What Is President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Bill About?

 

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

President Obama’s healthcare reform bill is not about healthcare. It is about government having control of our freedom of choice, mandating behavior, decreasing healthcare coverage, increasing out of pocket insurance expenses, decreasing Medicare and Medicaid entitlement benefits and squelching innovation in America.

His goal is to decrease the growth of the entitlement programs. Medicare and Medicaid are both out of control . Both programs at the current trajectory of growth will consume over 100% of America’s GNP in 40 years.

In 1965 the government as intervenor set up Medicare and Medicaid incorrectly. The unintended consequences led to more government intervention over the years. Rather than fixing the problems for the long term, the government instituted short term fixes. These short terms fixes have made the programs’ sustainability worse.

President Obama’s healthcare reform bill will not fix the problem. He is trying to “fake us out” in order to control government expenses. He should be Repairing the Healthcare System creatively.

President Obama believes increasing government control over our lives by increasing bureaucratic agencies and farming out enforcement will relieve the government of the entitlement expense. He is wrong. It will increase the government deficit as Medicare Advantage has recently demonstrated.

Seth Godin had a wonderful little blog the other day. He wrote;

The relentless search for "tell me what to do"

If you’ve ever hired or managed or taught, you know the feeling.

People are just begging to be told what to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is: "If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I’m safe."

When asked, resist.

Today the majority of Americans are not asking for the government to tell them what to do.

On July 5, 2009, I published an article entitled “Did Your Representative Read The House Of Representative Healthcare Bill HR 3200.”

 

A reader of my blog sent me a summary of HR 3200 written by Larry Schweikart. Mr. Schweikart is contributing editor of FamilySecurityMatters.org , the author o 48 Liberal Lies About American History: (That You Probably Learned in School) and A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror.   He blogs at patriotshistoryusa.blogspot.com. Mr.Schweikart’s analysis is about 80% accurate by my reading.

 

There has been a lot of noise in the traditional media about the meaning of President Obama’s healthcare reform bill during the last 7 months. The actual text in the bill has been ignored. The text reveals the consequences we can expect from the healthcare reform bill.

President Obama keeps telling us, as he did in his State of the Union address, (start at minute 4 of the You Tube segment) healthcare reform is for the financial protection and healthcare security of Americans.

 

 

 

I have pointed out reasons this is not true in the series of blogs entitled “The House and Senate Bills are terrible Bills.

I have also pointed out the tricks the administrations and the Democratic congress have played on the American people to ram this bill through congress. Last week Nancy Pelosi said “we will have a healthcare bill even if the gate is closed. We will climb the fence. If we cannot we will go under the fence or if necessary parachute in. “

A reader just sent me a you tube interpretation of the bill for those who like to watch it on television. It seems to me to be more graphic and have more impact than the presentation in written form.

We should take a fresh look at the bill’s text and its meaning line by line. Please download the entire bill to check the You Tubes allegations.

 

The obvious questions are;

1. Who can we trust?
2. Is the actual wording in the bill consistent with what President Obama is telling us?
3. What are the potential unintended consequences?
4. What is the true intent of President Obama’s healthcare reform bill?
5. Does the bill fix the systemic problem in healthcare delivery system?
6. Do you think it will save America and Americans money?
7. Will President Obama’s healthcare reform bill protect our freedoms?

Our country needs healthcare reform badly. President Obama’s healthcare reform bill is not the route to take.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.