I am sorry to say that our President, Barack Obama, is once again being disingenuous in describing his healthcare plan. A plan which is ill-defined and leaves much of the detail to the whims of the Secretary of Health and Human Services and various other money-sucking bureaucracies that will be created along the way. Simply put, the President and members of Congress do not, at this present time, understand the legislation well enough to explain it to the American people, much less vote on it.

Remember, we are playing with fire: a current healthcare system which is used by the great majority of Americans each and every year – even those who are in this country illegally and will be covered under this new plan.

From the White House …

Remarks by the President on Healthcare: Children's Hospital Washington, D.C.

“I just had the opportunity to talk to doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants, and administrators at this extraordinary institution.”

I find it hard to believe that you could even have a substantive conversation about serious healthcare matters in the time allotted for this photo-opportunity. I also find it impossible to believe that you would or even could modify the proposed legislation in light of what you may have learned. This is like the Hillary Healthcare Listening Tour that turns a deaf ear to all but what lobbyists and the special interests are saying.

“We spoke about some of the strains on our health care system and some of the strains our health care system places on parents with sick children.”

The new legislation does little more than create an additional costly bureacracy, it does not increase the number of medical facilities, high-technology scanners, or physicians to meet the demand of the larger population of patients that would be created under the President’s proposal. This will eventually lead to the rationing and denial of healthcare to some segment of the population – far from what the public imagines the legislation to accomplish.

There will always be stains on the parents of sick children and the elderly – in fact any single-parent family that must earn a living while their child is undergoing treatment represents a strain of almost unbelievable proportions. And this legislation does little or nothing to alleviate that stress and strain.

“We spoke about the amount of time and money wasted on insurance-driven bureaucracy.”

This is ludicrous. The government inserted the insurance industry into the middle of Medicare and incentivized them to cut costs – which the insurance company often did by finding ways to deny care to premium-paying insured members. This legislation increases the bureaucracy, especially the federal bureacracy, far beyond what exists today. Truth be told, if we could isolate where the time and money is being wasted, it would have been sharply curtailed in order to improve the profitability of organizations providing health services and insure even larger executive bonuses.

“We spoke about the growing number of Americans who are uninsured and underinsured.”

This is a numbers game which hides a multitude of sins. First, counting illegal aliens who should not be eligible for healthcare other than on an emergency basis. Who is to say who is underinsured? The insurance companies and their lobbyists? The government pandering to a particular constituency?

“We spoke about what's wrong with a system where women can't always afford maternity care and parents can't afford checkups for their kids, and end up seeking treatment in emergency rooms like the ones here at Children's.”

I was unaware of the fact that maternity care and checkups were unavailable at county health facilities. What seems to be clogging the system is the number of illegal aliens hell-bent to have their multiple children on American soil at little or no cost. The same people who flood emergency rooms with sick, cranky children with colds, the flu and other minor maladies instead of waiting for community clinic openings. I have a great deal of sympathy for suffering children, not so much the illegal alien parents of multiple children who are clogging our facilities and running up the costs beyond reason.

“We spoke about the fact that it's very hard even for families who have health insurance to access primary care physicians and pediatricians.”

Could it be that there are a declining number of primary care physicians and pediatricians in favor of higher-paying specialties? Even in a nation that demands “instant access,” I am not aware of significant access issues in cities, maybe in rural areas, by not in cities. The problem with Obama’s healthcare initiative, other than its impracticability and costs, is that it  demands that everyone go from an equal access system to an equal results system. And nothing can deliver those sort of results other than socialized, government-controlled medicine.

“In a city like Washington, D.C., you've got all the doctors in one half of the city, very few doctors in the other half of the city.

How many doctors want to risk their lives treating patients in the worst areas of the city using outmoded and out-dated facilities? Human nature dictates otherwise.

“And part of that has to do with just the manner in which reimbursement is taking place and the disincentives for doctors, nurses, and physicians assistants in caring for those who are most in need.”

Excuse me! Isn’t the Congress in charge of the reimbursement rates for each locale and facility – as a perk of office that attracts voter support and campaign funding? As for disincentives, why would a highly skilled worker want to work in a crap-hole facility, treating difficult (to say the least) patients for minimal wages?

“And we spoke about where we're headed if we once again delay and defer health insurance reform.”

Perhaps we should speak of the tremendous damage that will be done the America’s healthcare system if this legislation passes and is signed into law?Perhaps we should speak of ever escalating costs which will eventually bankrupt the system and the nation much in the same manner that Social Security and Medicare costs have been handled? And perhaps we should speak of a system controlled by politicians and bureacrats rather than physicians?

