Dean on Obama’s perfect health care plan

Christina Bellantoni of the Washington Times interviewed Howard Dean about the President’s health care program. Of course, Howard Dean took the opportunity to belittle and threaten Republican opponents:

Mr. Dean said “Democrats can’t cave” on Mr. Obama’s plan, which he called “perfect.”

“Not every Republican is a right-wing ideologue,” Mr. Dean said in an interview Monday.

“They called Medicare socialized medicine,” he said. “If they want to filibuster this to death, be my guest and let’s see how they do in 2010.”

Yeah, who do they think they are to call socialized medicine by that name? It’s working Americans paying for health care for Americans who for some reason or another don’t pay for their own health care. What else would it be called?

And “perfect”? How is anything perfect? That statement alone should make his intentions suspect in the minds of most Americans.

The Dean makes an even more absurd statement:

He said Medicare for all would be a good solution since “people like it,” and “it works.”

“It’s ridiculous to say care would be inferior,” said Mr. Dean, who was a family practice physician in Vermont and later the state’s governor. “It’s perfectly good for the millions and millions of people over 65 in this country.”

Yeah, he should ask people over 65 in this country how they like Medicare. I did. I asked my mother who is 73 years old and her husband who is eighty what she thinks of it. She says she couldn’t afford the Medicare Part B that the government tried to shove down her throat, so she found a private supplement that is cheaper and more flexible. See, she contributed her whole life to Medicare, and then when it came time to use it, she had to pay more. And in order to afford what the government had told her would be free, she had to turn to private insurance so they could continue to live on the sparse income they get from Social Security.

I get my health care from the Army – I earned it, but it’s still government health care. Bill Clinton decided to save money on military health care and began charging us for what we’d been told would be free while we were earning the right to it – fulfilling our end of the bargain. Even now, Congress is discussing whether they want to put caps on our health care, raise our co-pays and being more selective about who gets to participate. Active duty service members used to get dental treatment free, until Congress changed their collective mind and forced an inadequate, expensive dental insurance on families.

Those are the two heath care programs that Congress administrates now – when costs exceed their projections (read that campaign promises) they get to change their minds. And it’s difficult to plan for your future when you’re trying to hit a moving target.

Dean goes on about “Baby College” which is a program which “encourages” parents to stay involved in their young children’s lives;

The “Baby College” idea encourages poor families to attend parenting groups to learn basic skills like reading to children, keeping fathers engaged and in some cases offering adult literacy courses.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’ll be “encouraged”. We know how the government “encourages” us to pay taxes. After poor participation, there’ll be an enforcement policy, and an agency to administer enforcement. Then it’ll be perfect.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Liberals suck, Politics, Society, Usual Suspects