Obama Health Care Plan Is Still a Government Takeover
The health care plan the White House outlined this morning is not a serious attempt to address the concerns the American people have expressed about the Democrats’ bills. Nor does it truly include important policy changes Republicans have been pushing to lower health care costs, like ending junk lawsuits that force doctors to practice defensive medicine.
Even as the details are still being worked out by Democrats and special interests behind closed doors, it is clear this bill, like the Democrat bills that passed the House and Senate, is another massive, government takeover of health care that will increase the cost of health insurance, explode the deficit, and slash Medicare benefits.
From the beginning, Republicans have listened to the American people and offered reforms that lower health care premiums for families and small businesses. The bill I and House Republicans proposed last fall implements common sense solutions focused on lowering costs. Our bill ensures nobody will be denied coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition. It gives states the tools to implement their own innovative reforms. And we put an end to the junk lawsuits that are forcing doctors to practice defensive medicine and drive up the cost of health insurance for all Americans. All the details of our plan are available at healthcare.gop.gov — where they have been for months.
There is still time to wipe the slate clean and start over on a set of common sense reforms that will lower health care costs. I hope the president and Democrats in Congress will agree to do so before Thursday’s summit. That is what the American people want and what Republicans have offered and will continue to work for.
While I agree with the Author I am afraid that much more is needed to really lower Health Care Costs. Do you know one of the biggest hidden costs used in anything regarding Medicine or Health Care really is? It is the hidden cost of Product Liability. Yes there needs to be Tort Reform but do not limit it to just Medical Malprcatice. That is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It permeates all aspects of Medicine and everything else. Items used in Hospitials can cost three or more time the cost of the very same items used elsewhere. I could go on but my warning is this do not become a One Note Johnny. Even Product Liability won’t fix all the ills. Over Utilization and other problems exist that drive up the costs.
Much less objectionable than the proposals by the Jackass Party, but the provision of health care is an individual; not a federal
responsibility.
Some of us do not want the national government interfering in our lives. We want the feds to go away and leave us alone. For one, I do not need some babykilling, queerloving communist looking out for me. I do not even want that kind of person visible to me.
Habbakuk 1.13 tells us that God can’t stand to even look upon evil.
And I can’t stand to look upon that disease in human form which currently infests the White House. Take it away!
With respect Congressman Camp what is more important right now than the proposed healthcare reform legislation is the statement that President Obama made today to the citizens of the United States of America: and the world for that matter.
President Obama issued the most tyrannically defiant ultimatum that any elected politician has ever made in the history of our country. The man has absolutely no regard for the precedence of the office he holds, for the Constitution that binds our land or the demands and wishes of the people that elected him and the very proper and traditional protocols of the members of Congress.
It is time for a Capitol Hill reality check. One year is more than enough time for all of the members of Congress to see Mr. Obama for what he is.
With the Lord God Almighty as your witness you took an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend our country from all of its enemies both foreign and domestic. In order to do that you; and all members of Congress cannot possibly support Mr. Obama on healthcare reform or any part of his radical administration or agenda. I, as an America citizen and a voter will not accept anything less.
The decades-long game of partisan political chess
has reached a stalemate; there is no way forward.
American public opinion is settling on one problem
which Congress needs to address, before any other:
The Economy; Politicians need to accept this.
“…another massive, government takeover of health care that will increase the cost of health insurance, explode the deficit, and slash Medicare benefits.”
It was always thus with the scare-mongers:
“It is socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.”
—Senator Carl Curtis (R-NE), in 1965, opposing Medicare
“The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.”
—Ronald Reagan, in 1961, arguing against the creation of Medicare
Nice try, white tiger, but it’s pretty easy to spot of Leftard troll. And you forgot to mention a pickup truck and some kind of gun.
Better luck next time.
“Our bill ensures nobody will be denied coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition.”
Sorry, but this is totally insane. How can you expect insurers to operate if they’re not allowed to mitigate their risk? How can you force them to cover people who wait until they’re sick before taking out insurance? That’s not insurance at all. What do you suppose that will do to the cost of health cover? This is still unwarranted government intrusion into the private sector.
Fool me once and I’m the fool.
Try to fool me twice and you’re the fool.
A Native American would describe him as Walking Eagle… too full of sh*t to fly.
Great Post By Dave Camp. Yes, AMERICA does not want Obamacare. The Dems keep trying and it shows their hatred for us, The Citizens. The new Democrat Party has no need for us. We are not as smart as those Elitist.
