President Obama’s health care reform bill (HR 3200) is the most radical health care reform bill in U.S. history.  There are three major serious problems with this bill:  a) The cost, 1.6 trillion dollars for the first 10 years, b) it will kill private insurance and c) it will transfer control of your health care to the government.  I will present facts to back up these claims by pointing you to the specific sections of the bill that call for these drastic measures and finally I will present common sense solutions. 

No one argues that we need health care reform, but is President Obama’s solution the right one?  No, it is not.  First of all the high cost.  The President and the Democrats have yet to tell us how they’re going to fund this bill.  They’ve given us partial answers.  One partial answer is that approximately ½ of the funding for the bill is to be taken from Medicare and Medicaid in which 10.5 million seniors are now enrolled. Second, the CBO estimates that the 1.6 Trillion cost will still leave 36 million uninsured.  We know from experience that health care costs always have a tendency to rise rapidly. As an example, the House Ways & Means Committee in 1967 estimated that Medicare would cost $12 Billion in 1990.  The actual cost was $110 Billion. 

In a private study done by two Harvard Medical School professors, Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmeistein, published in the July/August 2002 issue of “Health Affairs” titled “Paying for National Health Insurance – and Not Getting It,” tax-financed government expenditures as a percentage of total health care expenditures rose from 11.4% in 1965 to 31.8% in 1999. 

In a “Barron’s” article of 7/29/09 titled “The Massachusetts Mess” three years after enacting universal health care the Massachusetts Governor ordered a stop to auto enrollment of low-income people to the public option because the State cannot afford it.  Boston Medical Center this year will operate at a $38 million loss and expects a $100 million loss next year.  The reason for the loss:  State price fixing. 

President Obama keeps making the claim that the reason he is in such a hurry to pass health care is that there are 48 million uninsured in the U.S.  However, this figure is misleading.  Of the 48 million:

            - 15 million earn $60,000 per year and can afford it but choose not to buy.

            - 11 million are in between jobs

            - 12 million are illegal aliens

            - 10 million are eligible for existing programs but not enrolled. 

The following is a detailed summary analysis of the scary parts of HR 3200 analyzed by Matt Staver, Dean Liberty University Law School: 

HR 3200 will kill private insurance by not letting any new policies be written after the Public Option becomes law (p. 16), 

Government commission will decide what treatments you get (p.30), 

Illegal aliens will get free health care (p.50), 

Government will have access to bank accounts (p.59), 

Government will pay ACORN and AmericaCorps to sing-up individuals for government health care (p.95), 

No private company can challenge government for price fixing (p.124), 

Any employer with a payroll of $400K or over will pay8% penalty on payroll for not providing he Public Option (p. 149, Lines 16-24), 

Doctors will be paid the same no matter the specialty (p. 241), 

Doctors cannot own or invest in health care companies (p. 317), 

Government to provide end of life counseling; among required counseling it states:  “such consultation SHALL include an explanation of end of life services (p.425), 

Government mandates end of life program treatment (p. 427 and 430, lines 11-15), 

Government provides for taxpayer-funded abortion on demand (p. 771-72), 

Employers must automatically enroll employees into Public Option (p. 145, lines 15-17), 

Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plan (Part B) HMOs, etc., forcing people into the Public Option (p. 341, lines 3-9), 

Government will restrict enrollment of special needs people (p. 354, Sec 1117), 

Attorney General will have access to all HHS data for law enforcement purposes (p. 735, Lines 6-25), 

Government will decide which health care conditions will be paid (p.801, Sec 1751), 

Government will penalize hospitals for what they deem preventable re-admissions (p. 280, Sec 1151), 

Government will design a home visitation program for families with young kids and those expecting kids (p. 838-40), 

You cannot enroll in private health insurance after the start of the Public Option (p. 15-16), 

Proposed Solutions that make sense

• Stan Katten, former RAND Corp. Analyst 

 Standardize minimum insurance coverage among all states and make it fully transferable,

 Tort reform,

 Expand HMO-managed Medicare Advantage programs,

 Expand health saving accounts and make available Catastrophic Care Insurance,

 Computerize records,

 Make all health care costs fully tax-deductible,

•   Charles Krauthammer MD, Syndicated Columnist, Washington Post 

 Strip current inefficiencies,

 Tort reform.  A study found that 5 of 6 doctors admitted ordering test solely as protection.  Such tests have been found to cost 25% of all costs.  This would save about 200 Billion per year,

 Abolish malpractice system and create a new pool from which people injured in medical errors can draw from.  A board of medical experts would adjudicate this,

 Tax employer provided health care benefits and return money to employee with a government check to buy his or her own medical insurance like car and home insurance,

 Eliminate law prohibiting buying medical insurance across state liens,

•     John Mackey, Whole Foods Alternative 

 Remove legal obstacles that slow the creation of high deductible health plan and health savings accounts,

 Equalize tax laws so that employer provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits,

 Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines,

 Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover,

 Tort reform.

