
>>
>> In short, extending the Medicare model will further ruin--not
>> improve--even the functioning aspects of private plans.


So much for Forbes.

This particular lie really trumps all the rest. The previous two points
are Obama simply willing to compromise in order to get a rational plan
onto the books. But this one is an outright lie from Forbes. Obama has
actually articulated a plan to cut some waste from the Medicare system
and has been attacked for it. Yet this Forbes article now complains that
medicare needs to focus on costs as opposed to efficient administration.
The duplicity is very obvious here. It amounts to the fact that Forbes
is interested in defeating Obama as a person/Democrat and/or any reforms
at all. And that is their real objective.

>> Lie Four: A public plan won't be a Trojan horse for a single-payer
>> monopoly.
>>
>> Obama has repeatedly claimed that forcing private plans to compete with
>> a public plan will simply "keep them honest" and give patients more
>> options--not lead to a full-blown, Canadian-style, single-payer
>> monopoly. As I argued in my previous column, this is wishful thinking
>> given that government programs such as Medicare have a history of
>> controlling costs by underpaying providers, who make up the losses by
>> charging private plans more. Any public plan modeled after Medicare
>> will greatly increase this forced subsidy, eventually driving private
>> plans out of business, even if that weren't Obama's intention.


THIS CHARGE NOT NECESSARILY TRUE OR EVEN CLOSE TO BEING TRUE. ASSIGNING
INTENTIONS TO INDIVIDUALS IS PRETTY HARD TO DO. IT ISN'T POSSIBLE EVEN
BASED ON PAST ACTIONS AND STATEMENTS BECAUSE PEOPLE CHANGE AS THEY MOVE
THROUGH LIFE AND GAIN NEW EXPERIENCE.

>> But, as it turns out, it very much is his intention. Before he decided
>> to run for office--and even during the initial days of his
>> campaign--Obama repeatedly said that he was in favor of a single-payer
>> system. What's more, University of California, Berkeley Professor Jacob
>> Hacker, who is a key influence on the Obama administration, is on tape
>> explicitly boasting that a public plan is a means for creating a
>> single-payer system. "It's not a Trojan horse," he quips, "it's just
>> right there."


BUT THAT IS NOT NECESSARILY WHAT WOULD BE DONE WITH THE DIFFERENTIAL
BETWEEN PRIVATE SECTOR COSTS AND PUBLIC SECTOR COSTS. THE DIFFERENTIAL
IS CAUSED BY THE MONOPOSONY POWER OF GOVERNMENT CONTROLLING BOTH MEDICARE
AND THIS NEW SECTOR OF THE MARKET IN REGARD TO PROVIDER FEES. FORBES HAS
STATED THAT THIS WILL SHIFT COSTS TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR. I CAN SEE NO
REASON FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR TO _ALLOW_ THAT, BUT I'LL GO ALONG FOR SAKE
OF ARGUMENT IMAGINE THAT THE COSTS PASS TO PRIVATE SECTOR PREMIUMS THUS
PUTTING THE PRIVATE SECTOR AT A DISADVANTAGE.

THE PUBLIC OPTION MAY ADJUST ITS RATES UPWARD AND USE THE "PROFIT" (THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IT PAYS PROVIDERS AND THE AMOUNT IT GETS FROM
JACKED UP PREMIUMS FOR THE SAKE OF RESCUING THE PRIVATE BLOOD SUCKERS) TO
SUBSIDIZE HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS AT THE BOTTOM AND/OR TO SUBSIDIZE
MEDICARE. IN THAT WAY THE "PRIVATE" SECTOR REMAINS IN THE LOOP TO OFFER
MORE AND BETTER BENEFITS TO THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD THEM. I'm not really
sure what these more and better benefits might be, but then, I don't
really give a damn. The point is that it is entirely possible to ALLOW
the private blood sucking thieves to survive. It ain't a priority with
me but it certainly seems to be a priority for Forbes.

>> But even if Obama wanted to, it is simply impossible to design a public
>> plan that could compete with private insurers on a level playing field
>> and without "feeding off the public trough" as Obama claims.


