The Kennedy Healthcare Plan (buying a Pig in a Poke)

Will Malven
6/19/2009

During his campaign, President Obama told Americans that in his healthcare proposal that they would have access to "the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves." Once more he was telling the Americans what they wanted to hear rather than what he knew to be the truth, that there was and still is no way that America could afford to offer that kind of plan.

An examination of the plan-all 600 pages of it-has only begun and the facts don't meet the Democrat rhetoric...not by a long shot. The plan they offer is far from what then Candidate Obama promised his supporters. It is in fact what we Conservatives knew it would be from the beginning, a plan to force everyone into a managed care program that rations healthcare in exactly the same manner that it is rationed in every other nation that offers an entitlement to national healthcare.

This comes from the Wall Street Journal today (by way of my friends at FreeRepublic.com):

Dissecting the Kennedy Health Bill
No, you won't be able to keep your insurance if you like it.

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY

Last September Sen. Barack Obama promised that under his health-care proposal "you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves." On Monday, President Obama repeated that promise in a speech to the American Medical Association. It's not true.

The president is barnstorming the nation, urging swift approval of legislation that is taking shape in Congress. This legislation -- the Affordable Health Choices Act that's being drafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- will push Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls. It specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116).

Members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. They "can choose from among consumer-driven and high deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health saving/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or fee-for-service (FFS) plans, and their preferred provider organizations (PPO), or health maintenance organizations (HMO)." These choices would be nice for all of us, but they're not in the offing. Instead, if you don't enroll in a "qualified" health plan and submit proof of enrollment to the federal government, you'll be tracked down and fined (sections 3101 and 6055).

For a health plan to count as "qualified," it has to meet all the restrictions listed in the legislation and whatever criteria the Secretary of Health and Human Services imposes after the bill becomes law. You may think you're in a "qualified" plan, but the language suggests that only plans with managed-care controls such as the "medical home" will meet the definition (sections 3101 and 2707).

The President, like all Liberal Democrat politicians is an accomplished and habitual liar so all of this should come as no surprise...although for a lot of his supporters-those gullible enough to believe his rhetoric-it will.

Since he has been in office-a short five months-he has conducted a Sherman's March across the American economy and culture. His congress has doubled the national debt, he has nationalized the American automobile industry-just to benefit his union voters, he has nationalized the banking industry and is now proposing to exert even greater control over our economy with a gross expansion of powers and responsibilities for an already over extended Federal Reserve Commission, he has alienated our closest allies, Britain, Germany, and Israel (heck even the French are having second thoughts about him and his policies) while making romantic advances towards our most dangerous enemies, Iran, Hamas in Palestine, and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

This healthcare debacle is just the latest (and most destructive to every American's freedom and well being) in his march towards the Marxism I warned against in an earlier editorial.

The Liberal Democrats in control of our government are systematically destroying every aspect of our culture that created this wealthiest, freest, most generous, and strongest nation in history. If they are not stopped, they will reduce America to just another socialist failure.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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