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Obama gets the big picture right
There is always room to argue with the specifics of a bill, but when it comes to the big questions at the heart of the health-care debate, President Obama's proposal gets the big picture right. The bill addresses the four core concerns low-income Americans have about the health-care status quo:
1. Expands coverage to 30 million Americans
2. Ends the insurance industry's most egregious abuses (eg. recission)
3. Helps poor Americans afford insurance with boosted subsidies
4. Strengthens the nation's core safety-net health programs, Medicare and Medicaid
In a perfect world, I would have preferred more robust and straight-forward reform of the larger health-care industry through proposals like a robust public option, dramatically expanding Medicaid, and allowing Medicare buy-in at 50. But this world has the filibuster and seemingly impenetrable partisan bickering. The smart - if inelegant - fixes proposed by the Obama Administration will do more to improve the health of Americans than any piece of legislation in generations. I'm happy to "settle" for that.
By
Angela Glover Blackwell
|
February 24, 2010; 2:32 PM ET
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Posted by: RealTexan1 | March 5, 2010 8:37 AM
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1. Individual Mandate - private citizens MUST buy private healthcare or go to jail (violates 9th and 10th amendments; the federal government does not have this power. An individual state might, but not the Feds).
2. You must report your healthcare and firearms ownership on your income tax return (violates 4th amendment).
3. Medicare getting cut huge (say bye-bye to the Senior Vote come the next two elections).
4. Insurance companies can no longer turn away folks from pre-existing conditions. (Insurance companies will die when the "individual mandate" is stricked down as being unconstitutional and the only folks coming to them will be folks with pre-existing conditions).
5. $1.8 TRILLION price tag. Our grandchildren will be paying on this; we cannot afford it.
6. 2,600 pages of stuff that isn't healthcare. (Do we really need more earmarks or "Big Brother" provisions?)
7. States nearing bankruptcy will not take kindly to their citizens being taxed further to pay for this debacle. In extreme cases, we could see secession. (Yes, forget "recission", we're talking "secession", i.e., Civil War).
8. 75% of the American people do not want this bill. At some point, D.C. needs to listen to the heart of the nation.
The President is wrong in pushing through this healthcare bill. He should start over, take a bi-partisan approach and ensure transparency throughout the whole process.