Sunday, July 26, 2009

CNN Realizes "Hey, ObamaCare Isn't That Great"

Now here is an amazing realization. The opening portion for CNN Money's article about the 5 key freedoms you'll lose with ObamaCare (Emphasis mine);

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.

If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.
ObamaCare is the epitome of a government run program. Make everything as equal as possible in as many aspects as possible. Charge the same for everyone, use the same treatment for every case of Disease X, use the same physician for everyone, etc... And as they state it is a revolution in the wrong direction

On top of that, Obama and Democrats continue to make the claim that you'll be able to keep your private coverage for as long as you want. Currently there are some 160 Million Americans who currently get their insurance through the company they work for. Their employer (Unless self insured) get their insurance through a private insurance company. That private insurance company is in business to make a profit. There is a specific amount of money that the HAVE to charge in order to break even.

Insert "Public Plan" which will likely be subsidized by the government. This means that they can charge LESS than the break even point, by A LOT (25-40% lower), but because it is subsidized, what ever money it loses, gets made up through either higher taxes or more than likely the selling of U.S. Treasuries (Adding more to the national debt).

Even self insured companies are going to see that the people who work for them can pay less and get the same coverage with the Public Plan, and will stop insuring their employees, and switch them over to the Public Plan.

My question to Dems and Obama is, "How do you expect private companies to compete against a plan that is allowed to perform at a loss? Do you truly believe that the Public Plan will not eliminate Private Insurance without the same subsidies that the Public Plan is covered under, and will you not include those same subsidies to the Private Plans in order to level the playing field?"

If CNN even begins to jump ship on this plan, there is definitely something wrong with it. Now if MSNBC comes out and states "This thing is garbage," then I think I'll have to start betting on the Snowball.

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