Just when you think he couldn’t be any worse.
I got so mad when I heard the President’s speech on his “compromise” (snicker, snicker, chortle, chortle) health care plan, that I vented on facebook, and my mother posted a reply telling me to watch my language.
I’m fifty two years old, and I have mother who tells me to watch my language.
Thanks, mom, for that, and all of the other ways that you taught me not be an idiot. I guess I’m never too old to be reminded.
To start off with, the President dressed the stage with people in white coats, representing doctors and nurses. But are they really doctors and nurses, or were they non medical people in white coats put up for show, like last time?
You know, they were probably real this time, but we shouldn’t even have to wonder. But when he has dishonestly dressed the stage before, there is no reason to take it for granted that he is being truthful this time.
I know it’s a small thing. The point I’m trying to make is that when Obama speaks, it’s never too early to start looking for deception.
Apples and oranges
The President spoke of bills that have been pushed through by republicans by reconciliation, but has comparisons were dishonest at best.
He compared it to welfare reform, but welfare reform passed with 78 votes. It had strong bipartisan support. Reconciliation helped speed up something that was going to happen anyway. He also mentioned the Children’s Insurance Program as a point of comparison. That passed with 85 votes. Not much of a nail biter there. Reconciliation didn’t subvert the will of the people. It expedited it.
Other bills, where the vote was closer, the bill were strictly budget bills, which are precisely the kind of bill that the reconciliation procedure was invented for.
Reconciliation for budget bills, yes. Reconciliation for major legislation, HELL NO. (Sorry mom).
And on top of that, the President is vehemently opposed to using reconciliation to pass health care. At least, that what he told Concord Monitor on October 9th, 2007.
He said,
“You’ve gotta break out of what I call the, sort of, 50 plus 1 pattern in presidential politics. Maybe you eke out a victory of 50 plus 1, but you can’t govern. We’re not going to pass health care with a 50 plus 1 strategy.”
He said the same thing at the Center For American Progress conference, on July 12th, 2006. The exact quote is “This notion that we should function like Karl Rove, where we indentify our core base, we throw them red meat, and we get a 50 plus 1 victory. If we want to transform the country, though, that requires a sizable majority”
Yet today, he said that a 50 plus 1 vote should be used to get his bill passed.
I wonder which time he was telling the truth. That’s just one more example of how brazenly he lies.
Insurance companies are villains
His tone, in phrases like “reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and America’s businesses.” implies that all insurance companies are evil. Well, I can’t deny that there are some scumbags in the insurance industry, but there are some pretty decent folks as well. This is a red herring. Or maybe class warfare.
If there is corruption in the insurance business, it is largely because of the government not allowing it to compete in a free market system. If insurance companies were allowed to compete fairly, many of the parasites who are gaming the system would be forced out as companies fought for ways to lower prices so they can get market share. Under the current near monopoly, there is no incentive to force the parasites out.
Frequent mention is made of the companies that won’t pay for things they should pay for. And that happens. But not often. A contract is a contract is a contract. Your part of the contract is to pay premiums, and their part of the contract is to pay up if things happen to you that are covered in the contract. Period.
If they don’t pay, you sue. Most of the time, you’ll win. If there was a free market system in place for health care, you’d win more often and more quickly, because the company doesn’t want you to jump ship and go to another company, and they don’t want you to take all of their friends and family with you. Right now, there is nowhere else for you to go, so the threat of taking your business elsewhere is hollow.
If there was a free market system in place, your threat would have teeth. But there isn’t. And I’m repeating myself. Sue me.
Preexisting conditions
I’m sympathetic on that score. I’m a diabetic. Right now, I’m covered under my wife’s insurance through her job as a school teacher. Most group plans are required to take you, even with preexisting conditions, because they have calculated the impact of a certain amount of people with preexisting conditions, and have factored that into the cost of the premiums. If I found myself having to buy insurance on today’s private market, I would expect to have to pay more than someone who is not a diabetic. That’s not fair. But it is life. My eyes are so bad that I can’t function without glasses. That’s not fair. But it’s life. Some people have good teeth, and never need to have cavities filled, or have a root canal, and some people have very expensive teeth. That’s life. My legs are too short, and I can’t buy pants off the rack. That’s not fair. But it’s life.
Having some sort of program to make it easier for people with preexisting conditions to get insured is a wonderful idea. I support it completely. But mandating that all companies accept all people under all conditions can’t do anything but run up the price of premiums.
After all, insurance premiums aren’t random numbers that companies pull out of their butts. There are actuarial tables that predict how much money a company will be required to pay out in benefits for any given risk group, and that is how much money they have to collect in premiums to cover their benefit costs. This number won’t change from one insurance company to the next within a similar risk group. Just like one car dealership pays the same amount for a car as another pays for that same model car. Different prices come from differences in overhead, and how much profit they feel they entitled to make. A dealership with smaller overhead can sell a car for less than another, but what doesn’t change is that each dealers starting point is recovering the money they spent to put that car in their inventory.
If the wholesale price of the car goes up, the retail price goes up. With insurance, if the pool of insured’s gets riskier, the prices of insurance premiums go up. Period. There is no other way around it.
You can’t force all companies to take all people, and force all companies to lower their prices through legislation. The math doesn’t work. Companies would just stop writing health policies. How does that help anybody?
Insurance companies will have to take everyone, no matter what. Another angle
One way that I can see that Obama care could save me, and anyone, money, is this.
They have to take everyone, right? Then I’ll just drop my insurance. If I have to pay a fine, I’ll pay it. It’s cheaper than insurance. When I get sick or injured, I’ll buy a policy. They won’t be able to turn me down, because Obama care won’t let them. Then, once I’m well, I’ll just drop my coverage, and resume paying my fine.
That’ll help bring down the overall cost of health care, won’t it? (Sarcasm intended)
Conclusion
I wanted to cover all of the lies and distortions of Obama’s speech in this essay, but it’s running too long.
I will cover the other lies and distortions in future essays. I expect that I’ll be done with this series of essays on the lies of this one speech before the sun’s hydrogen fuel burns out, but maybe not.
That’s the way I see it.
