Scare Tactics: Obama Says USA Will ‘Go Bankrupt’ if Senate Bill Not Passed

by Dana Loesch

You mean if we don’t add a trillion dollars to the deficit then the country will … go … bankrupt?

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Is it Opposite Day?

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”

So Medicare and Medicaid are about to go bust because the costs are making them unaffordable, yet Obama and Harry Reid wanted to lower the inclusion age for Medicare down to age 55 from age 65 and also reduce costs while claiming to not reduce the quality of care. What kind of math is this? Because it is AWESOME.

Actually, what isn’t awesome is that excise taxes, coupled with rationing limiting the availability of certain types and duration of care, is what (they hope! Fingers crossed!) will control costs.

If Obama and company are worried about cost all of a sudden, this must be why they immediately addressed tort reform in the bill, because, as the CBO said, doing so would save them $54 billion annually – but oh, NOPE, no tort reform. Surely, since the President and his fellow Democrats are so concerned about costs, they wouldn’t do anything reckless, like, say, shove through another trillion-dollar spending bill that includes a nice pay raise for federal workers.

Wrong again, they did that.

The Democratic party, respective to health care, is like a person who was sent into the store to purchase a gallon of milk and some butter for the evening’s meal and instead walked out with a “Gladiator” DVD, a can of Easy Cheese, and some Homer Simpson house slippers because HOW FUNNY ARE THEY?! Dems had a chance to really tackle that which is truly burdening our system and they dropped the ball. They went after insurance companies – businesses who are businesses because the last I checked, we lived in a capitalistic society – but protected the trial lawyers, the very people who drive up costs with oftentimes egregious lawsuits and make it more difficult for those who were truly affected by malpractice to receive justice. Sure, insurance companies aren’t without their their problems, but the lack of consistency costs the Democrats their validity.

Some people completely misunderstand the root of the problem within the context of preexisting conditions. An oldie but a goodie from Powerline:

You can’t buy insurance against something that has already happened. You can try to make someone else pay your bills, maybe, but you can’t buy insurance. The fact that that plaintiff’s building had burned down was a preexisting condition.

It’s no wonder that health insurance policies have historically excluded coverage for preexisting conditions. You can insure against the risk that you might get cancer, but if you already have cancer, it’s not a risk, it’s a certainty.

[...]

health insurance is conventionally linked to employment–the curse of our present system–creates huge distortions. If an employee changes jobs, the consequence may be a change in insurance companies. A condition that was covered under the old plan is preexisting from the standpoint of his new carrier. Unlike my plaintiff who regretted his decision not to buy insurance on his building, the employee who changes jobs is entirely blameless and didn’t set out to assume a risk.

The GOP tried to remedy this and were blocked by Democrats. From the Wall Street Journal, May, 2009:

Called the Patients’ Choice Act, it would eliminate the tax break that employers receive for providing health-insurance benefits to their workers. Instead, it would give an annual tax credit of $2,300 to each individual and $5,700 to each family that they could use to offset the cost of their health insurance. Low-income families would get extra money to buy into private insurance plans.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said the system of employer-based coverage is becoming “a 21st century relic” as companies become less generous with benefits.

Democrats instead chose to derail their entire scheme by hanging it up on things such as elective procedures like abortion, penalties for people who don’t “chose the right” of health care (note the irony of their “pro-choice” sentiment), cutting home health care and capping treatment to make their math (sort of) work.

Not passing Obamacare won’t bankrupt America; passing it will.

Perhaps Obama should direct his scare tactics at the very people who screwed up the chance to improve the health care system: his own party.

Related reading:

$10000 marriage penalty hidden in Obama-Reid “Health” Care Bill


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Posted Dec 16th 2009 at 5:01 pm in Healthcare, Obama | 166 Comments