Vote Right!
Sorry Dave – I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but skyrocketing health care costs are the problem. And there is nothing in the GOP’s plan that will do ANYTHING to reduce the cost of health care. Your “plan” is nothing but more government meddling in the market, dictating to insurance companies how to run their business, and pushing for MORE of what has caused the problem in the first place: widespread use of comprehensive, group health insurance.
INSURANCE IS A TOOL FOR MITIGATING FINANCIAL RISK. It should NOT be used to pay for commodities like routine health care, which is the vast majority of health care consumed. Skyrocketing health care costs can be brought slowly back under control by REINSTATING the direct economic relationship between the health care provider and consumer. Insurance companies should NOT be setting prices for health care, as they do now. Unavoidable health care expenses that might cause financial ruin – so-called “catastrophic” expenses – can be dealt with using high-deductible / low-premium policies. If you want a solution to this problem, that’s it.
- Lowering health care premiums. The GOP plan will lower health care premiums for American families and small businesses, addressing Americans’ number-one priority for health care reform.
Really? How do you plan to do this? Price controls on insurance policies? Sorry, that’s a non-starter.
- Establishing Universal Access Programs to guarantee access to affordable health care …
So, like the “affordable mortgage” thing, then? Tell me – how is THAT working out? You people torpedoed one economic sector with this idiocy already. Now you want to do it to the health care sector? Thanks, no.
- Ending junk lawsuits.
Go for it. We’ll believe it when we see it. The government is populated almost entirely by attorneys. Tort reform has never been a priority.
- Prevents insurers from unjustly cancelling a policy.
Really? And who’s going to define “unjustly”? And how, exactly, do you plan to enforce this? Here’s the thing: insurance companies offer a service. For money. It’s their choice to offer that service, or not. The government is not authorized to force these companies to continue to offer that service at a financial loss. Read the Constitution.
- Encouraging Small Business Health Plans.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!! Subsidizing comprehensive group policies is already causing enough trouble. What you need to do is start subsidizing low-premium / high-deductible policies and DISSOCIATING health care insurance from employment. If you must, encourage insurance through one’s local municipality. People change residence far less frequently than they change jobs, and this will work for unemployed and self-employed individuals as well.
- Encouraging innovative state programs.
This is just the sort of nebulous bullsh!t we have come to expect from the “compassionate conservatives” of today’s GOP. The “number of uninsured” is NOT THE PROBLEM, Dave. The SKYROCKETING COST OF HEALTH CARE is the problem. Where’s your plan to encourage health care innovation that will bring down the cost of care!!?? I don’t see one.
- Allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines.
Have fun with this. It will do absolutely nothing to lower health care costs.
- Promoting healthier lifestyles.
Oh please. It is not the government’s place to tell people how to live their lives. This is just more Socialist Lite® B.S.
- The GOP plan promotes prevention & wellness by giving employers greater flexibility …
EMPLOYERS SHOULD NOT BE SADDLED WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE THEIR EMPLOYEES!!! What was once a benefit has now become an entitlement. That is part of the problem. Health savings accounts and dependent care SHOULD NOT to be tied to employment.
You people are the ones who need to wipe the slate clean and start over. America does not want Obamacare. America also does not want GOPCare. America does not want government meddling in health care AT ALL. What America wants is a government that will STOP MEDDLING IN THE FREE MARKET FOR HEALTH CARE and allow that market to push routine health care prices back into equilibrium with other commodities.
The other elephant in the living room with respect to health care (and other social service problems) is illegal immigration. Particularly here in TX, we see illegals get all kinds of neo-natal and other care that citizens cannot get except at high cost. They cripple our trauma centers, and that gets price shifted to us all, either in taxes or in higher prices for care. Eliminate this alone, and a huge part of the health care crisis would be ameliorated.
Immigrants should want to assimilate, and should be accountable for their own expenses.
And don’t even get me started on how this destroys education, and the economy!