HOGWASH. THE PUBLIC PLAN HAS TO CRIPPLE ITSELF TO ALLOW THE PRIVATE
INSURANCE SECTOR TO EXIST. IT IS AMAZING HOW LIARS CAN PLAY BOTH ENDS
FROM THE MIDDLE. FAR FROM "FEEDING OFF THE PUBLIC TROUGH", THE PUBLIC
OFFERING WILL HAVE TO CHARGE MORE FOR ITS INSURANCE OR THE PRIVATE SECTOR
WON'T BE ABLE TO COMPETE. WE SHOULD BE TAKING ABOUT HOW BEST TO USE THE
ADDITIONAL REVENUE THAT WILL BE GENERATED INSIDE THE PLAN TO BEST ADDRESS
OTHER PRIORITIES.

>> At the very least, such a plan would always carry an implicit
>> government guarantee that, should it go bust, no one in the plan would
>> lose coverage. This guarantee would artificially lower the plan's
>> capital reserve requirements, giving it an unfair edge over private
>> plans. What's more, it is simply not plausible to expect that the plan
>> wouldn't receive any start-up subsidies or use the government's muscle
>> to negotiate lower rates with providers. If it eschewed all these
>> things, there would be no reason for it to exist--because it would be
>> just like any other private plan.


AND ALL OF THIS IS A MARVELOUS ILLUSTRATION OF THE BENEFITS OF ALLOWING
THE PRIVATE INSURANCE INDUSTRY TO FAIL DUE TO ITS OWN LIMITATIONS.
GOVERNMENT DOES A BETTER JOB OF SOCIAL INSURANCE THAN THE PRIVATE SECTOR
AND WE HAVE JUST SEEN A LOT OF WHY THAT IS SO.

>> Lie Five: Patients don't have to fear rationing.
>>
>> Obama has been insisting, including during his ABC Town Hall event last
>> week, that the rationing patients would face under a government-run
>> system wouldn't be any more draconian than what they currently confront
>> under private plans. This is complete nonsense.


NOPE.

>> The left has been trying to address fears of rationing by trotting out
>> an old and tired trope, namely, that rationing is an inescapable fact
>> of life because every system rations whether by price or fiat. But
>> there is a big difference between the two. If I can't afford caviar and
>> champagne every night, any rationing involved is metaphoric, not real.
>> Genuine rationing occurs when someone else controls access--how much of
>> a particular good I can consume.


YET ANOTHER LIE BY FALSE ANALOGY. CAVIAR IS NOT A LIVER TRANSPLANT. YOU
CAN DAMNED WELL EAT BEANS AND CORNBREAD BUT WITHOUT THE LIVER TRANSPLANT
YOU DIE.

>> By that token, Obama's stimulus bill has set in motion rationing on a
>> scale unimaginable in the land of the free. Indeed, the bill commits
>> over $1 billion to conduct comparative effectiveness research that will
>> evaluate the relative merits of various treatments. That in itself
>> wouldn't be so objectionable--if it weren't for the fact that a board
>> will then "direct financing" toward approved, standardized treatments.
>> In short, doctors will find it much harder to prescribe newer or
>> non-standard treatments not yet deemed effective by health care
>> bureaucrats. This is exactly along the lines of the British system,
>> where breast cancer patients were denied Herceptin, a new miracle drug,
>> until enraged women fought back. Even the much-vilified managed care
>> plans would appear to be a paragon of generosity in comparison with
>> this.
>>
>> Obama has repeatedly asked for honesty in the health


AND TRUTH IS WHAT IS NEEDED. THIS ARTICLE FROM FORBES IS AN ILLUSTRATION
OF LIES THAT ARE COMING FROM THE RIGHTARDED. WHEN OBAMA TRIES TO
COMPROMISE IT IS SEEN AS A LIE AND PROMOTING THAT VIEW IS ALL THAT
MATTERS TO THE RIGHTARDED. THIS HAS BECOME A BEAT OBAMA FEST AS OPPOSED
TO A HEALTH INSURANCE DEBATE.


> America needs a total rebuild. Support nothing seeping from the cesspool
> Washington,DC.
>
> tt
>
> http://www.wvwnews.net/ Western Voices






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"Those are my opinions and you can't have em" -- Bart Simpson