“Let Me Be Clear About This…

Under our plan, you still will be able to keep your private health insurance”.   The “let me be clear” part should now be your tip off.  Translation, under “our” plan, private insurance will cease to exist.

This public option will supposedly “compete” with private alternatives. As President Obama likes to put it, those who are happy with the insurance they have now can keep it — and if they happen to prefer the government offering, well, gee whiz, that’s the free market at work. The reality is far different. Not only will the new program become the default coverage for the uninsured, but Democrats intend to game the system to precipitate — or if need be, coerce — an exodus to government from private insurance. Soon enough, that will be the only “option” left.

Not possible, you say?.  Well, it’s easy when you are the government that has the ability to pass Universal Health Care. 

First, the government goes to health care providers and tells them, “this is what we will pay for procedure A, take it or leave it”.  No choice there, even if it means that the health care provider must accept far less for Procedure A than the cost of Procedure A.  The health care providers “accept” the government’s offer.  But then, you should understand that:

A significant share of government underpayments are simply transferred to the private sector, adding tens of billions of dollars every year to consumer health bills.

Yes, those would be your consumer health bills.  Dirty little secret…why are your health care costs rising?  To cover the difference between what Medicare and Medicaid pay, compared to the actual cost of those services.

So, to make Universal Health Care work, your insurance premiums, whether through your employer, or, individually, would have to rise to cover the ever expanding shortfall in your health care providers’ expenses. 

Second, you make “government” premiums artificially low.  What logically follows from this?

This will only hasten the flight to government. Meanwhile, employers small and large will have every incentive to dump their plans and transfer their workers to the public rolls. The result will inevitably be a cascade of failures or withdrawals from the market by commercial insurers, with the public option as the only option for the diaspora.

And , third,

Congress will finish the job with regulatory changes. Under the aegis of a level playing field, all private plans will be forced to offer benefit packages similar to those in the public option. They will also be required to accept all comers, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and also be forced to offer similar rates to all enrollees, ending the ability to manage risk through underwriting. Any private plan will essentially become a public utility where government decides what products it must offer and how much it can charge.

And, once all of the above has been accomplished, “government” insurance won’t be free.  You will pay ever increasing premiums for your “government” health care, and ever increasing taxes.  Not only that, much like those on Medicare or Medicaid, you will be able to spend hours in your doctor’s office waiting room hoping you will be seen, will wait weeks for needed testing, and, assuming you are still alive, months to see a specialist.

Please, copy the articles linked below.  Give them to your friends, or even enemies.   This administration’s plan is a disaster.  People need to read about the disaster, before they experience it first hand.

“cost effectiveness”, aka, rationing,

“quality” health care (not exactly quality), and,

the death of private insurance.

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

4 Comments

  1. Dimsdale on April 14, 2009 at 4:39 am

    The phrase "let me be clear" is purest oral legerdemain (sleight of hand) and prestidigitation (manual dexterity in the execution of tricks) practiced by Obambi, a skill well learned in his twenty year membership in the "reverend" Wright faux chuch fold.  You'd best be sharpening up those parsing skills you developed during the Clinton years.

    Bottom line: the "universal health care" proposal has been tried and has failed everytime it has been implemented.  Europe and Canada are rife with examples of this documented failure.

    Why are we trying to repeat failure by "fixing" the best medical system in the world, bar none?



  2. sd on April 14, 2009 at 10:03 am

    SoundOffSister (do you mind if I call you SOS?) is spot on.  A good portion of the cost of our health INSURANCE, be it group or individual, is due to transfer of payments by the providers.  The gov't under-pays – Medicare & Medicaid – and the providers increase their fees to us (our insurers).  Anyone on traditional Medicare sees these fee reductions on their Explanation of Medicare Benefits (EOMB).  And these are not 10-20% reductions, they frequently exceed 50%.  By and large, providers are stuck with these reimbursement levels thanks to federal legislation some 15 years ago which prohibits those who refuse to accept Medicare assignment from charging more than 115% of Medicare approved amounts.



  3. SoundOffSister on April 14, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    I didn't put this in my earlier post on "rationing", but, Great Britain, to contain costs, has decided to deny treatment for folks with "end stage" (however the government defines that phrase) breast cancer.  Can you imagine what it must feel like to be condemned to death by your own government?



  4. Lazybum on April 14, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    Wow- they won't kill murderers or terrorists, but they sentence taxpayers to death for the crime of being sick. Man, that is sick.



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