Motivational Obama Announces Health Care Plan

by Dave C. Jones

Folsom, CA - 10 September 2009 @ 2145 PDT - Obama started his address to Congress last night sounding like Tony Robbins. (Or a politician campaigning for office. Wait a minute, isn't he already . . . President? Why the eternal campaigning?) He led off by blowing the proverbial sunshine up our rear ends and he never stopped.

His initial sugar-coated claim was that he "pulled this economy back from the brink" of "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." Yeah, right. Even though his cheering section—the liberals in Congress—were screaming and drooling over him like a bunch of teenage girls at a Jonah Brothers concert, it doesn't make the claim true.

After that touchy-feely moment, the Illustrious One told us of how [w]e are the only advanced democracy on Earth—the only wealthy nation—that allows [medical] hardships for millions of its people." What he fails to mention (or to even care about) is that we are also the freest "advanced democracy" on Earth and we don't want the government running our lives. (Never mind that we aren't a democracy and that our government is stripping us of our freedoms even as you read this.) Obama also claimed that we spend 1.5 times more on health care than any other country and declared "that our health care problem IS our deficit problem."

It is true that we spend a lot of money on health care (that happens when the feds mandate that doctors treat anyone regardless of whether they can pay). However, Obama's plan will not decrease the cost of health care--it will just move the costs around. (This is the inverse of Obama's "spread the wealth around" method of tax and spend; his health care plan is all about "spreading the debt around.")

Obama outlined the following facets of his health care plan:

• If you have health insurance, you can keep it;
• It's great that we can keep our insurance plans if we want to, but how long will the insurance companies be offering those plans? Once the government starts offering insurance, you can bet insurance companies will find it hard to compete. Premiums will rise, people will go for the government option, insurance companies will have to increase premiums again, more people will leave, etc. Soon, insurance companies will be out of business and unemployment will rise).

• If you don't have health insurance, you must get some;
• After all, if everyone doesn't chip in, it will be too expensive for everyone else. (Spoiler alert! Obama wants to spread the wealth AND the debt.) Obama likened the mandatory health insurance requirement to laws mandating auto insurance. Unfortunately, the two are not the same at all. Auto insurance is required so you can pay for damages to the other guy--not to yourself. If you choose not to carry insurance to cover your own car, no state is going to force you to. Why should the government force us to protect ourselves? (In a society that will pay for your health care if you can't, it is Obama's way of taking the burden off the government and putting it on the insurance companies. Notice I did not say it would decrease costs; it won't. But it will shift the cost from the feds and states to private companies. The end result is still that the individual is footing the bill--the check just goes to Blue Cross instead of Uncle Sam.)

• If you can't afford health insurance, you can get government insurance;
• This is the endgame of liberals anyway. By pushing through a plan that they say has private insurance options, they eventually get what they want because the private insurance companies will soon fold under the burdens of covering pre-existing conditions, paying fees for the best plans, competing with the government, etc.

• Insurance companies must cover pre-existing conditions;
• This is a laudable goal, but will increase costs for everyone. Why should the healthy have to pay for the sick? (Spoiler alert! Obama wants to spread the wealth AND the debt.)

• Insurance companies will have to pay a fee for their most expensive policies;
• Why are some plans more costly than others? Likely because they cover the most maladies and treatments. And,do you really think insurance companies will foot the bill for the fee? Of course not. They will pass that fee onto their customers in the form of higher premiums. Eventually, customers won't be able to afford the high premiums for the best policies, forcing insurance companies to drop them. Once the best policies are dropped, only the mediocre to pathetic plans will exist. The mediocre plans will now be the most expensive, so they will have a fee, no one will be able to afford them, and they will be dropped. That cycle will continue until only the crappiest plans are left or everyone is on government insurance.

• No bureaucrat will stand between you and the care you need;
• Yeah, right. If my doctor says I need a $25,000 procedure, you can't tell me Obama won't have his guy look over my medical record to make sure he thinks I need that procedure.

• Employers must provide insurance or assist in paying for insurance;
• Do you really think employers will simply cut their profit by paying for insurance they don't already provide? Nope. They will cut wages, lay people off, or both to have the money to pay for health care. So much for pulling us back from the brink of economic collapse.

• Will not cover illegal aliens;
• That's great. I'm glad. But . . . wait. Won't those 20 million illegals be going to the emergency room? Who pays for it then? That's right, me and you. It's a nice word game that Obama says his plan won't cover illegal aliens, but they get free health care anyway.

• Will not add one one dime to the deficit; and
• That's a cute trick. It'll cost $900 billion dollars in his Highness's opinion and he doesn't think it will add to the deficit? Can you say, "Hello, new taxes"? But if you are considered middle class or low income, I guess you don't care because Obama says your taxes won't go up. (There's that spreading the wealth around thing again.)

• May include medical malpractice tort reform.
• That's a good one. Let's let people sue a doctor for not doing a CAT scan when they come in for a sore throat and later die of a brain tumor. That's brilliant. But what would you expect when Obama has so many attorney friends?

I could go on and on about the problems with Obama's plan specifically and the problems with reforming the health care system generally, but I just don't have the time (hence why my posts have been so few and far between lately).

But, I do want to mention one more thing: Obama says he doesn't like to play politics as usual but he does it all the time. He did it several times last night. And even though the libs thought Obama's speech was so great, I found it disingenuous of him to accuse people in the media and politics of telling "scary stories" designed to frighten segments of the population into being against "health care reform" and then to use his own scare tactics in telling America what will happen if the system is not reformed: "Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result." Oh, please! Talk about fear-mongering!

Do you think I'm fear-mongering with my analysis of Obama's "plan?" I don't think so. But if you disagree with me, feel free to turn me in to the White House Disinformation Office—I enjoy talking to pathetic bureaucrats (please excuse the redundancy).

And until Obama gets his health care plan passed, if you are feeling depressed and just can't afford a shrink, just listen to an Obama speech. He's got the motivational speech down pat.

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Dave Jones is not your typical liberal California criminal defense trial attorney. He is a libertarian who believes in less government, more guns, and greater freedom–in short, the principles on which this country was founded. He can be reached at his law firm, the American Justice Center, via e-mail at djones at AmericanJusticeCenter.com. Read more of his writings at blog.AmericanJusticeCenter.com.