•    GOP Health Solutions “Patients Choice Act” 

 Leave in place tax deductions companies receive for providing health insurance and create a Medi-Choice tax rebate that will give individuals $2,200 and families $5,700 to spend on health insurance,

 Give families who purchase their own insurance a tax benefit similar to one companies get for providing health benefits,

 Pass medical liability reform that will reduce costly junk suits,

 Step-up efforts to detect and punish Medicare and Medicaid fraud which costs an estimated $60 Billion per year,

 Allow Americans to buy insurance across state lines,

A free market is crucial to the advance of medicine.  Why is America the world leader in medicine?  When a rich Muslim sheik from Saudi Arabia or anyone, for that matter, anywhere in the world, needs life-saving surgery, where do they go?  Do they go to Iran, India, Indonesia or even Europe?  No, they come to the United States.  When the Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, earlier this year needed cancer treatment, did he go to the best hospital in Italy, or Europe?  No, he went to the Cleveland Clinic, one of the best places in the United States to get treatment.  Has it ever occurred to anyone why the world comes to America, not just for jobs or economic opportunity, but also for heath care?  The answer is very simple – America is the world leader in health care, and medicine in general.  Why America?  Why not Europe? Or the Middle East or Asia?  As I write this, I’ve found a column written by Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of Washington DC on Townhall.com titled “Above All do no Harm,” which recounts a personal horror story, as well as stories of other people from around the world who flock to America to solve their health problems. 

Most of us Americans take it for granted that we get great medical treatment.  We complain that we have some problems with our system, but forget where the world looks to when it comes to medical innovation.  Now, I agree that our system of delivering medical care can and should be improved.  What I passionately disagree with is President Obama’s cure.  Why?  Simple – his cure is to make health care resemble European health care, a socialist model of health care which has proven to be a failure; don’t just take my word for this, just ask any Englishman, Canadian or European who has to wait for years for life-saving surgery.   Obamacare is literally terrifying most Americans.  Peggy Noonan, in a Wall Street Journal today, recounts how this is terrifying them.  There are countless solutions to the problem.  I want to suggest three here: 

First, a free market economy works the best.  Just look at all the world economies; which ones are more successful?  A free market like the U.S. market or, say, the Venezuelan model, or the Chinese model, or any socialist model.  The strongest economies have always been free market economies.  Likewise, if you want a health care system to work, it should be a free market system, not a socialist health care system as Obamacare.  President Obama has stated that all he wants is for a government plan to compete with private plans.  What he fails to tell you, though is that his plan insures that the private plans will disappear as fast as a magician’s snapping of his fingers.  You see Obama’s plan tells you that “if you like your private plan you can keep it.”  This is a flat out falsehood; it contradicts the provisions of his bill.  According to Obamacare, if you have a private plan which you want to keep, and should your employer later on decide that he cannot afford to continue your plan, the employer can elect to stop providing your plan because it could be cheaper for him to pay the government penalty for not providing your private plan.  In this scenario, you then, would have to take the government plan because you will not be eligible for another private plan, or that a private plan is so much more expensive that it is cost prohibitive to you.  This is the typical bait and switch trick that Obamacare is not telling you about. 

Second, the socialist health plans such as those in Canada or in Europe have been able to survive mostly on the shoulders of American medical innovation and expertise.  What I mean by this is that the rest of the world mainly depends on the innovation and leading edge expertise of American medicine.  So, Europeans and Canadians do not have to spend the tons of dollars that it takes for research, just as the Europeans leave most of their military defense to the United States.  Europe, for instance, does not need to have a large military or spend extensively for military needs because they know that in case of trouble, the American cavalry is ready to go rescue them at a moments notice, just like America rescued, France, England and Russia in World War I and II, or Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq recently.  Socialist systems can depend on American innovation and medical expertise to provide the latest techniques in medical care, so they can afford to have a socialist health care system, even though they pay enormous amounts of taxes.  Once the American system is transformed to a socialist health care system such as the European and Canadian model, medical innovation and progress will screech to a halt and we will become just another third world medical system. 

Third, what is the best way to improve American health care?  When you go see your doctor for a problem, he looks to see what is causing it and attacks the problem.  What Obama wants to do is get rid of the baby with the bath water.  He is not looking to fix what ails the health care system he wants to replace the entire system, the good and the bad with an even worse solution – socialized health care. How about fixing the bad rules that impede the delivery of good and cheap health care such as eliminating the rule that insurance companies cannot insure across state lines?  What about looking at the parts that are not working well?  When my water pump fails on my car I replace the pump with a new one, I don’t get rid of the entire car.  Oh well this makes too much sense for the left, after all, their main goal is equality for all, even if we drive everybody to poverty, as long as we’re all poor together. 

I’ve left out many more reasons in the interest of space here.  One other huge reason is the huge cost – It is estimated that Obamacare will cost 1.6 Trillion dollars in the first 10 years.  As you are aware, these estimates are always way too low.  As an example, when Medicare was started in the mid 60s, they estimated that it would cost 12 Billion by 1990.  The actual cost in 1990 was 110 Billion, just a slightly higher amount, only 10 times higher.  Bottom line:  You cannot and must not trust the government with your health care.