President Obama Will Ration Healthcare. Wake Up America! : Part 1

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

I spent a glorious weekend with Brad and Daniel in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES). I thought there were some phenomenal electronics exhibited which will be coming to Main Street soon.

Brad introduced me to many young entrepreneurs who are very concerned about providing healthcare insurance for their employees. They are having trouble finding affordable healthcare insurance. My suggestion is for them to consider my ideal medical savings account.

Most of these young entrepreneurs realize they do not understand the issues that have resulted in the exorbitant healthcare insurance premiums.

I told them to not listen to the sound bytes of Tom Daschle and his team. They do not understand the issues either. If they did, they would be pursuing a different course. Tom Daschle is going to try to force the Democratic Party’s healthcare agenda of the last forty five years down the country’s throat. .

I have described most of the issues. I like President-elect Obama very much. Many voted for him because of the promise of renewal, new thinking and hope for the future.

David Remnick of the New Yorker summarized Barack Obama’s appeal.

“Barack Obama was not elected the forty-fourth President based on the depth of his legislative achievements or on the length of his public service. John McCain and Hillary Clinton were the “experience” candidates. Rather, Obama projected an inspiring message, a “narrative,” of change at a moment when so much in American life––the economy, the environment, national security, health care––is in such parlous condition that, for many voters, political familiarity seemed less a source of solace than a form of despair.

Barack Obama has hired “experienced people” to run his healthcare team( Daschle, et al). His “team” has the same old tired ineffective story that Hillary Clinton and others have had for healthcare reform. It is a story the American public does not want to hear.

“

During the campaign, Obama embodied novelty and a broader American coalition, and everything we heard about his temperament—as a community organizer in Chicago, as a president of the Harvard Law Review, as a legislator, as a campaigner—spoke of someone who, in contrast to the outgoing, faith-based President, possessed a gift for rational judgment and principled compromise. “

His healthcare advisors are old school. They do not understand the importance of the physician patient relationship. They refuse to understand the problems in the healthcare system. They ignore the importance of patient responsibility for their own health and healthcare. They do not seem to believe in the importance of the role of incentives and self reliance as an engine of America’s greatness. They believe government can fix everything.

President Barack Obama’s healthcare team is going to be successful in passing healthcare legislation. Healthcare system reform they will propose and pass will fail. It will bankrupt America as it is bankrupting Massachusetts.

The Congressional budget office estimated a 100 trillion dollar a year healthcare deficit in forty years without an improvement in the health of seniors alone. Adding the entire population to the Medicare roles will make this deficit unimaginable.

Tom Daschle’s plan is similar to the Massachusetts universal healthcare plan. We must understand the cause for the failure of the Massachusetts plan in order to comprehend the impending failure of Tom Daschle’s plan. There is nothing innovative about his plan. It is the same plan Hillary Clinton advocated in 1993 and others in the Democratic Party advocated for many years.

The plan will probably pass in a congressional vote because Americans are frightened by a huge economic recession. They have little idea what is being advocated by the Daschle healthcare team.

When a population is frightened all politicians have to promise is hope. People will give unprecedented power to politicians even if they do not understand the results of those promises.

Many are claiming Ayn Rand was right 52 years ago when “Atlas Shrugged” was published. The names of the new controlling bureaucracy are different but the methodology is the same.

Where are you John Galt?

Mr. Obama is taking a dangerous chance by advocating these old, and proven to be ineffective ideas. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) noted in its report the failure to reduce the cost of healthcare significantly or increase the quality of care. The CBO’s report was published just before Christmas when everyone’s thoughts were on the holiday.

Wake up America!! Please !!

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