|
What do you think about ObamaCare?
This vote could change the entire country, according to The Wall Street Journal
With the House’s climactic vote on ObamaCare tomorrow, Democrats are on the cusp of a profound and historic mistake, comparable in our view to the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act. Everyone is preoccupied now with the politics, but ultimately at stake on Sunday is the kind of country America will be.
The consequences of this bill will not only be destructive for the health-care system and the country’s fiscal condition, though those will be bad enough. Inextricably bound up in a plan as far-reaching and ambitious as ObamaCare are also larger questions about the role of government, the dynamism of American enterprise and the nature of a free society. Above anything else, this explains why Democrats have had such trouble convincing the public, let alone their own Members.
Once the health-care markets are put through Mr. Obama’s de facto nationalization, costs will further explode. The Congressional Budget Office estimates ObamaCare will cost taxpayers $200 billion per year when fully implemented and grow annually at 8%, even under low-ball assumptions. Soon the public will reach its taxing limit, and then something will have to give on the care side. In short, medicine will be rationed by politics, no doubt with the same subtlety and wisdom as Congress’s final madcap dash toward 216 votes.
As in the Western European and Canadian welfare states, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies will over time become public utilities. Government will set the cost-minded priorities and determine what kinds of treatment options patients are allowed to receive. Medicare’s price controls will be exported to the remnants of the private sector.
Eventually, quality and choice—the best attributes of American medicine in spite of its dysfunctions—will severely decline.
So a vote for ObamaCare is also a vote against the vitality of American capitalism. Business elites have mostly held their tongues, or calculated that they can later dump their health-care liabilities on the government. Yet ObamaCare will lead to much higher levels of taxation across society. The tax wedge—the share of labor costs that never reaches workers but instead goes straight to government—will start flying towards the 50% that prevails today in most of Europe. In America, without the same welfare state obligations, it hovers near 30%.
You know, after reviewing this bill summary, it is still basically the same, very expensive system you have now with a few new bandages. It’s not even a baby step towards a Canadian or Australian style social health plan…. or any of the many successful models out there from which you could have picked and chose. You had a chance to be great… to have a medical system of worldwide envy… but with all the selfishness and destructive bickering that goes on in your country, this blog being a good cross section, it’s no wonder that you’re stuck in neutral… on a decline… with poor brakes. It’s just bizarre to watch… like an SNL skit of a Mad TV skit guest starring Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin.
#67 Cris — well, what suggestions do you have for providing health care for the 32 million (so you say) that don’t have it? I thought so. Nice try.
Sure, blame it on DU and not the Wall Street Journal. Adios, I guess we won’t miss you for all that valuable input you’ve provided.
No, I don’t have health insurance, I can’t afford it.
Haha, this bill doesn’t reform anything, it just forces people to buy insurance, which will cost more because underwriting will be mostly outlawed. Good thing they are forcing all the healthy people to buy in too, because normally, under an adverse selection model, when all the unhealthy people jump on board these plans, driving prices up, the healthy people would just choose to go without, and the whole thing would eventually collapse.
The other thing that makes no sense is how we say that having medical insurance provided by employers decreases mobility as people stay in jobs they hate to not lose insurance, and yet this bill cements the erroneous notion that it is somehow the employers’ obligation to provide insurance.
Complete bull. Nothing will substantially change, other than people who need basic healthcare and currently can’t get it will be able to. And those of us that pay ridiculous premiums or deal with hundreds of obtuse stipulations can relax a bit as the bastard insurers finally get their nuts pulled hard.
We have to have this, otherwise health care continues to be the drain on our economy that it is.
Not to mention, if folks hate this idea SO much, they will be glad to sign away their medicare/medicade now, right? No medical care for your retirement, because you feel so strongly about “government” involvement.
I’m waiting for the signatures to rain in.
# 56 Bob
Then if it is not the government’s job to help with health care, then should they stop the Medicare and Medicaid programs? Should they stop testing for diseases? Should they stop keeping the water clean? Should they stop any transportation control? So they stop setting time standards? Should they stop testing drugs? Should they not test your food? Should they disband the Armed Forces and let YOU do it?
If you take anything from the government then STOP!
They are all bad and controlling people that want you to live in their “pinko-commie” world. Have fun digging your well, importing seeds from another nation (As no doubt there is the Department of Agriculture that regulates those) and then importing your own livestock. Building a new house, building your own car and building your own solar and windfarm.
And good luck with driving on your own privately built roads. Hope you work from home because they won’t go to your place of business anytime soon.
What a great life you will have free from those evil old government types.
Cursor_
300 monkeys in a cage, TRYING to decide whats RIGHT for you..
LMAO..
I place little trust in articles written in the WSJ since Rhupert bought it. Anther FOX news channel.
Well, I see that the end of America is here, the health care bill passed the House. Makes me want to move to La Jolla de Mismaloya south of Puerta Vallarta or San Miguel de Allende. If you voted for this moran for president, I hope you don’t care about keeping your money or your health.
I’ll keep my money, you can keep the change.
Thanks, #73, ECA.
#56, In short, liberty dies with the passage of this bill.
Thank you. It’s a nightmare, goodbye liberty, hello IRS on a monthly basis.
“In short, liberty dies with the passage of this bill.”
I also agree with this statement.