By Justin Williams
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As with most newly created governmental programs, when Barack Obama released his plans to overhaul the American health care system, he wasn’t entirely clear as to how the United States is going to pay for it. He claimed, of course, that he was going to be able to cut Medicare and Medicaid payments in order to finance his plan for ostensibly providing health care subsidies to tens of millions of Americans.
But when the plan is read deeply, it is clear that this is simply shifting money from hospitals to individuals, as Obama’s health care plan wants to cut $106 million dollars of benefits that go to hospitals and give them instead to the uninsured. Apparently, no one ever explained to Mr. Obama that when you shift the contents from one pocket to another, it’s still in the same pair of pants. And that’s especially dire when both pockets have holes.
Obama is trying to trick the general populace into thinking that they are receiving less expensive health care with government-funded subsidies. When the truth is that the hospitals will then be receiving less money, which will raise their costs. These costs translate directly into higher costs on the individual, as hospitals have to raise their prices or decrease benefits.
For example, in many restaurants in Europe, when labor costs rise, instead of increasing the menu prices, they just cut the portions and add a service charge at the end of the meal. This deludes tourists into thinking that they are getting lower menu prices, when they are actually paying more and getting less.
And, it gets worse.
The current health care debates on financing the public option include taxing medical benefits and even non-diet sodas that outside experts predict will cost the American people $1.2 to $1.8 trillion dollars over the next ten years. Leaving aside the disastrous impact the soda assault would have on the sugar industry, all these proposed new taxes will do nothing but raise costs on those who are already struggling to get by.
Taxing medical benefits paired with the current proposed tax penalties for not getting insurance puts government in the position of punishing Americans for doing what’s right – and punishing them, as well, for doing what’s “wrong.”
With the budget deficit for 2010 predicted at $1.43 trillion, many observers find it hard to believe that Congress and the Obama administration could not find a way of cut spending in other areas instead of increasing taxes.
But that would require Congress to give up some of their many handouts to special interests. Instead, now, special interest groups will be lining up to receive this health care money, much like they did in a near identical plan in Massachusetts.
As with the Massachusetts plan, the national plan must have every American in an insurance that is deemed worthy and qualified by the government overseers. Once this despotic hierarchy is in place, insurance companies will then begin to fill their pockets by lobbying the politicians to add more and more requirements to what a government “qualified” plan is defined as.
The costs of health care will begin to skyrocket, putting the already overburdened – and overreaching — government into even more debt.
So while Obama is threatening the American people with mandatory insurance, Congress will be trying to figure out how they can take every penny not only without having to reduce handouts to their buddies – but by handing out even more.
Of course, nothing lasts forever, and while the politicians and special interests in the medical industry get rich, Americans will be waiting hat in hand outside the emergency rooms. And far too many – relegated to lengthening lines, or ruled too old or infirm to receive government treatment – will learn the hard way that when it comes to Barack Obama’s stealthcare, where there is “hope,” there is death.
Justin Williams is a Contributing Editor of ALG News Bureau.