These health care professionals are doing heroic work each and every day to save the lives of America's children. But they're being forced to fight through a system that works better for drug companies and insurance companies than for the American people that all these wonderful health professionals entered their profession to serve.

Is Obama blind and stupid? This is the system created by the government who pandered to the lobbyists and special interests. Who wrote the rules that permitted outrageous charges for durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs and breathing devices. Who allows waste, fraud and manipulation of the system to be answered with “slap on the wrist” fines. Who allows illegal aliens to plunder the system at will and offsets their care costs with increases to the legal American taxpayer.

“And over the past decade, premiums have doubled in America; out-of-pocket costs have shot up by a third; deductibles have continued to climb. And yet, even as America's families have been battered by spiraling health care costs, health insurance companies and their executives have reaped windfall profits from a broken system.”

I wonder if President Obama is smart enough to notice that the government has decimated the worth of our dollar, where day-by-day its purchasing power declines drastically thus forcing prices spiraling upward? Or that the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars into our financial system to drastically inflate prices upward? Or noticed that the government was mostly responsible for the real estate bubble which resulted in decimating the personal finances of all Americans?  Or notice a broken healthcare system that was created by government for the special interests and a system which promises to become even more burdensome under the Obama healthcare plan.

Ready, shoot, aim …

Once again the resolution of America’s broken healthcare system is being positioned as a national emergency. A national emergency which requires an immediate infusion of trillions of dollars without a basic plan, any substantive controls on the spending and without requiring results.

“Now, we've talked this problem to death, year after year. But unless we act -- and act now -- none of this will change. Just a quick statistic I heard about this hospital: Just a few years ago, there were approximately 50,000 people coming into the emergency room. Now they've got 85,000. There's been almost a doubling of emergency room care in a relatively short span of time, which is putting enormous strains on the system as a whole. That's the status quo, and it's only going to get worse.”

How many of the people treated were true emergencies? How many were illegal aliens? How many were maternity cases? How many were the result of gang violence in the nation’s capital which features some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation?

The truth emerges …

“If we do nothing, then families will spend more and more of their income for less and less care.”

This is true of our local, state and federal governments. As the number of bureaucratic employees increases – with their union wages, benefits and retirements – more and more money goes for less and less actual service. 

“The number of people who lose their insurance because they've lost or changed jobs will continue to grow.”

Jobs lost due to a government-mismanaged economy which was allowed to run rampant due to lobbyists and special interest legislation, not to mention the corruption and complacency of our nation’s regulatory agencies. If we wanted to remedy this situation immediately, we would demand the insurance companies compete on price, offer open enrollment and spread costs over larger employment pools.

“More children will be denied coverage on account of asthma or a heart condition. Jobs will be lost, take-home pay will be lower, businesses will shutter, and we will continue to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on insurance company boondoggles and inefficiencies that add to our financial burdens without making us any healthier.”

Complete and utter bullshit – the problem is of the government’s making and the present legislation portends a healthcare system which appears to be worse than the present one.

“So the need for reform is urgent and it is indisputable. No one denies that we're on an unsustainable path. We all know there are more efficient ways of doing it.”

This is true. But the question is simply: Is the Obama Plan the right plan at the right time with the right financial and medical safeguards. I say NO and I am not alone.

This is more packaged crapola …

“ We just -- I spoke to the chief information officer here at the hospital and he talked about some wonderful ways in which we could potentially gather up electronic medical records and information for every child not just that comes to this hospital but in the entire region, and how much money could be saved and how the health of these kids could be improved. But it requires an investment.

As one who is familiar with information processing and medical systems, I am here to tell you that the conversion of paper records to an electronic system and to provide the exchangeability of electronic records and  interoperability of systems is a difficult and costly process that will take years and will never return the results being sold to the American public. This is an enlargement of the government bureacracy and a “big brother” intrusion into personal privacy of historical proportions – all without unassailable safeguards.

Stating the obvious -- like the President’s party is not the cheerleader for these special interests …

“Now, there are some in this town who are content to perpetuate the status quo, are in fact fighting reform on behalf of powerful special interests. There are others who recognize the problem, but believe -- or perhaps, hope -- that we can put off the hard work of insurance reform for another day, another year, another decade.”

Sounds like the democrats who have screwed up Social Security, Medicare and Veteran’s Medical care. Why should the American public believe that they can be trusted now?

