Faith2Action Government Takeover of Health Care Republican Blitzkrieg

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

By Mike Hammer (alias the peasant)

I don’t know how many more 10% a year increases in my health insurance premiums I can take before I have no money left. These double digit increases have been going on for years and I just can’t take it anymore. I am averse to government getting involved in areas where the free market provides the service, but I’m crying uncle on this one. I can’t take the pain anymore. I need protection from the health care industry. I need Uncle Sam to get involved and stop the carnage being wrought on my paycheck.

Turns out I’m in a battle being fought on two fronts; on one side is the healthcare industry, and on the other those people who fight to defend it. It’s these defenders that will push me below the poverty line.

Their strategy, blitzkrieg! They plan to run right over my favorite uncle with a grassroots smear campaign that portrays him as a commie socialist tyrant trying to bring down the curtain on capitalism and turn this place into a replica of France. God damm those French socialist pussies!

The faithful defenders of liberty (I think that’s a French word) need talking points. Not to worry, Faith2Action supplies us with this:

http://www.f2a.org/

Government Takeover of Health Care

President Obama is trying to rapidly push through socialized health care. If approved, it could cost the nation one trillion dollars over the next decade.

While some may envy the “free” health care of Canada or Europe, the truth is that the people pay for it through much higher taxes and significantly lower take home pay. There is also much evidence that the health care systems in both Canada and Europe are in danger. Private health plans are being developed in England in an attempt to save the public system. People there often face four hour waits for emergency health care. In Canada, some have waited four years to have a major surgery.

On our daily radio program on June 16, Dr. Frank Rosenbloom said that government isn’t the solution to the high costs of health care, it’s the cause.

Tell your friends and neighbors the truth about health care and let your U.S. Representative and Senators know what you think through the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Every cause needs to invent an enemy; for Iran it is the Great Satan, America, for these people it is president Obama. He’s symbolic more than dangerous. He’s talks more than he actually does anything, but nevertheless he is the poster boy of un-American activity so he gets special treatment here.

Socialized healthcare you say, but wouldn’t that be like the government privatizing the hospitals and making doctors government employees? You people know that’s not true but you have people believing that doctors will be making decisions in favor of the government to your detriment.

Healthcare is not free in Canada and Europe, it is paid for through taxes, but what’s the difference between paying Blue Cross or the Treasury; why do you care who your check is made out to. I’ll be happy to make my check out to the Department of Revenue if the amount is appreciably smaller. But that’s just my twisted logic, and I have been diagnosed as being half certifiably insane.

Again, my logic is shaky, but if Canadians and Europeans pay through higher taxes they therefore must be paying more than I do. I guess my take home pay isn’t lower even though my family plan costs $1,400 a month.

Now it is true that my employer pays a percentage of the premium, but that just means that I won’t get a raise, and the unemployment rate here will remain high since people become unemployable because the healthcare premiums are more than employers can afford. So it doesn’t matter that employers contribute to the cost, American workers are still getting hammered.

Dr. Frank Rosenbloom has been brought in to point out that government is already the cause of high health care costs. Funny, all this time I thought a little of it had to do with the increasing need to achieve constant or even higher returns on investment.

Well the final word from the defenders is to tell your neighbors and friends the truth about healthcare seeing as they probably have no idea about the subject. They didn’t notice that their premiums have doubled over the past ten years and $1,000 a month premiums is nothing to them.

Well now we know what Faith2Action is telling people, but here’s what I believe. The healthcare industry needs to be regulated, and it’s for their benefit. Business in this country is focused on short term results. We know that business is not beyond destroying their future by what happened to the banking, mortgage and housing industries last year.

The pressure on healthcare industry CEO’s to produce increasingly higher quarterly results, and to satisfy their shareholders short-term demands for a return, ensures that healthcare costs have to go higher at rates consumers cannot support. They will drive the country into a crises situation trying to satisfy shareholders just like the banks did.

These CEO’s are getting in excess of $20 million a year because they promised to produce the types of returns the stockholders and board of directors demand. And they will produce at any cost whether it is increasing prices to consumers, or in the case of insurance companies, cutting costs by denying claims. Since consumers have no choice but to buy their products, they have to pay up. There is no competition factor here because they cannot price themselves out of the market. Consumers will pay no matter how high the price is because in some cases it’s a matter of survival.

What I describe above is predictable, it will happen just as sure as the sun will rise in the morning (by the way, I’m only 75% sure on the sunrise thing). Eventually, Faith2Action will cry uncle too. They will have to make a choice between their ideology and money. Money usually wins in the end even for the most passionate conservative.

So I guess I’ll have to wait for the defenders to switch sides. But first they need to realize who the enemy is. It’s not Obama, it’s not Uncle Sam, it’s an industry formed for the sole purpose of separating you from your money. Their next report to the stockholders depends on it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 am and is filed under MUD SLINGING POLITICS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.