ObamaCare: The bad, and the ugly

I didn’t include “the good” in the post title because, as Carol Platt Leibau explains well here, there is no “good” part to Obama’s “public option” healthcare plan:

But if Obama succeeds in imposing a “government option” on America, the privately insured will be forced to pay even more to compensate for the government-created cost/payment shortfall as the rolls of those in the government plan expand. As a result, the cost of private insurance will ultimately become untenable. And then – there will be only government-administered health care for all.

Without privately insured Americans subsidizing Medicare and Medicaid, there will have to be another way to close the deficit between the cost of treatments and the below-market payments government offers for them. The answer, of course, will be health care rationing. Rather than the free market – or health care consumers’ economic and personal choices – driving the distribution of health care, the government will do it.

This prospect doesn’t seem to bother President Obama or many other Democrats – which makes sense, from their perspective. For powerful government officials, the plan would work well. Their political influence will guarantee that they (and their friends) will receive the finest treatment available under a government-run system.

For other Americans, however – including regular people without “pull,” who have nonetheless worked hard to have the means to buy good private coverage – the prospect should be profoundly frightening. A government bureaucracy controlling your medical care is likely to combine the efficiency of the post office with the compassion of the IRS. Imagine a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles – but to secure lifesaving treatment for yourself, a spouse or child, rather than simply to obtain a driver’s license. What a nightmare.

Make sure to read the whole thing.

Related to all this, our President met with the AMA today and received boos during portions of his speech, which must have come as quite a shock to a man who is used to people fainting in his presence. He cautioned against believing the “scare tactics” the opposition was allegedly using, yet didn’t have any trouble using the tactic himself:

CHICAGO — President Barack Obama pushed hard Monday for a health care overhaul, saying the system is “a ticking bomb” for the budget that could force America to “go the way of GM” without a legislative fix.

Obama went before the American Medical Association in Chicago to declare anew that the existing system leaves too many uninsured and forces “excessive defensive medicine” by doctors worried about malpractice suits. He also declared once again that he does not favor socialized medicine and cautioned people to beware of “scare tactics and fear-mongering” by critics who make this claim.

[...]

“A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble,” he said, “were the huge costs they racked up providing health care for their workers — costs that made them less profitable and less competitive with automakers around the world.”

“If we do not fix our health care system,” Obama said, “America may go the way of GM — paying more, getting less, and going broke.”

Anyway, the AMA made it clear last week that it did not support ObamaCare in its current form. No surprise there, as the AMA have long opposed government-run healthcare for the reasons Carol mentioned in her article, and more. They are not opposed to reforming the system in and of itself – just the kind that would affect the quality and accessibility of healthcare, cause prices to skyrocket, increase waiting lines at doctors offices, and stifle competition.

Nevertheless, he will continue to push the issue, not just because he himself is a big supporter of government-run healthcare, but because his chief opponent last year in the primaries – Hillary Clinton, who has made single-payer healthcare her mission in life – no doubt demanded that he make it a top priority his first year as a condition of her running the State Dept. Not only that, but the “Lion of the Senate” and favorite Democrat of all Cap Hill Dems – including Obama, Ted Kennedy, has also long been proponent of big government having control over our nation’s healthcare.

Oh, and anyone who tells you that these Democrats don’t support using the various healthcare plans they are floating around as a stepping stone to single-payer healthcare? Show them this video of Democrats admitting that very thing, including our own President – before he became President. Deception is the name of the game.

As they say, you can put a new coat of paint on an old barn, but in the end it will still be an old barn …