Today I was listening to a town hall meeting with a Democratic Rep and Howard Dean today.
The crowd seemed more or less a mixture of views.
They originally booked it for a place that held 500 people. They switched to a place that held 3,000 people, and still, not everyone got in. Anyone remember when you couldn't get 20 people to a town hall meeting???
A couple of points I'd like to bring out that they discussed.
1. Out of pocket expenses, under the House Bill 3200, will be limited to $5,000 per person or $10,000 for a family. So not only will I NOT be able to keep my insurance plan that I am VERY happy with, I will have the pleasure of paying TWICE the amount I currently pay. Thats a SWEET deal if you ask me!
2. President Obama has made insurance companies the "enemy" in this debate after realizing that "health care reform" didn't poll well because most people are happy with their health care. Yet, the insurance industry SUPPORTS the reform! Thinking people will ask WHY? It is because the insurance industry is looking at additional premiums from the government to insure 47 million more people.
3. Again today they tried to tell the people that this plan is just like Medicaid/Medicare or the Federal Health Care Plans for Federal employees. If thats so true, why not put everyone in it? Or why not just sign everyone up for the Federal Employee plan. Think of all of the savings to be made from not having 3 or 4 separate bureaucracies to administer health care! If its good enough for the American People, why is it not good enough for Federal Employees and the rest of the government? Because they wouldn't stand for it.
It was nice to see how popular Howard Dean is these days......
Some other broader points to consider:
1. We do have a shortage of doctors, esp primary care, in this country. Who, exactly, is going to care for these other 47 million people?
2. The claim is made that illegals will not be covered. But does the bill say that anywhere? Does it even address the issue at all? NOPE. This bill is, even at 1,100 pages, written very broad, and vague. No doubt, somewhere down the road, an un elected government bureaucracy somewhere, will determine that illegals should be covered. Then it will be too late.
3. Nowhere does this bill address TORT REFORM! Not in the least. Not even mentioned.
Just because we have Doctors, who we are short on, closing their doors because they can't afford malpractice premiums, doesn't mean we need tort reform! Nope, not even a little bit of it!
Now for an analogy...of sorts. Your mileage may vary.
I bought a bird feeder the other day. This bird feeder represents the "health care system". The birds, of course, are "health care consumers". The bird seed is "health care".
Now this is a pretty big bird feeder. It holds a lot of seeds. There are also many, many birds around here.
so I go and fill up my bird feeder with seed and hang it in a place to give birds easy access to the feeder. Then I sit in my chair and watch the birds eating the seeds and think to myself, "this is great".
So I come back the next day and my feeder is "EMPTY". I think back, yes I did just fill it up yesterday. So I fill it up again. The next day, again its empty.
So I try to figure out how to fix this problem. What to do?I go out and buy another bird feeder! I fill both of them to the very top. I think to myself, problem solved.
Since it is now beer:30 I dutifully crack one open and watch the birds eating away, thinking to myself that I should be good for a few days now!
In the morning, BOTH feeders are EMPTY!
After purchasing another feeder, plus one of those peanut butter type feeder, I think to myself, "This must fix the problem!"
I get up the next day to find ALL of the feeders EMPTY!
I have concluded that one of two things will happen:
1. I will go broke buying birds seed
or
2. I will have to start rationing the bird seed.
Which do you think I chose? More importantly, when faced with this decision, which do you think the government will choose? I guessing that, like me, they will choose the latter over the former.
While its true that everything in our economic system is rationed in some form or another, usually by price, very little is rationed by the government.
That is as it should be.
People who want to believe that we can have unlimited health care for everyone, for everyone, need to rethink that. It is not possible.
Mis information from President Obama:
1. You can keep your current insurance. NOT true. I won't be able to and I'm VERY happy with my insurance.
2. No health care rationing. Not true. Economics 101 should be enough to convince anyone that this is just not possible. Even today in this country, health care is rationed. But it NOT rationed in the way that other countries with "universal health care" ration it.
Dr Rawlins, who head the NICE in England said:
“be fair to all patients in the National Health Service (NHS), not just patients with macular degeneration or breast cancer or renal cancer. If we spend a lot of money on a few patients, we have less money to spend on everyone else. We are not trying to be unkind or cruel. We are trying to look after everybody.”
That is the truth of rationing in England. The problem is that there never has been, nor will there ever be enough money to provide unlimited health care to all people.
The only conclusion is that it will, in some form or another be limited.
England budgeted 6 billion dollars to build IT infrastructure to run their health system. It costs are now
estimated at 30 billion and rising.
This goes to show how the government, theirs and ours, are often way off on the costs associated with its actions.
