FixHealthCarePolicy

If You Like Bureaucracy And Red Tape, Then You’ll Love The Health Care Bill

Time and time again, congressional leaders have denied that the proposed health care legislation would result in a federal takeover of health care. Proponents of Obamacare claim that consumers would retain personal choice in selecting health plans and physicians. For example, consider President Obama’s comments at a Raleigh, NC town-hall meeting on July 29, 2009: “Nobody is talking about some government takeover of health care. I’m tired of hearing that…Under the plan I’ve proposed…if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan.”

The President and Congressional leaders fail to mention that, under the House and Senate bills, the federal government would determine the kind of health plans Americans get— the kinds of insurance Americans would get, the level of coverage they can receive, and the premiums, co-payments and taxes they would pay. It even mandates that all individuals purchase a government-defined level of health insurance coverage, regardless of their personal wants or needs. (more…)

Tags: bureaucracy, House Bill, ObamaCare, President Barack Obama, Senate Bill, townhall meeting

Press Coverage of Townhall Protests Not the Same as Protests in 2002

A FoxNews.com piece by Bill Sammon provides an enlightening analysis of press coverage of the current townhall protests and protests in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2002.

“News outlets that are focusing on the incendiary rhetoric of conservatives outside President Obama’s town hall meeting Tuesday ignored the incendiary rhetoric — and even violence — of liberals outside an appearance by former President George W. Bush in 2002,” Sammon says in his article.

He details that protesters of the Iraq War in one instance bullied a wheelchair-bound grandfather with multiple sclerosis, slashed car tires, had altercations with police officers and brandished signs with incendiary rhetoric.

But Sammon notes the mainstream media did not report this protest as “increasingly ugly scenes of partisan screaming matches, scuffles, threats and even arrests,” as The New York Times did in a recent article about those at the townhall meetings regarding health care reform.

Tags: incendiary rhetoric, mainstream media, townhall meeting

Obama’s Single-Payer Comments Questioned

President Obama’s comments at a townhall meeting yesterday about not supporting a single-payer system are drawing fire from all sides of the ideological spectrum. President Obama said, “I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter.”

The Foundry’s Conn Carroll notes:

“This is directly contradicted by candidate Barack Obama’s own websitewhich quotes Obama at a rally in Ames, Iowa form 2008: ‘If I were designing a system from scratch I would probably set up a single-payer system. … So what I believe is we should set up a series of choices….Over time it may be that we end up transitioning to such a system.’ So there you have in one paragraph the true purpose of Obama’s public option: a vehicle to slowly transition all Americans out of private coverage and into a government-run single payer health care system. This Trojan Horse view of the public option has been reaffirmed by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.”

(See a side-by-side video comparison of Obama’s single-payer statements here).

Meanwhile, David Sirota with the liberal blog Open Left had this to say of Obama’s claim in Portsmouth, New Hampshire yesterday:

“Obama has never really offered up an explanation for his about face on single payer, other than implying that it’s not politically realistic now – even though, again, back in 2003, he said it would be politically realistic when Democrats obtained the presidency and Congress.

Let me repeat: I’m really supportive of Obama’s health care efforts right now. But I’ll never – ever – be supportive of any president lying and/or not at least explaining their broken promises.”

Tags: President Obama, single-payer system, townhall meeting