Thank you, Congressman Camp. The polls show conclusively that the American people don’t want version one of this bill. Version two doesn’t seem to be an improvement. Furthermore, certain provisions of both bills appear to be prima facie unconstitutional. The first round of trying to pass this bill has resulted in a -19 point presidential approval rating and 45% overall approval (Rasmussen). What exactly does our Washington brain trust imagine will be the outcome of trying to pass it again in what is basically the same form? The reaction of the electorate is not so difficult to gauge. They are liable to create a whirlwind unrivaled since the election of the 44th congress in 1874. You may recall that in that case the Republicans had become so corrupt and insulated from the will of the people that Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner satirized them in a novel entitled “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The description of Washington politics could be contemproary. In that election, the house shifted from Dem: 88, Rep: 203 to Dem: 181, Rep: 107. This ended the Republican control of the house which had persisted since the Civil War. If the Democrats don’t knock it off, I believe we could see something similar in 2010. The Republicans can’t cause this to happen. Only the Democrats can do it to themselves by thwarting the will of the people and violating their oaths to protect and defend the constitution.
Here’s the people’s choice.
If you want to spend much more out of pocket for each doctor’s visit, and
be told who is to be your doctor, support ObamaCare. If you don’t, raise your voice against the Democrats
who are trying to jam it down our throats.
This is a “camel’s nose under the tent” situation. The intrusion that must be prevented is the first one, regardless of who attempts it. Unfortunately the laws that forbid medical insurers to sell across state lines are already in place, which to many government worshippers provide Washington a prima facie case for wielding authority over these most intimate of human decisions.
Repeals of prior laws excepted, if we permit any “health care reform” bill to pass, regardless of its author or provisions, we will regret it.
Congressman Camp, thank you for sharing your views and allowing us to share ours in return. I was not sure anyone in Washington wanted to hear what the people have to say on this subject. I am happy to support health care reform that incldes tort reform and the ability to buy/sell insurance plans across state lines.
My objections to the current plan are many and can be boiled down to these. I don’t agree with cutting Medicare so we can give benefits to illegal aliens. I think there is a role for the private sector and the states in regulating health care and they’ll do a better job. Obamacare would make practicing medicine so unattractive that we would not have enough people interested in becoming MDs and other health care providers.
The process the administration undertook to get this far is uacceptable. Too many special deals, too many closed door meetings, and too much one way communication. Moderate Democrats, Republicans, and the American people have been excluded. And the administration has spent a full year on something that is not our most pressing problem. Utterly ridiculous!
Here’s hoping the meeting later this week is a stunt and no more. There are better solutions and more pressing issues–the economy and national security. Stop the madness. Turn the page. Enough is enough.
America needs a leader, not a reader. ABO 2012.
What #10 said – lower the cost by reducing state requirements and offering consumers more coverage options – not just different payment options.
Here’s a cause that the Republicans should take up:
THE WAY to Really Call The Democrats’ Bluff and Save Us in the Process
Barak Obama just wants to give granny a pain killer, not treat her condition. And the state of Oregon would rather assist suicide than give one of its residents cancer treatments/medications.
In response, here’s what we do:
Introduce and pass legislation that would prevent the Federal government, or any of its agencies, from harming us, killing us, or otherwise prevent us from receiving life-preserving treatment, as a matter of its operating any sort of health care system (to include the murdering of infants in the womb).
Push for a constitutional amendment. Really raise as much stink as possible.
Credit Rose Pappas, senior citizen, Chicago, Illinois.
Let’s get behind this. I have a premium membership with Rush and have already emailed him. If you have access to Glenn Beck and/or Sean Hannity and/or Mark Levin through a premium membership, please email them.
Dave: Thanks for participating.
You and the rest of the republicans have been invited to the shooting range by the dems and you are the targets. Don’t forget it.
If you want to be a friend to the people you represent you’ll devote yourself to reducing the size of government back to it’s original state, tiny.
The best that all governments, federal, state and local can do is get the the hell out of the way and get the hell out of our pockets.
What we really need regarding politicians is protection from them. So we are working to eliminate you. All you do is create more laws more regulations while giving yourselves raises and pats on the back. Your days and the days of repubs and dems as we know them today are over. You can help the citizens of this country by working to eliminate your job and the jobs of all the comrades in Washington.
10. Sure government has the authority to force businesses to continue providing services at a loss- when those services were duly paid for in advance. That’s called enforcement of contracts. For an insurance company to drop a policyholder because the policy holder got sick (except in the case of fraud or deliberately self-inflicted illness or injury) is breach of contract, and the government has a duty to hold the insurance company to the letter of the contract and assess a penalty for violating it.
testing…
Not sure what’s up with this site today, so this may double-post…
@19. myth buster: – …when those services were duly paid for in advance. That’s called enforcement of contracts. For an insurance company to drop a policyholder because the policy holder got sick…
No one I know of pays for health care insurance in advance. You pay a monthly premium for services during that month. It’s not like Social Security, where you pay into a fund that you get back at some point. That’s actually a big part of the problem. When payment lapses for more than a month, that service is terminated. Also, insurance contracts include clauses that describe when a policy can be canceled, and for what reason. All insurance services are limited by contract and typically include an annual and/or lifetime cap on claims.
