In the wake of President Obama’s speech Wednesday night, I have stopped and reflected on the words and substance of his address to the joint session of congress. My initial reaction was that he was back on the campaign trail running for office again. He is a good speaker, maybe even a great one when he attempts to move the crowd. The problem was that when you strip away the platitudes and the rhetoric, what are you left with?
The essence of the speech was that we have to reform healthcare or else….
Well, for those who have been without health insurance, as I myself have been on occasion, I can certainly sympathize. But the bottom line is that the republic will not collapse if the status quo continues. But if this bill, HR 3200 does make it to the President’s desk for approval, we may very well hasten the bankruptcy of the country, and disrupt permanently, what is arguable the best healthcare delivery system in the world.
This is not rhetoric, it is fact.
Keep in mind these 2 indisputable facts:
1. Congress just raised the national debt ceiling to 12 TRILLION dollars this week
(that’s 12,000 BILLION dollars…) If you need a visual, it would be enough dollar bills to reach the moon and back over two and a quarter times if you laid the bills end to end…
2. The Obama Administration and the Democratic controlled congress have spent over 1.38 Trillion dollars since January, 2009. That is 4 times what the previous administration spent in its last year in office.
The President said on Thursday, the day after his address, at his cabinet meeting that the status quo could NOT be maintained and we had to do something because so many Americans were going bankrupt and that people were dying for lack of care. Well Mr. President, that may happen from time to time to a few, and yes, it is tragic when it happens, but ultimately, if you destroy the economy of the country, if you set up a system that bankrupts the entire nation trying to provide services to everyone, we are all in a great deal more trouble than those unfortunate few.
But let us not focus just on that one point. Let us look at what is known to be in the actual bill and look at what is on the record, from the Presidents own statements.
The first thing that I would like to make note of was the numbers of uninsured or under insures people the President said would be covered. We have heard repeatedly from the administration and from the congressional leadership that there were 45-47 million people needing help. Inexplicably, last night the number dropped to 30 million…. How did that happen? Where did 15-17 million people go? Perhaps he removed the illegal aliens from the mix? OK, I am fine with that… But why were illegal aliens in the computation in the first place? Why was the higher figure bandied about as gospel? He stated categorically that illegal aliens were not going to be covered by his program. If that is the truth, then why were they a computed factor before? Were they going to be covered prior to his speech last night? Who was lying to whom about this?
The Congressional Research Service published a report in August 25, 2009 that outlined the coverage of illegal aliens in HR 3200. According to the report:
“ H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitizens participating in the exchanges whether the noncitizens are legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently.”
So in effect, the President did lied…… Big surprise there, right?
Another point that needs to be made is that on 2 occasions, attempts were made by Republicans to put in specific language that would specifically bar illegal aliens from getting taxpayer assistance in acquiring healthcare. One well known attempt was by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, who tried to introduce an amendment that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama. The House Ways and Means Committee defeated the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan. Incidentally, he also put in for an amendment that would require Congressional members and their staffs and other government employee to be made part of this plan, but the Democrats on the committee struck that down as well. What is good enough for us is evidentially not good enough for them.
So much for principle of bipartisanship…
So much for equal protection under the law…
Then there is the really shaky economics of this program, which will, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency of Congress, cost the taxpayers an estimated 1 TRILLION dollars to help an estimated 45 million people (or is it 30 million…). According to the President, he would not sign a bill that added “one dime to the federal deficit”. Well, I believe he believes that. And because I believe he believes that, he is the most dangerously ignorant individual to occupy the office of President in a very long time. He seems not to have a clue as to how the real world works or any concept of business, economics or human nature. One thing is certain, he may be a great community organizer, but he’s a lousy mathematician.
He stated that that he would fund most of this program from savings from reductions in waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid; Most of it… meaning more than 50% of it, or more than 500 billion dollars using the C.B.O. numbers.
Well, isn’t that great! I can’t wait……
Wait a minute…. Why haven’t they made these sorts of efficiencies before? Why is there so much waste, fraud and abuse in those programs now? Why hasn’t Congress or the administration dealt with this already? Is there over half a Trillion dollars in savings that can be had from cutting waste, fraud and abuse from Medicare and Medicaid; to be transferred from those programs? If there is that much inefficiency, that much waste and fraud in those programs, why on earth would we trust Obama and his sycophants in congress to start up a whole new and ruinously expensive program to deal with less than 10% of the population (by his new, revised numbers) and that in effect puts major controls on 16% of the national economy? It is utterly incomprehensible how anyone could honestly look at this plan, read it and do the basic math and see anything but disaster for the nation.
I have an idea…
Why don’t the powers that be prove their contention that they can do all they say they can. Let’s see if they can come up with the monies they say they can BEFORE they pass this egregious piece if legislative pap. Let them prove to all of us on both sides of the political spectrum that economies to existing government programs can be made without cutting services to Medicare or Medicaid and that there won’t be a drop in service quality. Let them show the fiscal and administrative chops to make these 2 programs run the way they should have been all along BEFORE they get their hands on the system the rest of us depend on? It is truly unbelievable that Obama and his minions are pushing this when they haven’t demonstrated an ability to deliver on any aspect needed to fund this program without busting the budget. Let them prove their competency. Lets see if there is any credence to anything they say.
Wake up, ladies and gentlemen……
Our leadership is in cloud cuckoo land.
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