The Party of “Choice”
In 1993, the Hillary Clinton secret committee-created healthcare plan hit the street and was unveiled to Congress. It severely restricted everything related to healthcare – it mandated employer participation, it restricted which doctor a patient could see, how much doctors could charge for treatment, it even regulated who could be what type of doctor. Even longtime liberal, the late Pat Moynihan said “anyone who thinks [the Clinton health care plan] can work in the real world as presently written isn’t living in it.” No one had choices anymore.
Well, the Democrats apparently haven’t learned anything. According to Associated Press, John Edwards even wants to take away your choice to schedule appointments;
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.
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“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”
Sounds nice doesn’t it? Unfortunately, Edwards doesn’t explain what would happen if you don’t make your scheduled check ups. Having some experience with the government, when they mention “require”, there’s usually negative reinforcement involved. I wonder what Edwards “incentive” would be – probably forfeiture of your healthcare. Then we’d be right back where we started, huh?
But the best part is the cost and how Edwards plans to pay for it;
Edwards said his plan would cost up to $120 billion a year, a cost he proposes covering by ending President Bush’s tax cuts to people who make more than $200,000 per year.
According to the 2005 tax revenues, he’d have to raise revenue 25% from people making over $200k to get an extra $120 bil. Guess that won’t affect the rest of us will it? And I guess it plays well to small-minded people who think that people who make over $200k should pay for all of our stuff we don’t want to pay for.
And I don’t know where he gets the $120 billion number – that’s $400 per person. Unless, of course, universal health care isn’t going to be very universal.
The Federal Government has done such a fine job with the Ponzi Scheme known as Social Security, now the same party wishes to force this Federally run health care system on us.
If most Americans knew the truth about what this “universal health care” really looked like, they would reject it out of hand and toss any politician who supports it.
Maybe even crucify a pandering media for good measure for soft-coating the details.
Waiting lines, penalties, more government greed, graft, and corruption.
And that’s BEFORE you ever see a doctor.
Incentives for medical professionals? Watch ’em go bye-bye, resulting in a shortage of doctors, adding to the critical shortage of nurses that already exists.
Never mind the support technicians.
I will concede that HMO’s and Health Plans and the insurers have a lot of work to do to clear up the insurance system. Making the whole system federally run is certainly NOT the answer.