Fact Checking Obama's Socialized Health Care Claims

Again, here is something that you will not see on CNN, ABC, NBC or CBS. It is also highly unlikely that you will read anything like this in the Washington Post or the New York Times.

According to the Associated Press:

OBAMA: "We already have rough agreement" on some aspects of what a health care overhaul should involve, and one is: "It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it." THE FACTS: In House legislation, a commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn't covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government. The bill also holds out the possibility that, over time, those standards could be imposed on all private insurance plans, not just the ones in the pool. Indeed, Obama went on to lay out other principles of reform that plainly show the government making key decisions in health care. ... He addressed some of the nuances under questioning. "Can I guarantee that there are going to be no changes in the health care delivery system?" he said. "No. The whole point of this is to try to encourage changes that work for the American people and make them healthier." He acknowledged then that the "government already is making some of these decisions."

Whoa! If there were to be no government intervention on health care decisions, then why do we need a government appointed commission to determine what is and is not covered? And what decisions are being made by the government right now? If there is to be no government intervention, why are those decisions being made?

How much worse does this get? Pretty bad. Read on:

OBAMA: "I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it." THE FACTS: The president has said repeatedly that he wants "deficit-neutral" health care legislation, meaning that every dollar increase in cost is met with a dollar of new revenue or a dollar of savings. But some things are more neutral than others. White House Budget Director Peter Orszag told reporters this week that the promise does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients. Democrats and the Obama administration argue that the extra payment, designed to prevent a scheduled cut of about 21 percent in doctor fees, already was part of the administration's policy, with or without a health care overhaul. Beyond that, budget experts have warned about various accounting gimmicks that can mask true burdens on the deficit. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget lists a variety of them, including back-loading the heaviest costs at the end of the 10-year period and beyond.

Even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the program costs would run into the trillions and make health care more expensive, not less.

OBAMA: "You haven't seen me out there blaming the Republicans." THE FACTS: Obama did so in his opening statement, saying, "I've heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to compromise, it's better politics to 'go for the kill.' Another Republican senator said that defeating health reform is about 'breaking' me."

Of course, Obama wants this to be about Obama and not about the best policies for the American people. He probably figures that the more he deflects from the real issues (like the fact that even Democrats don't know what is in these health care proposals) the less likely the American people are going to educate themselves about the whole mess before a Congressional vote.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

FACT CHECK: Obama's Health Care Claims Adrift?
Calvin Woodward and Jim Kuhnhenn with Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Associated Press via TownHall.com
July 23, 2009

Health Care Lies From The Obama White House

It's no secret that Barack Obama is getting desperate to pass a nationalized health care bill. With many Blue-Dog Democrats lining up against the measure, time is clearly running out for Obama, Pelosi and Reid. But what time-frame are we talking about?

We are talking about the time-frame in which Congress and the President can pass this disastrous bill before too many more Americans read what is in it and discover what it is really all about.

Writing for Town Hall, David Limbaugh notes several inaccuracies and outright lies in the arguments made for this socialized medicine package:

