Newsweek: Prospect of Obama Health Care Rationing a “Lie”
In the August 24 & 31, 2009 issue of Newsweek, Sharon Begley claims that there are many “lies” flying around about the Obama health care plan, partially because people are scared right now. She quotes a psychiatrist, Louann Brizendrine on the subject: “The brain is signaling ‘danger’ right now. Whenever that happens, the brain typically loses its logical reasoning power.”
Presumably then with her reasoning and logic unclouded by emotion, Ms. Begley exposes several “lies” about the health care bill in her article entitled, “Attack! The truth about Obamacare.”
Well then, I’m going to get illogical and dispute her expose on a couple of points.
Begley writes, “Opponents say bureaucrats will decide if it is worth treating you by somehow calculating the value of your life.
It’s not in any of the bills, but the rationing lie sticks because people who should know better keep repeating it” (end quote).
Irrational and emotional point number one: Just because rationing is not in any of the bills, does that eliminate the danger of rationing once government takes over health care?
Is it conceivable that the government could run into fiscal problems at some point in the future and start making cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and any government run health care program? Is it emotional and irrational to ask the question? (Maybe it’s even considered hateful.)
For a graphic illustration of how critical entitlements are to the national debt, please go to the bottom of this Webpage and notice the numbers under “US UNFUNDED LIABILITIES.” Compare the “LIABILITY PER CITIZEN” number with the number at the top center of the page, “DEBT PER CITIZEN.” As you can see by comparing these two numbers, our national debt is going to balloon exponentially and dangerously, unless drastic cuts are made to government entitlement programs.
Even the most liberal economists agree that there is a limit to how high the debt-to-Gross Domestic Product ratio can go before countries run into catastrophic problems. We are on that road. (Please see my last blog where this issue is discussed by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman and I give my analysis.)
Another “lie” Ms. Begley mentions is that the Obama health care plan “will cover illegal aliens.” She counters with, “(No illegals will be covered. But don’t worry: under today’s system, some of your insurance premiums do pay for their medical treatment, to the tune of $1 billion a year, because illegals are guaranteed emergency care in every state.)”
Irrational and emotional point number two: If, under our current health care system, illegal aliens are receiving health care paid for by part of our insurance premiums, how will that change when the government takes over? Does Obama plan on throwing illegal aliens out of emergency rooms on their ears? I doubt it.
Maybe she’s saying that the government will eat the extra cost of the illegals and not pass it on to health care consumers. If that’s the case, I’d like to know where she gets her confidence.
I don’t consider myself an ideologue against government managed health care. But I would like to see our government operating in a fiscally responsible way before even considering socializing our health care system. In addition, I strongly believe our elected officials should read the health care bill before voting on it. Is there such a hurry to pass this thing that we can’t read it? If Begley sees these views as fearful, illogical and emotional, then I find that opinion very interesting.
From Michigan, here’s one congressman’s opinion on reading the health care bill.
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Buried News of the Week
Prominent banking analyst foresees 150-200 more bank failures
August 26th, 2009 at 11:29 am
You say you don’t believe the government is fiscally secure enough to support socialized health care, or that you would want them to be more financially solid before even considering it. However, won’t the government always be in debt to some degree? When does the amount of debt become secure enough for you to believe that socialized health care can be discussed? I would much rather the government spend money on socializing health care than on something like continuing to be in Iraq. I can barely afford to pay for health care, and I have insurance. Something needs to be done to ease the pain of people spending almost their entire paychecks on health insurance and then still not being able to pay their medical bills! I think socialized health care could very well be a solution to this problem.
September 1st, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I’m not an expert in this area, so I’ll defer to the economist Paul Krugman, who claims that debt-to-Gross Domestic Product ratios of up to about 85% are sustainable for this country. We’re well below that at about 45%, but as I’ve said, entitlements and spiraling budget deficits are going to kill us.
Check out this chart of the national debt, adjusted for inflation using 2000 dollars.
http://bipartreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/national-debt-chart.jpg
I believe that our debt levels could potentially reach 100-300% of our Gross Domestic Product. This could be a disaster.
When the U.S. gov’t is already on the road to stiffing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, is starting another entitlement program a good idea?
I agree that our current health care situation has some problems but let’s make sure we have a plan in place to fund existing entitlement programs before starting another one.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:29 am
If Obama really wanted health reform he would allow the sale of insurance across state lines. America doesn’t need another broken system. Goverment knows nothing about running health care or medicare would not be in the shape it is in