By J.T. Hatter
Obama Speech to Congress, September 9, 2009
In 2009, Obama addressed a joint session of Congress to lay out his program for health care. He unflinchingly told the assembled elected officials one whopper after another, amid a rising chorus of boos and loud grumbling. It got to be too much for Congressman Joe Wilson, of South Carolina, who shouted, "You lie!" to the president as the latter was speaking. Both political parties roundly condemned Wilson for his outburst. He was called a racist, of course, among other things, and he later apologized for his indiscretion. But Joe Wilson was right on the money.
Obama lied to the American people when he said that under ObamaCare, the cost for health care would not go up. He said that the middle class would not spend "a single dime" in increased taxes to pay for it, that ObamaCare would actually reduce the federal deficit by the cost savings it would create, that you could keep your current doctor, and that 30 million more people would have health care coverage. None of this was true. And Obama knew that when he made all these claims.
The facts are that Obama and his Democratic Party comrades fudged the numbers, engaged in enormously fraudulent accounting tricks, double-counted Medicare funds, dissembled about what ObamaCare would really entail ("We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."), and completely misinformed Congress and the public about the scope and impact of these new laws and entitlement programs.
But now the facts are beginning to roll in, and the Democrats' health care chickens are coming home to roost. When Obama campaigned in 2008, he said he would reduce health care premiums for families by $2,500 in his first term. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that annual average family insurance premiums have gone up by $2,730 in Obama's first term -- not down. Kaiser currently reports that health premium costs increased 4% this year alone.
Obama told the American people that his health care program would cost "only" 940 billion dollars over ten years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now has rescored ObamaCare and says that the program's gross cost is $1.762 trillion from now to FY 2022. This estimate does not include administrative and other costs, which will add hundreds of billions of dollars more.
The CBO estimate suggests that an offsetting cost reduction of about 0.51 trillion dollars would be realized from receipts from "penalty payments," fees, and increased taxes. According to Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, these "penalty payments" are actually taxes. There are twenty new taxes in ObamaCare. Yes, Obama lied about our taxes going up. ObamaCare may be the biggest and most expensive lie told in American history.
The Romney camp is getting a lot of mileage about the damage ObamaCare does to health care for seniors. Look for Florida to get a blitz campaign on this message. The fact is that senior citizens stand to lose the most from ObamaCare.
Obama and the Democrats robbed 716 billion dollars from Medicare to pay part of the cost of ObamaCare. This severely damaged the Medicare Advantage (MA) program, among others. The MA program allows seniors to receive medical coverage through private insurance plans of their choosing. One of the main thrusts of ObamaCare is to debilitate and eventually eliminate the private health insurance industry. The Democrats' first prize of battle is the MA program, which the Heritage Foundation says will lose an average of $3,714's worth of annual benefits. They expect that ObamaCare will cut MA program enrollment by 50% by 2017. Let me repeat that: ObamaCare will cut MA enrollment by half and reduce benefits for those who can remain in MA. I can't see seniors standing for this.
ObamaCare cuts payments to health care providers and will cause an estimated 15% of Medicare Part A providers to become unprofitable in the next decade. The Heritage Foundation cites the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on this subject as follows:
Over time, a sustained reduction in payment updates, based on productivity expectations that are difficult to attain, would cause Medicare payment rates to grow more slowly than, and in a way that was unrelated to, the providers' cost of furnishing services to beneficiaries.ObamaCare is designed to run not only private insurance companies, but also doctors and hospitals out of business.
But the ObamaCare assault on seniors doesn't stop there. ObamaCare places a 2.3% excise tax on medical devices and a 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned investment income. Older folks use more medical devices and have more investment income, so these new taxes hurt them directly.
ObamaCare imposes a tax, disguised as a "fee," on brand-name drugs in Medicare and other government programs. Obama has also imposed a new federal excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" health plans the Democrats don't like. The 40% tax is designed to make the premium plans unaffordable to those willing to pay for them, and to punish the wealthy who want them at any cost. ObamaCare beats down seniors in many other ways, and yes, there are death panels -- which will result in health care rationing and worse.
Senior citizens will suffer the most from ObamaCare. However, seniors made up 16% of the electorate in 2008 and went for McCain by 53% to 47%. The Democratic Party regards seniors as "underperformers" in 2008 and is desperately wooing them this year. Seniors currently represent 21% of the vote, and they're not happy with Obama -- for good reason. Wait 'til the Democrats get a peek at the senior vote in 2012.
