Obama’s Health Care Promises
Obama’s Health Care Promises
[This article has been written by Paul White, a member of the West Chester Tea Party]
On September 9, President Obama spoke before a joint session of Congress on health care reform. At that time there was only the House Bill available to us with no Bill available for review from the Senate and no specific Bill supported by the President (Really not much different than today!).
The president spoke in broad general terms with few details. However, he did make some serious promises to the American people. Regardless of where you stand on the health care issue, it is only fair to judge any bill, especially any bill that is up for a final vote, by how well it delivers on those promises.
The pressure on the Senate Democrats is intense and plenty of changes will happen. As yet they have not delivered a bill for a final vote. However, based on what information is available, let us see how well the promises are being dealt with.
Based on September’s speech transcripts, the key “promises” made by Obama, with direct quotes where possible, are summarized below. Italicized comments as to how well the promise is met follow each:
GENERAL PROMISES
The health care reform plan will:
- be bi-partisan with best ideas from both parties – not even close; It’s been nearly 100% Democrat developed behind closed doors.
- provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance – hard to measure; However, current polls show more than 50% of Americans expect to be worse off.
- provide insurance for those who are uninsured – no way; Nothing proposed insures everyone and estimates are as high as 24 million will continue to be uninsured
- slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses and our government – time will tell; The track record of large scale government programs (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) costing less than original projections make this very unlikely.
- not put private insurance companies out of business – true initially; It’s hard to tell what long term economic pressures and new government regulations will cause. Without acceptable profits many will go out of business.
SPECFIC PROMISES
- “… if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance … nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have … nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have” – probably technically true; The keyword is require. While it may not require these changes, the net effect of many provisions will cause employers to change plans.
- “If you don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices” – to be determined; Insuring millions more people with no increase in the number of doctors or hospitals can’t improve quality or lower cost.
- “… the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally” – can’t happen; Legal experts believe current law, supported by the Supreme Court, make requiring citizenship unlawful. Any legislation that grants amnesty will make this promise meaningless.
- “… no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” – very doubtful; It does not seem likely that this ban can get passed by both House and Senate.
- “I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.” – highly unlikely; It very difficult to imagine that a 2000 page bill will not intrude in many unpredictable ways (recall the recent mammogram screening debate). The Senate bill lists 1,697 times where the secretary of health and humans services is given the authority to create, determine or define things in the bill.
- “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future.” – very doubtful; It takes tax increases 3 years before benefits are paid and huge cuts in Medicare that are not likely to happen to enable claims of deficit neutrality. Common sense says there is no free lunch.
- “I will protect Medicare.” – doubtful; These plans all rely on nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts to try and remain budget neutral. In addition, Medicare-Advantage may be changed or eliminated.
Based on how poorly the current plans deliver on the President’s promises, it seems that the President and the congressional Democrats are so desperate to pass Health Care that they will pass almost anything that they can call health care reform regardless of how the majority of the public feels about it. On December 16, they went so far as to violate established parliamentary rules of the Senate! Why are they in such a hurry? Perhaps they are after a fundamental structural change that they can eventually massage and incrementally mold into the monolithic government managed program they have been pursuing for so long. Or perhaps, with recent polls indicating less than 40% of Americans support the current legislation, they fear that the public is waking up and they may not get another chance.
January 16th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
77% of Americans support choice of public option.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/new-poll-77-percent-suppo_n_264375.html