Everyone Is Getting Sick Of President Obama’s Trick Plays. Part 1
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
President Obama is doing exactly what a good lawyer does. He wears you down with trick plays. Voters are getting sick of hearing all about the benefits of his healthcare reform plan while not being told about the downside of healthcare reform. The administration and the Democratic congress are not listening to voter objections and voter mistrust.
Senator Baucus has gotten his bill out of committee. President Obama has hailed it as a bipartisan victory since one Republic Senator, Olympia Snow, voted for it. Most voters would say President Obama’s statement is a joke. It sounds as if he thinks voters are stupid.
The polls show that the Democrat congresspersons approval rating is less than 30%. President Obama’s approval rate is under 50%. Voters see massive tax increases coming down the pike. They feel powerless to stop them until they vote in November 2010.
Voters also know that newly formed bureaucratic agencies and entitlements are difficult to reverse. These new bureaucratic agencies and entitlements are about to be rammed through Congress. The public is frustrated.
Americans are witnessing a rapid recovery in the stock market. However, the country is facing larger deficits, increasing failures in the commercial real estate industry and an impending credit card debt crisis.
Bailed out banks defy President Obama’s plea to decrease bonuses using taxpayers’ dollars. These banks are getting ready to come to the government once more for more federal bailout money. Just change the rules so a person can only get paid on performance instead of bonus by contract. If someone receives a bonus by contract it should be a non tax deductible expense to the company.
The congress and President Obama are ignoring the basic systemic problems as promised. Most problems can be fixed by changing regulations with simple logical regulations.
The stimulus package is not stimulating the economy. President Obama is bragging about the stimulus package creating 30,000 jobs so far while the unemployment rate increases weekly. America is experiencing a jobless economic recovery. Where are the jobs? The only job growth is related to government job growth.
Locally real estate taxes are rising as out housing values are declining. However, cities and state are running large deficits and cannot afford to assess taxes on actual housing values.
We were told America is a government by the people for the people. However, our surrogate representatives are acting in the interest of special interests and not the people.
President Obama’s healthcare reform is not going to provide universal care as promised. His healthcare reform plan is going to increase our taxes and the deficit by at least 1.5 trillion dollars in ten years. President Obama has said he will not sign a bill that would increase the federal deficit.
“The problem for Mr. Obama is that the Baucus bill is being sold on the strength of accounting tricks that make it appear that it won’t add to the deficit. If fiscally conservative Democrats sign on to the bill now after publicly saying they are doing so because it doesn’t add to the deficit, they may end up bailing once the tricks are revealed to the public.”
The trick play is he is going to collect increased taxes and cut benefits (ration care to seniors) in the first five years before instituting reform. Meanwhile he will create a massive government bureaucracy.
President Obama healthcare reform plan will fail because the plan he is proposing escalates costs of healthcare not decreases it. The costs will be shifted from the government to the consumer by non transparent increases in taxes and increased out of pocket expenses.
“One trick is easily explained. The bill imposes tax hikes and benefit cuts right away, including $121 billion of Medicare reductions between 2011 and 2015. But new spending really doesn’t start until five years out (2015) and isn’t fully operational until 2017. The bill uses 10 years worth of tax hikes and benefit cuts to fund a few years worth of benefits.”
Shouldn’t voters have a say in this folly?
The Democrats and President Obama will see what will happen when the voter figure out what they are doing to us. I think the independent voters have figured it out already and will not vote Democratic in the next election.
“But this assumes that employers who dump employee coverage under the Baucus bill will then increase worker paychecks by an amount equal to what they had spent on health care. This replaces a nontaxable event (providing health insurance) with a taxable one (increasing worker paychecks), magically producing $83 billion in revenues. Without this windfall, the Baucus bill adds billions of dollars to the federal deficit in the first decade.
Of course, why would a company drop employee coverage just so it could pay more (in fines, taxes and wages) than it did before?”
How we are going to pay for this ineffective plan that is destined to fail. Voters have only to look at what has and is happening in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is having massive cost overruns. It has been forced to decrease coverage and ask for increased federal funds.
Nonetheless, President Obama states that Congress has taken a massive step toward the passage of a healthcare reform package that will provide universal care, affordable insurance and improve quality.
Does anyone believe President Obama and his trick plays anymore?
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.