Clearly, the Democrats' incoherent and ideologically driven healthcare reform proposal is but a shameless bid for political power and not at all an honest attempt to address the legitimate healthcare needs of an estimated 10 - 13 million American citizens (not 47 million) who are in need of coverage.
Given that nearly 85% of Americans are satisfied with their healthcare, how can the government honestly believe that it can reduce healthcare costs while ensuring highest standards of quality care by simply throwing the baby out with the bath water? Well, it can't. And both Democrats and Republicans alike are quickly figuring that out.
For a less profligate and more common sense approach to reform, let's start with serious torte reform by capping financial awards for successful suits against the medical profession, the elimination of interstate barriers to competition among private insurers, and a very aggressive, widespread and unencumbered fraud prevention program which would rely upon financially incentivized private sector whistleblowers to conduct those investigations. These actions alone would instantly and very dramatically reduce billions in dollars of costs without adversely affecting the quality of care for all of our young and old alike.
As for those Americans saddled with potentially ruinous/catastrophic healthcare costs or coverage issues relating to pre-existing conditions, the states, with federal financial support, should provide an adequate and well-managed taxpayer-funded safety net. Again, initiatives like this would resolve these difficult problems at a fraction of the cost of an onerous and inefficient single-payer system.
Also, if healthcare coverage for all American citizens and legal residents is, in fact, the goal, and not merely the socialist transformation of these United States, then why not 1) federal tax credits to those who earn enough to take advantage of such credits so they can purchase their own coverage, and 2) the outright federal or state purchasing of insurance coverage for those who clearly cannot afford to do so on their own? The cost for these programs would be miniscule when compared to the unaffordable $1.5+ trillion single-payer plan the Administration continues to shamelessly and irresponsibly hawk.
My fear, of course, is that Washington ideologues aren't interested in common sense American solutions. Their goal is to engineer a socialist transformation of our country. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Washington's insufferable disdain for "we the people" is finally getting Americans off their duffs and into townhalls and on the streets. And none too soon. Let's just hope it's not too late to save the Republic.
("Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism." V. Lenin)
("The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between millstones of taxation and inflation." Vladimir Lenin)