As for enforcement of these contracts, no NEW legislation is required to enforce existing contracts. So this whole notion of “unjustly cancelled” policies is just part of the GOP’s “compassionate conservatism” version of the left’s “social justice” canard.
In all my years of working for insurance companies and working with many, many insurance policy holders, I have never heard of anyone being dropped simply “because a policy holder got sick”.
The one case I DO know of where a policy was canceled – with no warning AND not notice at all – was up in Massachusetts. A woman we know had her policy canceled when her income level rose above the maximum allowed for CommieCare, once she found a job after being unemployed for a stretch. The injury that had put her out of work flared up again later and she was forced to go back on disability/unemployment. Some months later, to add insult to injury, she was fined $1000 for not (re-)enrolling in CommieCare. Great system, huh.
Well, it’s good to see were not going to the moon so we can give state paid enemas to baby boomers. I wonder if all those senior citizen child molesting moments reported in the media can be blamed on medicare provided Viagra as well as those unanticipated valentine day cardiac arrests? But hey, baby boomers did bring us “Easy Rider,” the counter culture alternate to the bourgeois life style, they just want everyone to pay for their fun in the sun. But I suppose borrowing from the rest of the world to pay for state provided sex change operations is better than providing the troops to defend the states we borrow from. I’m sure those progressive, socially conscious societies will continue to fund our party when the troops are no longer available to insure good order and morale among those bankrupt states.
Let’s take dozens of drugs OTC. Individuals should have the right to buy standard antibiotic pills and creams, antiviral Valtrex, cortisone in various forms, ED drugs, blood pressure drugs, Retin A and stronger pain medications. Let pharmacists control some dispensing, like they do in many countries.
And lets have the power to investigate a doctor’s malpractice history. Let’s have them post their prices for routine work. Health savings accounts do no good without comparative information.
Doctors are not innocent. Mine routinely bill much higher fees than insurance pays, just to see if I’m stupid enough to pay it. Often the uninsured pay higher fees than insured.
Finally, end the requirement of repeating dental school for foreign trained dentists. Just test them or something.
Open wide and say aahhhhh!
Now, bend over and spread’em!
Now, jump on one foot….. now the other!
OK, you pass. No health insurance for you, you don’t need it, but you will still have to pay the healthy person tax. If you get ill before your next check-up in 5 years, don’t call us because we told you you were OK.
Oh, did you have an appointment Mr. Obama? No? Go make an appointment for 2014 when these new plans go into effect. Oh, get well soon!
Dr. Congressman,
Politicians make bad doctors and good doctors would make poor politicians.
What Dr. Obama is trying to affect is a massive organ transplant before a proper diagnosis. First he has to distinguish which is the tumor and which is the host. If 50% of insurance costs are government costs, then recruiting private insurance to submit or pay for government costs is feeding the tumor.
Everytime ” health care” is used the public knows that that there is a lie embedded in the phrase. Insurance never made anyone healthly, rather it enables riskier and less healthy life styles. If any spending form of this bill is passed, no one will be healthier. Wealth will be redistributed so that the healthy have to pay for the medically unfortunate.
What is the problem beyond the price of premiums? The $100 billion of fraud and waste in federal health care is tossed around like that is a normal number. The operating room is dirty and yet Dr. Obama wants to proceed with the operation?
Please start small and try small adjustments on an experimental basis before massive reconstruction surgery. The operation is not a success if the patient dies from either the surgery or the bill.
TINSTAAFL
There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
The first step in problem solving is figuring out what the problem is.
The 4th world claims the US Health care system is broken. No evidence to support that. As a matter of fact all the evidence tends to point toward the US Health care system being the best in the world.
Has the PM Of Canada recovered from his heart operation yet? I ask because like most leaders of nations with nationalized health care he came to America to get serious surgery done.
Look at where the noble prizes for medicine go. Look where the new medical technology is created. A cure for cancer, HIV, old age, etc. will be created in American Labs by American doctors.
No, the issue the 4th world has with the American health care system is that it’s too expensive.
You see, in the 4th world you can get a Lexus for the cost of a Chevy Cobalt. In the 4th world ALL Lunches Are Free!
