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The Spectacle Blog
On a day when ABC News has turned over its programing to the White House so that President Obama can promote his health care agenda, Americans for Tax Reform gathered together a group on Capitol Hill to offer a competing, market-based vision for health care reform.
Sen. Jim DeMint was there to tout his health care proposal along with Rep. Tom Price.
Price, a former physician in Atlanta, said that, “If the fourth estate continues to be in the tank (for the Obama administration, it would endanger the future of the nation.” Price outlined three “death knells” for the health care system: a government plan that would crowd out private insurance, coverage mandates, and “ceding quality to the federal government. He said patients need to make their own health care decisions and be able to choose plans that they own and control.
“We don’t need an expansion of government,” DeMint said, and he outlined his plan for health care that would maintain the employer-based insurance system, give vouchers to individuals that would replicate the tax advantages enjoyed by those who obtain coverage through their employers, and allow people to purchase insurance across state lines.
DeMint said his plan would be deficit-neutral because it would be financed by terminating the $700 billion TARP program. If the program isn’t terminated, he said, it would just be used as a “slush fund” for the Treasury Department. However, when I asked DeMint how the plan would be paid for once the TARP money runs out, he replied, “We just have to see where we’re going.” He insisted that his reforms would bring down health care costs, and in any event would be less than the trillions that Obama’s proposals would cost.
“We can win this if we engage the American people,” DeMint said of the health care battle. “They are not stupid.”
The event also featured a panel of activists, policy experts, and a Canadian woman who shared her horror story with their government-run health care system.
Merrill Matthews, the director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, took aim at the government option. He argued that Medicare and Medicaid are rampant with fraud and abuse and use their market share to impose price controls on doctors and hospitals, which providers then recoup by jacking up prices on individuals and private insurers. He noted that though proponents of government health care like to point to the low administrative costs of Medicare, their estimates leave out costs such as staff salaries, building rent ,and insurance — alll of which show up elsewhere in the federal budget. Nor do the estimates of administrative costs include fraud and abuse. The creation of any new government plan, Matthews said, would ding taxpayers for the start up costs, and would continue to change the rules on the private sector so that it could not compete.
Today, Preident Obama officially said he changed his mind and now supports the inclusion of an individual mandate requiring people to purchase health insurance. But Greg Scandlen, director of Consumers for Health Care Choices, explained that mandates have proven ineffective. For instance, even though we have mandates for car insurance, roughly 15 percent of car owners remain non-compliant.
The room also heard from Shona Holmes, a Canadian who was suffering from vision loss and had to come to America to get treated because she was put on a several month waiting list to see a specialist in her home country, even though she risked losing her vision if she was not treated in four to six weeks.
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More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
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Pingback| 6.24.09 @ 7:13PM
Conservatives Counter ABC Obamacare Infomercial - Spectator.org — Cheap Commercial Ve links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 6.25.09 @ 9:09AM
Morning Bell: The White House Infomercial » The Foundry links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Charles| 6.25.09 @ 9:50AM
Can ANYONE identify for us an instance in which the involvement of the Federal Government has resulted in an increase in efficiency? Good LORD!
As an employee of a Government Contractor, my sensibilities are constantly offended by the spectacle of Government waste that confronts me almost daily. The profit motive is the only thing that stands between us and Medical Armagedon.
Wayne Harper| 6.25.09 @ 10:47AM
THINK THE US POSTOFFICE. is exactly what any govt health insurance probram will be in 5 years.
Jerry Hutchins| 6.25.09 @ 11:38AM
I watched that ABC spectacle last night. It was downright sickening to see how BO can sit there and lie so sincerely about the true effects of his forthcoming socialistic health plan. I wanted to vomit just looking at him. If there is one person that I detest the most, it is him.
Marc Laverdiere| 6.25.09 @ 12:48PM
BO (Barrack Obama) is just what this president is , he stinks. This guy is mad in more ways than one and if we do not stop this rediculous spending there will not be anything left to worry about.
John Croix| 6.25.09 @ 2:57PM
I am a medicare recipient - I don't like any kind of government healthcare because it screws the patients, the doctor, and the drug companies. Not to mention I am paying for the ineffiency with my taxes.
Yesterday I went to my Cardiologist. I talked with the nurse, I talked with the cardiologist, we adjusted my medication based on my bloodwork. That was the total interaction.
Then I saw what was being submitted to medicare for payment.
According to what was billed, I had a complete physical examination including palpatation of the neck and abdomen, listening to my breathing, examined my throat and mouth.
They are padding the bill to try and recover their costs. He is a good doctor and I don't want to report him but I am torn because I'm paying the bill both directly and indirectly.
Carol Godec| 6.25.09 @ 3:53PM
As a Senior who is a breast cancer survivor, I have received excellent care. I take seriously my responsibility for exercising, eating healthy, and living healthy, in order to avoid a recurrence. I know I have much to fear if the Obama Administration is successful in their take over of the health care system. I am very aware of the higher cancer rates and higher death rates in European contries with Nationalized health care plans. No one, who is informed, would give up what they have in exchange for this. There are far better and less expensive ways to help those who do not have insurance. There are also better ways to cut costs of Medicare and Medicaid.
Patricia I. Spear| 6.25.09 @ 5:04PM
Listen up "Baby Bo0mers" and I include myself in this group. There are a whole lot of us beginning to retire.
We will be overloading the system, and need more healthcare as we are aging. Obama wants to limit our choices. That means that we become like the automobile, and are rapidly being de-valued every year we age. We are expendable. We are a drain on the healthcare system, and limited access to care that could improve our quality of life and life extension. Think about that for a minute.
Now let your Senator, Congressman and Respresentatives know. Turn up the heat!
No thanks to AARP, of which I am NOT A MEMBER! They are the worst, and do not speak for all of us. Oh, that right, Obama said that he would get rid of Lobbyists. Hmm, I guess he "changed" his mind. What a guy.
DMac| 6.26.09 @ 6:49AM
The citizens of France, the UK and Canada are not looking to "improve" their health care systems by making them look more like ours.
As long as insurance companies profit from delaying and denying care, our health care system will continue to be ranked about 37th (Cuba is 39th) in the world.
By the way, France is ranked number 1 and they pay much less than we do for health care.
marion rundell| 6.26.09 @ 9:45AM
The ultimate success of a BO plan, is that more people will die younger. If the system is government run, rationing WILL occur. A treatable breast cancer for example, spreads in the months the patient waits to see the surgeon. I know lots of surgeons who will simply work 9-5 if they are told they will get payment by Medicare! Most internists now will not accept new Medicare patients. The general practitioner makes less money than a plumber or electrician. Surgeons are burned out by 50. All because they try to balance their paying patients with the ridiculously low payment of Medicare/Medicaid. More Medicare, less medicine. BO plan is a prescription for death.
Pingback| 6.26.09 @ 11:44AM
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Conservatives Counter ABC … | France Today links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 6.28.09 @ 12:40PM
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Conservatives Counter ABC … | France Today links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: