Monday, October 13, 2014

Obamacare Doesn't Have You Covered

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Covered California is the name for the Obamacare exchange in the Golden State.  With the large State on the West Coast being dominated by hard left liberal progressive politics, most of the politicians tout the wondrous utopia our country is going to be once the few little bugs that seem to infest the Affordable Care Act are ironed out.  We are told the problems with the healthcare law is not the fault of our historical president, mind you.  The bugs are either the fault of the Republican dominated House of Representatives, or yet another manifestation of the still lingering effects of the evil George W. Bush White House.  It will just take some time for the big government community organizers and professional politicians to get it all worked out.  Perhaps it is time for them to imprison the rightwing radicals in their FEMA dungeons.

The rainbow, not a gay one, but a utopian one, is ready to spray its colors across the land from sea to shining sea.  The unicorns are jumping up and down in their holding pens with anticipation.  Finally, everyone will be insured.  President Barack Obama said so.

Except, that's not exactly what is happening.

As the joke goes, "The definition of Obamacare is that in order for everyone to have health insurance everyone must lose their health insurance, and then be mandated by law to buy health insurance at a higher price so that those who can afford to buy health insurance can pay for the health insurance for those who can't afford health insurance."

The Affordable Care Act allows not only for the federal government to unconstitutionally intrude upon our health care system, but it allows the IRS to act as the enforcement arm, controlling our personal records, and allowing the government the ability to dictate to us any decisions we may want to make regarding our health.

The federal government, through Obamacare, is seizing control of 1/6th of the U.S. economy, telling you that the private industry is the reason for the problem, and the solution is for government to gain control over the system, over the doctors, and ultimately over everything that has anything to do with your health.

To sell their system the liberal left progressives in government have demonized the private industry as greedy profiteers, claiming that people are going bankrupt or are dying because of the greed of the insurance industry.  There are surely examples the Democrats can use.  Every system, if you look hard enough, has a list of horror stories.  The authoritarians that have gained control of the American System want you to believe such problems they bring up in their campaigns are rampant.  The fact is, every State has their own local programs that help those who can't afford insurance, and cover people with pre-existing conditions.  As with Romneycare, the Constitution allows States to have their own health programs.  It's the federal government that cannot legally be involved in our health.

The health needs of individuals is a local issue only authorized for local governments to handle.  It is up to each State on the level of care they wish to offer through government policies.  The federal government has no business being involved in our personal decisions.  The federal government was not created to dictate to the people our decisions regarding health care, education, our gun rights, freedom of speech, or any other choice we may have in our own individual lives.  The federal government was created to provide for the common defense, handle international affairs, protect our trade routes, act as a mediator between State disputes, ensure countrywide communication remains protected through institutions like the postal service, and to pass laws necessary and proper to take care of those express powers, and any other authorities granted by the United States Constitution. . . and nothing more.

The statists behind the passage of Obamacare were aware of the dangers their monstrosity offers.  They knew the American people, if they realized the sinister reality behind the massive Affordable Care Act law, would be against it being implemented.  That is why they passed the law in the middle of the night in March 2010, without the Republicans.  The law is designed to eventually put the private insurance industry out of business, eliminate our choice by increasing premiums for all who actually pay their own monthly medical bills and redistributing it to a new lower class of patients through a healthcare expansion of the welfare system.  The end game is eventually for the government to replace all of those Insurance Companies now losing income from the adverse selection of the patient risk that all must now provide.  The federal law is designed to eventually bankrupt State health entitlement systems, and private insurance companies, moving everything under the federal umbrella.  To ensure their seizure of the health system happens, the federal government is pumping millions in taxpayer monies to sell their unconstitutional law on radio and television, using feel good ads, or horror stories, with the shared message that in the end, they are gaining control of the healthcare system in America for your own collective good.

People, as they enroll in Obamacare, through the national database, or exchanges like Covered California, are finding that their cost is going up, and the scope of coverage is going down.  The Obamacare website has been a disaster, but it was never intended to work.  Obamacare isn't designed to cover everyone.  It is not designed to succeed.  It is designed to destroy the private system, and then when Obamacare fails, and there is no private insurance system to turn to because it has been destroyed, there will be no choice (as far as the leftists are concerned) but to initiate a single-payer system.

In the end, the problem was never the insurance system in the way the proponents have made it out to be.  Yes, the private insurance system has many flaws, but that is a natural tendency of third-party payer systems.  But the way to fix those problems is not to eliminate the private industry as the third-party payer, and replace the sick system with a similar government run third-party payer system.  Government doing the same thing as the private industry does not make the service any better, and in fact dooms the system with an even worse caretaker.

If the problem is the third-party payer system, then perhaps the way to fix it is not to change the payer, but to attack the root of the problem.

I understand what insurance is, and in theory pooling together everyone's money to enable payment for those that have the need to use the system, makes sense.  But should health insurance be for every little thing?  Whatever happened to true competition where the provider and the patient has a direct relationship, and the cost is dependent upon the ability of the individuals to pay, and the competition in the industry to earn the business of those patients?

Our automobile insurance does not pay for every visit to the mechanic's shop.  I don't have an HMO for my car that pays for oil changes, and fixing minor maintenance items that are required to be addressed every once in a while.  Car insurance covers catastrophic events, accidents, or theft.  Could you imagine how high the price of an oil change would skyrocket if insurance companies paid for them, and the mechanics knew that the insurance companies have deep pockets?

In the end, we are cutting our throats with government-run health care, as well as asking the federal government into our lives.  How is it that Americans are upset over the NSA spying on our lives with data mining and unwarranted phone taps, and the IRS targeting certain groups with a policy that can be traced all the way to Obama, but we have no problem handing all of that same information over to the federal government in the name of healthcare?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Does Covered California Really Have You Covered? - Center for Health Reporting

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