Need Insurance? Obama will take care of you!
Obama is a powerful speaker but I’m not so sure he is a powerful thinker. As a liberal, of course, he’s ignorant. But ignorance alone does not mean one is unintelligent. I’ve met highly intelligent people who are nevertheless liberal and fail to understand how life works.
This fact is especially scary when the liberal intends to tamper with healthcare. According to this New York Post article, Obama said “the time has come for universal, affordable health care in America.” Can I get free housing, food, and entertainment expense money with that, too? His plan is outlined in the article and here, ignoring the already well documented problems with similar plans in effect in Europe, is what is wrong with it:
1. It redistributes wealth. It’s wrong to pick another mans pockets- no matter how noble a cause you are fighting for it does not give you the right to be a thief. Period.
2. It forces businesses to share in the cost of their employees healthcare – to meet this expense, some employees will loose their jobs, will not get salary increases, etc. This says nothing about the harm to businesses themselves in terms of lost capitol for expansion, being able to attract the right employees, etc. In short, this will damage the economy.
3. It would prohibit insurance companies from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Life is rough- but government will fix it for you! Whatever…
4. If you already have coverage, Obama claims the only change for you is that your premiums will be less. How nice of him to leave out the fact that your taxes will go up and more than make up for whatever premium decrease you may experience.
Amazingly, Obama admitted that the overall cost of the program would be high. But that’s okay because he has a way to pay for it. He claimed he would “ask” all but small businesses to support his plan. “Ask” is something our government does not do- it forces. Ask implies that I can say “kiss off.” But I digress.
Obama then launched into the class-warfare mantra. “And we also will repeal the temporary Bush tax cut for the wealthiest taxpayers.” It’s not the fault of the rich that people don’t have healthcare.
Obama claims that the current system leaves 45 million people - 9 million of them children - without health insurance. He said that “goes against the nation’s basic instincts.” It does? How the Founding Fathers left that out of the Constitution I don’t know!
But Obama continues. “That is not who we are,” he said. “We are not a country that rewards hard work and perseverance with bankruptcies and foreclosures,” said Obama. “We are not a country that allows major challenges to go unsolved and unaddressed while our people suffer needlessly.”
That’s true- we are certainly not a country that rewards hard work and perseverance- we punish it by high taxes. The rewards, instead, go to those who do not work and screw up their own lives. I’ve got a solution for health care myself- it’s called “get a job that offers benefits or get on your spouses plan.”
Lastly, if we “are not a country that allows major challenges to go unsolved and unaddressed while our people suffer needlessly,” then how about cutting taxes in half, allowing me to control my own retirement (death to Social Security!), and focusing on winning the war on terror? How about that, Obama? Can you do that?
May 29th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
CBS News did an interesting story about health care this past March to which I would refer your readers: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/01/opinion/polls/main2528357.shtml. It looks at the recent CBS News/New York Times Poll which showed that 64% of Americans favor universal health care.
So if that be liberalism and ignorance, it certainly seems the majority of us are liberal and ignorant!
May 29th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Any information provided by not only the New York Times, not to mention CBS as well, immediately throws up red flags, but I digress.
The basic core of this argument is this: The government is incredibly inefficient. As a matter of fact, government has proved to be inefficient in nearly all of history. To make government responsible for, this government especially, the health of it’s people is like asking a Beverly Hills housefrau to balance your budget. This is a country that gives you opportunity. This is a country that gives you choice. In order to provide any sort of coverage that’s deemed “universal”, the government must limit your choice in definition. That’s not the America I know and love. That’s one more step to the “C” word.
May 29th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
The CBS News/New York Times Poll was just one of many I could have given. It was the most recent I had.
As for having a choice, when you consider the record number of Americans (over 48 million) who have no health insurance at all it seems shallow to talk about choice. That is far too many with no choice at all.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
With all due respect, I would personally enjoy knowing the origin of this “over 48 million” statistic. To me this almost seems like a loaded number. I’m left to possibly wonder how many in that group have willfully chosen not to get health insurance for various and/or personal reasons? The magic word in that sentence is “chosen”. I’m claiming the right as innocent with this point, I’m merely attempting to advance the notion of spin regarding this broad generalization used by the up and coming socialist party. For any non-critical reader, a mere glance at that number immediately states “over 48 million people in this country are too poor to afford healthcare”. How is that known? It’s definitely portrayed as fact, but is it indeed….fact?
May 29th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
In my previous post I meant to use the word “not” in the sentence “I’m NOT claiming the right as innocent with this point……….”
Apologies
May 30th, 2007 at 4:31 am
The 48 million figure is an estimate from a study by the Commonwealth Fund. In addition, the U. S. Census Bureau in 2005 released the report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004″ that placed the number of those without health insurance at 45.8 million. This same report mentioned a rise in official poverty rate between 2003 and 2004 from 12.5 to 12.7 percent at the same time it mentioned a rise of 800,000 in the uninsured.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Sure- 64% of Americans may favor universal health care. Children won’t turn down what they think is free candy.