Obamacare - built on lies - Granite Grok

Obamacare – built on lies

To the Editor:

While Bev Lapham may need to be reminded everyday about the evils of Obamacare, polls show that the majority of Americans don’t need reminders, they have consistently rejected it since last summer.  The problem as Anna DeRose so aptly put it is, “Does Washington ever listen to the American people … ?”   

On Sunday the leftists, the bribed, and the threatened voted to take over America’s healthcare system with legislation that threatens the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of every American.  The process used to get passage was the opposite of the open, ethical, and bi-partisanship promised by President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid.  Legislation and deals were made behind closed doors, advocates consistently lied about the bill’s provisions, costs, critics, and about keeping your health insurance (the CBO says 8 to 9 million Americans will lose their employer provided insurance and millions more will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage), and the only bi-partisanship on this bill was in opposition as republicans were joined by democrats who could not be threatened or bribed into ignoring the will of their constituents.         

The lives and quality of life of American seniors are threatened by the $500 plus billion cuts from Medicare, in fact 33 million Seniors will be at risk of losing access to medical care according to the Medicare Chief Actuary.  Seniors see Canada, Britain, California and other places where people have government insurance but cannot get a doctor or cannot get treated when needed, and they see this increasingly happen here.

Obamacare creates a bureaucracy which shields politicians when government denies medical care.  If they get sick, Seniors know they may be worth more dead than alive to a government which controls the healthcare they will receive by rewarding or punishing doctors based on their conformance to political and bureaucratic guidelines as happens today in other government controlled systems.  So some seniors will live in pain.  Other seniors will be denied lifesaving care and will die, not only saving medical costs but ending social security payments and perhaps filling government coffers with estate taxes.                     

Americans know proponents have lied about the financial viability of Obamacare.  They know that you can’t claim a deficit neutral system when you raise taxes and cut costs for ten years to pay for only six years of coverage.  They know there won’t be big savings from reducing fraud, how much additional fraud did the President cut last year?  (No extra authorization is/was needed to fight fraud.)  They know that other integral costs have been taken out of the bill and will be added later.  Also ignored are the increased taxpayer costs at the State level to support millions more Medicaid recipients.       

Americans have had a healthcare and health insurance system which satisfies the overwhelming majority of Americans, including millions who have been covered very well for expensive procedures.  Americans know that fixing this system’s relatively small problems (albeit sometimes individually devastating) are best done with small changes not a government takeover.
 
At President Obama’s health care summit, Americans learned that agreements could have been reached last year to fix those problems and start helping people last year.     

But, President Obama and today’s leftist Congress demand a government takeover of the whole healthcare and health insurance system.  They demand another costly new Federal bureaucracy to manage healthcare.  They will  restrict your health insurance choices to fit their objectives, not your needs.  Most people will see premium increases rather than President Obama’s promised $2500 decrease.  If Obamacare is so great, why do they need to hire 16,500 new IRS agents to enforce it and even threaten jail for non-compliance?  Is the IRS the new kinder, gentler face of the Obama government?   

Representative John Dingle just told us why it takes so long for the new heathcare “reforms” to roll out, “It takes a long time to set up the mechanisms to control 300 (million) people.”  Was Obamacare sold as being a way to “control” the American people?  Is that  what the American people want, to be controlled by government?   

Is Obamacare being done to help really poor people?  No.  The really poor people are…


…covered by Medicaid and other programs.  Most of the alleged 47 million without health insurance are illegal aliens or people who can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it.  Obamacare may also cover some people who don’t qualify for other programs but are without insurance because they are between jobs, and perhaps 12 million people who don’t qualify for other programs but for whom health insurance is just not affordable.  But the simple approaches to helping these people were rejected, e.g.,  allowing medical costs to be fully deductible from income taxes and allowing people to purchase insurance from states where it is relatively inexpensive.    
     
Most recipients like Medicare.  Some people say that Obamacare just extends a Medicare like system to everyone.  Early Ponzi scheme participants are always happy, they live high at the expense of future participants, whether the scheme is run by Bernie Madoff or the Medicare system.  Medicare recipients have paid into the system all their lives, believed politicians’ promises (like Bernie Madoff‘s clients believed him), and feel entitled to it.  But, quoting John Goodman in Forbes, “The Medicare Trustees tell us that Medicare’s expected future obligations exceeded premiums and dedicated taxes by $89 trillion (measured in current dollars).”  Whether this deficit is $89 trillion or “only” $30 trillion as others report, this shortfall is unsustainable, it is a disaster waiting to destroy the American standard of living.          

Like Obamacare, Medicare was a big government solution to a relatively small problem.  Advocates lied about future costs which turn out to be more than nine times the original estimates.   

Obamacare is another expensive big government entitlement addressing the problems caused by Medicare and other big government interference in our health care system.  In its turn Obamacare will create even more problems that supporters will say require more government solutions, in fact democrats are already talking about needing more than Obamacare.  And so the cycle of government growth and increased control of our lives and money continues, and almost all the problems are caused by government distorting the free marketplace.               
          
How many people would have voted for creation of Medicare if they had been told the truth, that their benefits would come at the expense of a reduced standard of living for their children, grandchildren, and future generations especially when people could have taken care of themselves very adequately if government had not distorted the health insurance system?     

It is not unreasonable that some things would be overlooked in a 2200 page bill.  However, it is interesting to note that one of President Obama’s key claims, immediate coverage for children with pre-existing conditions, was omitted, but the exemption for the President, Vice-President, White House staffs was included.

Americans have learned the lessons of many failed government programs and unfulfilled promises.  Obamacare was promoted with lies and passed with corruption.  Government controlled healthcare  is not only not affordable, it is a threat to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of every current and future American.

The politicians who ignored the American people and passed Obamacare must be turned out of office.  Obamacare must be repealed and replaced by affordable and effective solutions within our current health insurance system.

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