Tom Coburn

These video clips feature one of the conservatives I like, Senator Tom Coburn! (H/T Club for Growth)

Tom Coburn is a medical doctor, and ran a medical business. He gives you the inside view of why American health care needs changing, and why big government socialism is not the answer. This is not just a lesson in health care. Listen closely – this is a lesson in economics, and it shows the vision of free-market capitalism, liberty and personal responsibility that drives the policies of the right-wing.

Part 1:

Part 2:

And here is Ronald Reagan talking about the loss of liberty that follows when a country adopts socialized medicine. (H/T Club for Growth)

This is the easiest way to learn about health care policy.

Note: If you prefer to learn about socialized vs consumer-driven health care with podcasts, click here.

More details from a think tank

Here is a comprehensive treatment of the problems of health care today, and the right way to reform it. This article by the founder of the Heritage Foundation, Edwin Feulner, Ph.D., is so long that it is exactly the kind of thing that lefties like commenter Jerry won’t have the patience to read! This is the best thing to read in this post if you can only read one thing.

Here is are some of the myths he corrects:

If you like your health care package you can keep it

“…a public plan will lead many employers to drop private health coverage for their workers and dump them into the public plan… According to independent analyses, as many as 119 million Americans could end up in a public plan….”

The end goal is not a single payer system

“…The “single payer” here is Uncle Sam, using taxpayers’ money, and not just paying the bills but calling the shots and deciding what care every American will get—or not get….”

The end goal is not a single payer system

“…Congress’s own watchdog–have issued preliminary estimates that the cost could be high as $2 trillion over 10 years, with most of that borrowed money…”

The quality of your health care will get better

“…Medicare has huge gaps in coverage. Medicaid’s quality is notoriously bad. They both offer substandard care compared to most private insurance plans…”

And of course his letter also gives conservative solutions to the problem of rising health care costs. The Heritage Foundation is my favorite think tank. Conservative across the board – not just on fiscal issues.

James Demint

And conservatives like James Demint are getting this message out to the public, too.

Here is Senator Demint’s article in Forbes magazine. He answers the question: “What is the cause of our current health care problems? Is it the free market? Or is it government intervention into the free market?”

Excerpt:

…Washington politicians make it hard for individuals to own their own health insurance policies. Government gives tax benefits to businesses to provide group health plans to employees, but offers no such tax benefit to individuals who try to buy their own plan for themselves or their family. Government prevents consumers from shopping for better plans across state lines, which limits competition and drives up prices. Government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid pay doctors and hospitals less than the full value of their services, and the difference gets priced into the higher premiums paid by people who do have insurance.

In other words, politicians deliberately restrict consumer choice, drive up prices, underpay doctors and hinder both access and portability. Then they turn around, blame the free market for the health care crisis and say the only way to save the system is a government takeover of health insurance in the form of a so-called “public option.”

And he’s goes on to explain conservative solutions to the problem of rising health care costs. A great article from one of my favorite conservatives.

The real costs of Obama’s plan

Keith Hennessey has an analysis of the costs of Obama’s new government-controlled, rationed health care plan. You may have heard that the CBO has issued an estimate about the costs of Obama’s plan: 1 Trilliion over 10 years. Keith says that the number is actually closer to 1.3 trillion.

Keith took at closer look at the CBO’s 1 Trillion estimate, which includes only ONE area where money will need to be spent (subsidies for the poor). He found that many items in the Democrats’ health care bill were not included in the CBO estimate!

Excerpt:

1. The budgetary effects of neither the individual mandate nor the employer mandate are included in this score.  I think CBO will find these provisions would raise revenues for the government and reduce the deficit.  While the leaked draft of Kennedy-Dodd was specific about the employer mandate, the official version has just the placeholder language, “Policy under discussion.”  Both mandates leave wide discretion for the Secretaries of Treasury and HHS to create a level and structure of taxation “to accomplish the goal of enhancing participation in qualifying coverage.”  It is extremely difficult for CBO and their tax counterparts, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) staff, to estimate something like this.
2. The estimate does not include the budgetary cost of expanding Medicaid to childless adults with income below 150% of the poverty line.  I expect that this will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the cost over the next decade.
3. It does not include the requirement that health plans define “children” as dependents up to age 27.  I expect this will raise costs.
4. It does not include the effects of the Medical Advisory Council’s ability to define benefits, or the requirements that plans rebate premiums to the insured.  I think this too will raise costs.
5. It does not include the budget effect of having a “public plan option.”
6. There are a bunch of other programs in the bill, including a new disability program and lots of new public health programs.

Keith will be posting more articles on his blog as he calculates the real costs of Obama’s plan.

The bottom line

Obama’s health care plan is simply “Obama knows best”. You will pay money to Obama, based on your income, (not on your health risks). And then Obama will decide whether government will give you any health care. He’ll probably make these decisions the same way he makes other decisions: based on whether you are one of his unionized supporters, whether you donated to Democrats, or whether you investigate his corrupt dealings.

Obama thinks that you are more satisfied with the service at your local DMV than you are with Amazon.com. And he plans to make sure that you are dealing with government bureaucrats, not with private businesses, when you need health care. Who gives you better service? The government, that isn’t trying to compete with anyone to meet your needs? Or private businesses, which do need to compete to earn your business?

Further study

You can watch some videos containing horror stories from countries that have adopted single-payer health care, too.

My previous post on socialized medicine linked to even more horror stories from other countries with socialized medicine.