--Despite White House-generated hysteria about the urgency of reform, the only urgency is in preventing this fiasco because it would destroy America's economy and liberty. Doing nothing -- even given the many problems that exist under the present system -- is far preferable to adopting this monster. --Proponents claim the present system leaves 47 million people without insurance and unable to get it. Bull. Almost half of these uninsured could afford coverage but choose not to obtain it; almost half only remain uninsured for four months; and millions are noncitizens. Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 17 million would remain uninsured after the plan is implemented. --Obama says his plan is not socialized medicine because he's just providing a "public option" to make the private insurers more competitive. Well, he's stacking the deck with mandated coverage -- which, by definition, reduces competition -- and subsidizing the public option. He would provide incentives to businesses to move employees to the public plan. Also, once you lose your insurance, your coverage choices would no longer be grandfathered, and you'd be forced to buy a plan that includes Big Brother's mandates -- meaning most would gravitate toward the government plan. A single-payer system is virtually inevitable. --The plan is being sold as a necessary element of reviving the economy. No one, including the Congressional Budget Office, believes this bill would improve our economy, and most believe it would exacerbate our problems. The bill, with its taxes on successful small businesses and its Draconian regulations, would destroy job creation, as would increases to the deficit and debt the bill would cause. --Health care costs would not be reduced, but increased -- and shifted. Studies show that preventive care measures would not reduce costs. More importantly, the CBO says that even with the planned confiscatory taxes on higher-income earners (which no one can deny constitute real costs to them) and the penalties on employers who don't provide coverage, the plan would fall $239 billion short of covering its initial cost estimates of $1 trillion. And that's assuming everything goes well. But cost estimates for government programs are always understated. The actual costs for Medicare Part A were $67 billion, seven times higher than the government's 1965 projections of $9 billion. Even worse, the Medicaid special hospitals subsidy was $11 billion, more than 100 times the government's projection of $100 million in 1987, just years earlier. The only efforts at cost containment would come from artificial price controls, which would result in rationing -- most likely for the elderly. --The quality of socialized health care would not be improved as promised, but would necessarily deteriorate, as it has in all countries that have tried it and in our own government-run experiments of veterans care, Medicaid and Medicare. It's inescapably true -- as noted by Dr. Thomas Sowell -- that price controls would reduce quality care because they would reduce the incentive to provide quality. --Health care choices would not be expanded, but essentially eliminated, by government mandate. The White House isn't even denying it would force taxpayer-subsidized abortions.

The longer it takes to get this abomination through Congress, the more time people have to study it and learn about the points Limbaugh made in the above excerpt.

Socialized health care has been a disaster in every single country it has ever been tried in. So much so that countries like Great Britain and Switzerland had to bring back privatized care in order to achieve the universal coverage that was so woefully missing from their nationalized systems.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

More Health Care Lies
David Limbaugh
TownHall.com
July 21, 2009

Congressional Budget Office: Nationalized Health Care Will Increase Costs, Not Reduce Them

So, the CBO has finally admitted what we Conservatives have known for many, many years. Nationalized health care will be more expensive, not less expensive as promised by the leftist Dems.

From David Clarke and Edward Epstein of CQ Politics:

The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs facing the government, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said Thursday. That is not a message likely to sit well with congressional Democrats or the Obama administration ...

But, for a Democrat-controlled Congress that has engaged in more out-of-control spending than their Republican predecessors, why is this an issue?

Read on:

The Democrats and President Obama have cited two goals in their overhaul proposals — expanding coverage to the estimated 47 million Americans who currently lack it and bringing down long-term costs because the growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending threatens to swamp the federal budget in coming years. Under questioning from Chairman Kent Conrad , D-N.D., Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee that the congressional proposals released so far do not meet that second test. “In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount and, on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs,” he said

Welcome back to Planet Earth, Democrats.

Does anyone here think that drafting these bills behind closed door (thereby directly breaking the Dem promise of openness and transparancy) was a good idea?

You can access the complete article on-line here:

CBO Chief: Health Bills To Increase Federal Costs
David Clarke and Edward Epstein
CQ Politics
July 16, 2009

Blog Entry From Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MI)

As Congress readies itself to spend $300 million on golf carts as part of their multi-hundred-billion-dollar stimulus proposal, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has provided some very alarming numbers - and Congress should take heed. According to the CBO, in 2009 and 2010, 98% of the tax cuts in the Democrats' economic "stimulus" package will go into effect, providing for 1.4% growth in our nation's Gross Domestic Product in that time. However, the other 2% of the stimulus tax cuts will go into the economy between 2011 and 2019 - along with about half the spending in the package. The problem with this equation is that the $1.1-trillion price tag (which includes the interest on the total package), our increasing debt and our crowding out of private sector activity will drive down our Gross Domestic Product to .2% less than it is today, prior to the stimulus. So what you want to take away from these numbers is this: Spending $1.1 trillion today will result in a loss of 0.2% of our wealth tomorrow. (Check out the Graph) According to the peer-reviewed research and methodology of Dr. Christina Romer, the President’s head of the Council of Economic Advisors and the nation’s chief economist, The Republican Economic Recovery Plan creates twice the jobs at half the cost. Americans know that tax cuts are a better way to immediately stimulate the economy than wasteful government spending.

You can access this blog entry on-line here:

Spending Money Today To Lose Money Tomorrow
Michele Bachmann
TownHall.com
February 12, 2009