Faux bi-partisanship …

Just like TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program), the Stimulus Package, the Spending Package, the Climate Package and now the healthcare package – this is all democrat-driven legislation which features little or no input from the Republicans who represent 47% of the voting public.

Demonizing the opposition …

“Just the other day, one Republican senator said -- and I'm quoting him now -- "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Think about that. This isn't about me. This isn't about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America's families, breaking America's businesses, and breaking America's economy.

The above statement exposes a lie of Orwellian proportions. It is about the toxic and socialistic ideology of one Barack Obama and his efforts to enlarge government, raise taxes, curtail individual choice and freedoms, turn the government towards a European Socialist model – and, yes, damage the United States by destroying our businesses and fatally destroying our economy. Communism 101 – bleed them dry – into capitulation.

“And we can't afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care. Not this time. Not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake. There are too many families who will be crushed if insurance premiums continue to rise three times as fast as wages. There are too many businesses that will be forced to shed workers, scale back benefits, or drop coverage unless we get spiraling health care costs under control.”

Again, the truth is far different from Obama’s words. We cannot afford an ill-conceived, ill-defined and ill-executed plan than will bankrupt our nation while restricting healthcare to a much smaller segment of our population. Every condition mentioned by Obama is government caused and government controlled. We need to lower taxes, let the marketplace provide medical innovation. Reduce government intrusion into non-criminal matters.

I call “bullshit!”

“The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and inefficiencies [sic] to our health care system, and greater stability and security to America's families and businesses.”

President Obama is full of crap: competition will decrease and government intrusion and regulation increases. The Obama healthcare system will be manipulated to drive out the private healthcare providers until only one system, the Obama system, remains.

“ For the average American, it will mean lower costs, more options, and coverage you can count on. It will save you and your family money, if we have a more efficient health care system. You won't have to worry about being priced out of the market. You won't have to worry about one illness leading your family into financial ruin. You won't have to worry that you won't be able to afford treatment for a child who gets sick.”

When has the government ever delivered on a promise as broad as this? When has any government delivered on such a promise? This is pie in the sky – unachievable under a free market system that is being slowly strangled by the Obama-led democrat socialists. If you think you can trust your financial and healthcare to the government, I want you to consider the following: 

• Social Security
• Medicare
• Veteran’s Administration Medical Care
• Native American Medical Care

Why not start reforming our current system and reducing the size of the bureaucracy, improving the quality of care, eliminating waste and corruption and attempting to make what we have better instead of further muddying the waters with a hybrid system doomed to failure?

We can -- and we must -- make all these reforms, and we can do it in a way that does not add to our deficits over the next decade.

Can you say: big, fat lie!!!

“I've said this before. Let me repeat: The bill I sign must reflect my commitment and the commitment of Congress to slow the growth of health care costs over the long run. That's how we can ensure that health care reform strengthens our national -- our nation's fiscal health at the same time.”

Can you say: bullshit!

There is a large difference between “next to impossible” and “won’t be easy” …

“Now, we always knew that passing health care reform wouldn't be easy. We always knew that doing what is right would be hard. There's just a tendency towards inertia in this town. I understand that as well as anybody. But we're a country that chooses the harder right over the easier wrong. That's what we have to do this time. We have to do that once more.”

“So let's fight our way through the politics of the moment.”

The entire Obama Presidency and democrat reign of one-party terror is based on the “politics of the moment.” These people have no core values, will do or say anything to obtain and maintain power. And have openly said that they are willing to exploit any crisis to move their political ideology forward.

Oratorical flourishes – the big finish …

“Let's pass reform by the end of this year. Let's commit ourselves to delivering our country a better future -- and that future will be seen in a place like Children's Hospital, when young people are getting the care that they deserve and they need, when they need it, and we don't have an overcrowded emergency room just putting enormous burdens on this excellent institution. I think we can accomplish that, but we're going to have to do some work over the next few weeks and the next few months.”

Thank you very much everyone. (Applause.)

Bottom line …

Government intervention has resulted in creating problems where none exists – and preventing real-world solutions that may run counter to the interests of lobbyists and special interests. If the Obama Administration was serious about healthcare, let them clean up our Veteran’s Medical care to demonstrate their ability to turn-around a problematical system. Then and only then, let them take on larger projects. The key to success in the world is through a self-correcting phased implementation rather than an all-or-nothing trial run which has a high probability of failure and dire national consequences.

The only real solution …

-- steve

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OneCitizenSpeaking: Saying out loud what you may be thinking …

Reference Links:

The White House - Press Office - Remarks by the President on Health Care at Children's Hospital