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Sen. Snowe: Finger on the trigger of a single-pay system? APView Enlarged Image
Health Reform: Congress' planned health care revolution will be bad enough without a government-run option. With it, Euro-style socialism becomes inevitable. It's time for a bipartisan way out of this disaster.
Last week proved Democrats want as much big government control as possible in the huge medical sector of the economy. The president's advisers said he's still committed to a government-run public option, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lined up three versions of such a plan and the Senate majority leader announced a public plan with a state opt-out.
Why is the public option back at all? It seemed dead after a study earlier this year indicated such a plan would mean private health insurers could lose nearly 120 million customers.
Described as being "prized by liberals as a fundamental pillar of reform," the public option is really a way to put capitalistic America on a path toward socialized medicine.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a longtime co-sponsor of single-payer legislation, said in July, "I think the best way we're gonna get single-payer, the only way, is to have a public option and demonstrate its strength and its power." Why not just enact single-payer? "We don't have the votes for it," Frank replied.
The public option was conceived by leftist organizations such as the Campaign for America's Future years ago because polls showed the American people liked private health insurance and would never go for a direct government takeover. Ex-Sen. John Edwards' presidential campaign embraced it as "stealth single-payer," and the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama followed suit.
Renegade Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine may be the one to thank if this new medical entitlement becomes reality, at a time when government accountants warn that Washington is spending the country toward a fiscal doomsday.
The president is reportedly smitten with Snowe's public option "trigger" — an idea that comes down to this: If private insurers charge customers more than Uncle Sam dictates as they deal with all the new costs Washington imposes, the federal government will become their unfair competitor and wreck the private health insurance industry.
With or without a government-run option, the Democrats' radical transformation of the greatest health care system in the world still means reams of new regulations on private insurers, including the likely end of anti-trust protection.
It means fines for those — especially the young — who won't buy what will become high-priced insurance. It may slap uncooperative employers with an 8% payroll tax. And it may impose a $460 billion, 5.4% income tax surcharge sure to kill private sector jobs.
It's time for new ideas, like the expanded private coverage options of the Patients' Choice Act, backed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Richard Burr, R-N.C.
As Ryan warns, the federal government would run health care "with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the Post Office and the incompetence of Katrina."
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Until a few months ago, Pakistani officials often used the term "miscreants" when they described the Taliban fighters operating from the western tribal areas. This moniker conveyed the sense that the Taliban was a nuisance — a ragtag band of fanatics and gangsters ...
Poring over the details of the 1,501-page health care bill that came out of Sen. Max Baucus' Finance Committee, it's clear that the financing is so full of smoke and mirrors that one has to wear a respirator and hard hat to get through it. But by the time one gets to the end of the bill, estimated ...
Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida has found his calling: death demagogue. First, he accused Republicans of wanting sick patients to "die quickly." Next, he likened health insurance problems to a "holocaust in America." Now, he's unveiling a new Web site, NamesOfTheDead.com, in memory of the ...
Benjamin Disraeli's most famous advice to aspiring politicians was: "Never complain and never explain." For the greatest orator of our time, a man who makes Churchill, Lincoln and Henry V at Agincourt look like first-round rejects on "Orating With the Stars," Barack Obama seems to have pretty much ...
In the health care debate, the "public plan" is all things to all people. For supporters, it would discipline greedy private insurers and make health coverage affordable. For detractors, it's a way station on the path to a single-payer insurance system of government-run health care. In reality, the ...
Posted By: katydid(30) on 10/24/2009 | 1:12 AM ET
I'd like to see the bill posted as promised, well in advance of the vote. It's clear the end goal of this administration is socialism...or worse.
Posted By: lschwab26(5) on 10/24/2009 | 12:11 AM ET
Awake people The current congress & Obama are eroding our freedom of choice daily. Question your Congressmen with boldness
Posted By: GrannyRob(270) on 10/23/2009 | 9:47 PM ET
It took 14 years to repeal Prohibition. We've got to repeal any health bill passed by this Congress faster than that. I'll support and vote for any 2010 candidate who makes a pledge to work tirelessly for the repeal of this bill ... and I don't want politicians telling me it can't be done. It's got to be done!
Posted By: vladimirval(5) on 10/23/2009 | 9:17 PM ET
When the Democrats got control of congress, they neglected the business of the nation and concentrated on demonizing Bush and all connected with him. As soon as Obama took the presidential oath, every bill they proposed was all about more government control of the populous. They managed to take over 2/3 of auto industry, put ACORN in charge of the census, and take complete control of all major financial institutions. Their healthcare bill is just another scheme for control of who provides services, what services will be provided and to whom. If Obama's and congressional attacks on FOX news lead by Pelosi and Reid is not a socialist tactic then Stalin was a capitalist. Unless we vet new candidates, select the right ones, and work hard for them to replace the liberal elites now ruling us, the nation will succumb to National Socialism.
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