Healthcare and the President’s 30th speech on the subject

As many Americans did, I watched the President deliver his touted speech to members of Congress and the country Sept. 9th. It was an eloquent and masterful composition of ideas on improving the healthcare system. No one has ever doubted both the need for healthcare reform and the eloquence of the 44th leader of our country.

Cleverly drawing from ideas of Sen. McCain, and implying his outreach for compromise with Republicans in Congress, and promising competition in the private health insurance field, was there anything new in his 30th speech on the subject?

Sadly, no.

Just an unusual outburst after Obama stated: "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."

"You lie!" Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted from his seat on the Republican side of the chamber. Apology offered and accepted. Racial implications? Crazy. Apologize to the House? Crazier.

If you’ve ever watched the non-stop outbursts from MPs when the House of Commons meets with the Prime Minister in Britain, our presidential addresses to both houses of Congress seem like sermons in places of worship…no dialogue allowed.

However, was the President totally truthful in his speech?

Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants; the House bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally. Conservative critics complain that the bill lacks an enforcement mechanism, but that hardly makes the president a liar.

The president said “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” But the House bill would permit a “public option” to cover all abortions, and would also permit federal subsidies to be used to purchase private insurance that covers all abortions, a point that raises objections from anti-abortion groups. That’s true despite a technical ban on use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion coverage.

The president repeated his promise that his plan won’t add “one dime” to the federal deficit. But legislation offered so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Economist Martin Feldstein takes a hard look at "the exploding path of fiscal deficits," which would be made far worse by Obamacare. So much for a reform that pays for itself. He writes:

“For starters, $1 trillion of extra debt-financed spending would cause the government to pay about $300 billion of extra interest in the next decade. Moreover, the CBO's method of estimating the cost of such a program doesn't recognize the incentives it creates for households and firms to change their behavior.

“The House health-care bill gives a large subsidy to millions of families with incomes up to three times the poverty level (i.e., up to $66,000 now for a family of four) if they buy their insurance through one of the newly created "insurance exchanges," but not if they get their insurance from their employer. The CBO's cost estimate understates the number who would receive the subsidy because it ignores the incentive for many firms to drop employer-provided coverage. It also ignores the strong incentive that individuals would have to reduce reportable cash incomes to qualify for higher subsidy rates. The total cost of ObamaCare over the next decade likely would be closer to $2 trillion than to $1 trillion.”

The president overstated the degree of concentration in the insurance industry. He said that in 34 states the "insurance market" is controlled by five or fewer companies, but that’s true only of insurance bought by small groups, not the entire "insurance market."

Obama said his plan won’t “require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.” It’s true that there’s no requirement, but experts say the legislation could induce employers to switch coverage for millions of workers.

But on to any new ideas in his speech….

Tort reform? No. Nothing new there.

The ability to purchase health insurance plans across state lines? No. While promising competition to drive down premiums in the private health insurance industry, he carefully avoided what could truly drive down the cost of private health insurance by not mentioning THAT change.

As a conservative I am not too far away from the president in three areas: No pre-existing conditions, affordable catastrophic health care with a kick-in of a form of Medicaid subsidies to private insurance companies derived from filing tax returns, and mandated catastrophic coverage for young adults. $50 a month is around the going rate in Michigan. Young adults spend that on a couple of movies. One of the areas where I differ from many conservatives lies not only in mandated health coverage in two areas: First, if someone should not want to purchase their own health insurance (as in requiring the purchase cost for a driver’s license to drive,) they should be taxed 2X, or more, the cost of catastrophic health insurance premiums to help cover costs incurred should they need medical care. Second, if the 12 million illegals file income tax returns, they should qualify to purchase private health insurance. However, no illegal, unless given a waiver, would ever do that for fear of deportation. In the meantime, the Supreme Court has ruled that, in true emergencies, healthcare cannot be denied illegals, costing the U.S. taxpayer billions each year.

If the President wants healthcare reform, it has to be done incrementally to correct the present system with true bipartisan dialogue. To throw HR3200 to the American public as the preferential outline for reform, which still is the President’s preferred plan as far as I could tell from his speech, is to offer a plan that certainly all conservatives reject, as well as an increasing number of senior citizens and small businesses.