President Obama in Mineapolis (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
Speaking to 15,000 adoring fans at the Target Center in Minneapolis, President Obama continued to spread lies and half-truths in his quest for health care reform. Lets take a look at some of them:
(1) “[N]othing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have” In the next breath, Obama proceeds to lay out a list of changes to your insurance coverage, “[I]t will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition .... it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses...”
Now that's quite a string of new mandates for insurance companies. Mandates that have to be paid for somehow. If insurance companies are required to pay out more money, and they will if these new requirements become law, then your insurance premiums must rise.
Insurance companies have no other way to come up with the money to meet these regulations. And so, while technically you will not be “required” to change insurance coverage, you very likely may be forced into changing your insurance coverage. Your employer may not be willing to pay the added premium. You may not want to pay the added co-pays. One way or the other, your insurance coverage is likely to change. Insurance will either cost your more or you will end up getting less bang for the buck.
(2) “[I]nsurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care ...” Just exactly where is the money to provide this added expense supposed to come from? Beyond that, the supposed cost savings in preventive care do not exist. This was clearly described by Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf in a letter to Congressman Nathan Deal (R-GA): “[F]or most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.”
(3) “No one would be forced to choose [the public option], and no one with insurance would be affected by it.” While it is certainly true that no one will be forced to choose the public option immediately, this is not likely to hold true as time goes on. As the government subsidizes the “public option” in order to hold prices down and thereby make it more affordable, more and more employers will embrace the public plan. When your employer reviews his insurance options and discovers that the same employee coverage can be had from the public plan for less money, what do you think next year's insurance plan is going to be?
Over time the the public option will squeeze private insurance out of business. This will kill both the bad insurance companies as well as the good. And it further illustrates the magnitude of the first lie above, “[N]othing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have” The public option pretty much guarantees that your insurance coverage will change sometime in the next five to ten years.
(4) “I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the coverage that you need.” Sure thing. When the “public option” becomes “The Insurance Option,” which it surely will, just exactly who do you think will be making coverage decisions? The biggest advantage to having individual insurance companies as opposed to government run health care is that, if the insurance company refuses coverage you can always seek redress in the courts. You cannot pursue the government in the same fashion. If you read through the House bill, HR 3200, you will find that it exempts itself from legal action, not just once, but many times in many places. So when the government decides not to cover something you will end up out of luck – a decision that will be made by a government bureaucrat.
(5) “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future.” This is another statement that has been thoroughly debunked in the media and by the CBO. Yet Obama continues to repeat it as if saying so will make it so – that only happens if you're Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise. In the real world the deficit will balloon.
Obama then proceeded to blame the soaring deficit on George W. Bush. But Bush did not enact a trillion dollar pork-laden stimulus bill on his watch. A Democrat controlled Congress passed the TARP bill. How stupid do we have to be to believe that Republicans are to blame for the current spending binge?
(6) “And it's time to give every American the same opportunity that we've given ourselves.” Amen. So why doesn't the President and Congress prove their determination to meet this goal by including themselves and Federal employees in the health care reform bill? Currently, both are specifically exempted. The reality is they have no intention of including themselves in this garbage legislation and this in itself is sufficient reason to remain adamantly opposed to what is going on in Washington.
The President likes to rail against the partisan bickering that surrounds health care reform. The President said, “The time for games has passed.” With all due respect, Mr. President, lead the way.
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Comments
Liberals (socialists) can't understand why so many Americans are angry about Obama's agenda, but they have good reasons for being angry. First of all, Obama has lied repeatedly. Let’s look at some of his lies:
1. He told us that our economy would grow by $1.52 for every $1 the govt spends. If you believe his logic, all we have to do is spend our way to prosperity.
2. He promised no tax increases of any kind on families that make less than $250k, but two weeks after his inauguration he raised cigarette taxes by 62 cents a pack on the nation’s 43 million smokers.
3. He said the unemployment rate would not exceed 8% if we pass his stimulus plan, but the unempoyment rate is now at 9.7% and is likely to increase.
Obama’s many lies have angered people.
Americans are also angry about the runaway spending. Do the math on the stimulus plan. The cost is $787 billion and there are 114 million taxpayers. The cost to each and every taxpayer is $6903 (excluding interest). Obama said the plan would create/save about 2 million jobs. $787 billion divided by 2 million jobs = $393,500 per job created/saved. Think about this for a moment. We’re going to spend nearly $400,000 for every job created/saved and leave each and every taxpayer with a tax bill of nearly $7000! This is an enormous waste of taxpayer money. Obama wants us to believe that those evil wealthy people will be responsible for paying for the stimulus, but it’s not going to happen. As usual, the people who will be stuck with the bill are the middle class who have already been squeezed to the limit. The stimulus plan alone is likely to push the US into a long-term period of high inflation. The out-of-control spending by Obama and the Dems has angered people.
Brilliant take on the speech! I missed the Minnesota speech but it sounds like it was a re-run of Wednesday night, minus the "you lie" outburst! It's time for some common sense, no nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is evaluations of the health care debate. I will pass this article on for sure!
apparently everyone would rather be paying trillions of dollars to an endless, purposeless, and devastating war instead of guaranteeing health coverage for their families.
This Mr. Dick is well, a Dick. He is old. What does he care if the lobbyists win like they did during the Clinton years and Bush-2 years? Lobbyists bring America down! Financial collapse and debt passed on to young generations. Mr. Dick does not care. He is happy with his foxes in his backyard.
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