Your New Health Care System
Chart Prepared by the Senate Joint Economic Committee
ObamaCare expands Medicaid, which is a poorly performing, bankrupt federal program that is in severe need of reform and cutting. The Democrats targeted the poor for roughly half of the thirty million uninsured people they said would receive health care coverage under their plan.
Medicaid currently provides for sixty million "poor" people. Obama wants to add 15+ million more. But states are balking at the budget-busting expense for their share of the expanded Medicaid program. And the Supreme Court recently ruled that the federal government couldn't use financial penalties to force the states to comply with Medicaid Expansion requirements. This is a devastating blow to the entire ObamaCare scheme.
At least 13 states have said that they may opt out of the Medicaid program for new patients, and about 20 states are inclined against Medicaid expansion. HealthDay offers this observation,
"I look at the states as the next critical battleground," said Robert Doherty, the American College of Physicians' senior vice president for governmental affairs and public policy. If some states decline to extend Medicaid, the nation will end up with coverage like "Swiss cheese" with holes for "the poorest of the poor," he said.Obama has created more than just a Medicaid health care battleground in the USA. When Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote upholding most of ObamaCare, it meant that states were supposed to immediately set up the American Benefits Health Exchanges. These health care exchanges are the principle implementing conduit of the law, and they provide the means through which the American people and small businesses will be forced to purchase their federally subsidized and managed health care plans. But what if states refuse to set up these insurance exchanges?
About a dozen states have said they're not going to set up the American Benefits Health Exchanges required under ObamaCare. The federal government has responded by saying that it will come into the states and set up the exchanges if the state governments won't set them up. The Kaiser Family Foundation blithely describes it this way:
If a state fails to set up an Exchange by January 1, 2014, the DHHS Secretary will establish and operate an Exchange in the state, either directly or through an agreement with a nonprofit entity.Over half the states sued the federal government to stop ObamaCare, saying it was unconstitutional. We lost. And now we have states suing the federal government over implementation requirements, including the insurance exchanges. About half the states are pursuing the requirements for setting up the exchanges. Kathleen Sebelius, the HHS administrator, has admitted that there isn't enough money to set up the exchanges and has gone back to Congress with a request for another billion dollars to get the exchanges rolling. But the House of Representatives isn't coughing up the money. Michael Cannon at the CATO blog says the ObamaCare exchanges just aren't happening.
The battle continues. What an unbelievable mess Obama has made of the American health care system. ObamaCare has created legal battlegrounds all over the country. Several states have passed laws providing that their citizens cannot be required to purchase federal health insurance. Some states are suing over implementation provisions.
Once states start to opt out of the Medicaid Expansion, and refuse to set up or participate in the exchanges, the federal government's only option is to sue the states to force compliance or set up offices in the states and run the programs from Washington. Attorney General Eric Holder and Administrator Kathleen Sebelius will be glad to do this. But will they be around in 2013?
Image by Newsbusters
Obama has failed miserably. He has created a gargantuan abomination of a new federal entitlement program that we can't afford and that won't work. The only certain outcome of ObamaCare is that it will destroy the best health care system in the world.
"ObamaCare Summed Up In One Sentence" is a video of Dr. Barbara Bellar brilliantly dissecting what is wrong with ObamaCare. This video has gone viral across the nation because it resonates with the 65% of Americans who don't want anything to do with ObamaCare.
ObamaCare is blatantly unconstitutional, no matter what John Roberts thinks, and the American people instinctively know this. After the passage of ObamaCare, our government can force us to do anything. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the concept of sovereign states' rights have been thrown out the window. We no longer have constitutional government, nor are we ruled by the consent of the governed. We have an elite ruling class that can legally make us do anything -- thanks to Obama and Justice Roberts.
It isn't merely the cost of the outrageous government takeover of one fifth of the American economy that rankles. It isn't just the fact that ObamaCare is going to take the best health care system in the world and run it into the ground that angers Americans. Obama has engineered a law that gives our government the absolute right to rule every aspect of our lives. Just like they do in communist nations.
Socialist revolutionaries understand that a universal health care system run by the central government is the essential key to transforming the United States into a socialist nation. This has been Obama's true objective all along.
ObamaCare is the kiss of death to democracy, liberty and freedom, and the high-quality health care we have enjoyed in the USA. The main issue in this presidential election campaign isn't about health care or jobs: it's about freedom vs. socialism.
A vote against Obama, and for Romney, is a vote to save health care in America. But more importantly, it is also a vote to save America.
