Secondhand Smokette (aka Debra J. Saunders) has a good column out today that makes some strong points about Obama’s pitch for health care reform. Essentially, she writes, he’s trying to sell the voters on the ridiculous notion that more people will get better care without extra cost. From her column:
What shocks me is how smart people actually buy into the notion that the administration can expand health coverage and that it will not - indeed, should not - cost most taxpayers a dime. As Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew Altman wrote, “Our polls show that most Americans (60 percent) think that if policymakers made the right moves they could cover the cost of health care reform without spending new money, which is not true.”
Or try this from David Koitz of the nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group the Concord Coalition: “Standing alone, expanded insurance coverage means expanding access to health care and that will likely increase health spending overall. The efforts in Massachusetts mandating that its citizens have health insurance show that simply expanding the availability of insurance does not contain costs. If anything the evidence from its brief existence suggests the opposite. Over the past year, the state has had to raise taxes and fees to keep the new program afloat, and government and industry officials believe the program will not survive over the next five to 10 years if major actions are not taken to slow the state’s health care spending.”
Feel free to reread that quote, and you will see the wisdom in Washington taking its time to pass what Obama calls health care “reform.”Everything I’ve seen so far suggests that the package is too good to be true.
That’s not the least of its problems from my perspective. But let’s not rehash that here. The point is that Obama is not being straight with the American people, which is to say, he is disrespecting us. Debra puts it this way:
The larger issue is that American voters should feel insulted that their president apparently thinks they are so gullible as to believe that there is a health care free lunch. Also, his administration will know what is better for you than your doctor.
P.T. Barnum once famously said that there is a sucker born every minute. Let us hope that when it comes to this albatross, Barnum was wrong.