Meanwhile, back on earth.
Think of the US health care system as a shiny new bus. Smells nice, has comfortable seats, Wi-Fi, drink dispensers, individual climate controls, etc. for 68 passengers. it costs 25$ to ride this bus, it being so fine and all. At the bus stop there are 175 passengers waiting to ride the bus. Not all of them have 25$. Some of the passengers in the rear of the line are offering 50$ to those in the front of the line for their spot. They then sell that spot for 100$, figuring a few of those and they can take a cab.
The bus company would like to buy enough new super buses to put everyone aboard, since they are making money at 25$ per head. Unfortunately, those coughing up the money ( AKA taxpayers) for the buses think that they are too expensive.
The Mayor has promised everybody a ride for 1$. That is how he got elected.
So that is where we are now. In the end, all that will change is who ends up with the money. You can bet on two things, it won’t be the taxpayers and someone will end up walking.
The real issue here is not the health care system, it is paying for it. If you see that as 2 different problems, the solution is simple.
Supply and demand. Lower the overhead as much as you can without crippling the system. Many ways to do that and we should be debating them, not looking for a free lunch.
Tax Legal settlements at 100% beyond a certain level, that level to be debated. Use those tax monies to set up free health clinics for poor people. That takes the load off emergency rooms, which are very expensive to operate and it makes the 4th world happy, since it’s FREE.
Or seems to be. Enough to fool a 4th worlder at least. Equipping these clinics would lower the cost of the equipment thru volume production. Staffing would be an issue. Maybe making clinic service an educational requirement would work. AFAIK, serving in a trauma center or emergency room is already an educational requirement. Include clinics. Then there needs to be a serious effort to increase the number of medical personal graduating every year.
The USA cranks out about 75,000 new doctors a year. #1 in the world, IIRC. That number needs to be about 100,000. With an proportionate increase in support staff.
More clinics, more doctors, cheaper equipment and the cost goes down.
Supply and Demand.
Since Harry Reid and other democrats have been talking up reconciliation/the nuclear option, you will love this video of them pointificating on the subject in 2005.
Obama & Dems in 2005: 51 Vote ‘Nuclear Option’ Is ‘Arrogant’ Power Grab Against the Founder’s Intent
INSURANCE IS A TOOL FOR MITIGATING FINANCIAL RISK. It should NOT be used to pay for commodities like routine health care, which is the vast majority of health care consumed.
Sigh, where are those good old days when such things as “healthcare” & health insurance were so affordable and their organization & delivery based in common sense ?
America’s Otherparty continues not to be not exactly a party at all, even though it has had to pretend to be ever since Gen. Jackson and Mr. Van Buren set us donkeys up in business.
Have wombschoolin’ and downdumbin’ taken such a toll already, I wonder, that even the sweet puppies of Rio Limbaugh can take Neocomrade Representative D. Camp seriously when he pretends to know how to pander to the peepul better than “the Democrat Party” knows?
Selfservatives are not even cute and cuddly when they cease to be true to themselves, ever to proclaim with august dignity, “Who knows not that if you would save the people, you must often oppose them?” [*]
Healthy days.
___
[1] _Dixit_ Dixie : http://tinyurl.com/ykungl6 .
#28.
I didn’t understand ANY of that. What sort of drugs do I need to take for it to make sense? Will my doctor make the arrangements or do I need to seek the services of an alternate health care professional?
Here is an idea. Obama has spent at least 1 trillion dollars already. He has his priorities a little backwards.Lets see! He bailed out the banks. What for? nobody has any money to put into banks. He bailed out the auto industry. What for? Nobody can afford to buy a car.Why? No Jobs.Now, The government should , first, announce that every citizen in the country will be taken care of ,when it comes to health related problems, only on a temporary status, and use that borrowed money to pay the insurance co`s their premiums. Now get back to business, and bring our troops home.O.K.?,
Now ,to get this country rolling again,we must become self sufficient again. Start drilling for oil. build a few more refineries and quit buying all the junk from other countries for just a little while,until we catch up to ourselves.OH>and by the way Quit giving our so called borrowed money to other countries to help them before they help our own people. What say you,out there,or am I just stupid?
Wow! A Republican Rep. from Michigan! I’m dumbfounded!
Maybe he can do something to pull the Republican head out of the sand.
“government takeover of healthcare” has been voted lie of the year. Cant remember the source, or sources, but you can google it.