-By Warner Todd Huston
Two recent articles do a wonderful job addressing some of the freedoms that each of us will lose if President Obama’s nationalized healthcare takeover occurs. One by John Fund of the all Street Journal and a second in Fortune by editor at large Shawn Tully really drive home how healthcare “reform” is a barely disguised grab for power by Democrats in Congress and the White House.
Tully outlines for us five freedoms we will lose once the government takes over healthcare and the biggest one makes the lie to Obama’s constant claim that we can keep the healthcare plans we currently have “if we like it.”
In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage — including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money — but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can’t have. It’s a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.
Among the things that Tully reveals is that we’d lose the freedom to chose what sort of plan we’d like to pay for and what care options we’d like to have, we’d lose the ability to chose our own doctors, and nearly all of us would lose our existing healthcare plans, whether we have them through our employer or not, within a year of Obamacare’s passing.
For his part, WSJ’s Fund informs us that young people would lose the freedom not to even have health insurance if they don’t want to and will be forced to pay the high prices for government coverage that they don’t want, can’t afford, and will likely not use. Fund also talks of the lie that people will be able to keep their current plans if they like them and that the costs will be “revenue neutral.”
While Democrats on Capitol Hill dispute claims that individuals will lose their existing coverage under their reform plans, on other issues many Democrats privately acknowledge some people will indeed get whacked to pay for the new world of government-dominated health care.
Fund also shows that small business will lose the freedom of structuring their business they way they want to as government will force all sorts of mandates upon them in order to fund the healthcare scheme.
Additionally, millions will lose their health savings accounts (HSAs), and Medicare users will find massive cuts in services. Fund also says that elderly patients will find their costs skyrocketing as they are forced out of Mdeicare Advantage and back into the regular system.
So, instead of improving healthcare, Obamacare does far more to dismantle what actually does work only to replace it with scaled back freedoms, massive bureaucracy and sky high taxes.
Such a deal.
(Crossposted at HealthcareHorseRace.com.)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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Obamacare – I WISH. The bill is evolving into something that Obama never described, and he’d be wise to veto it unless it gets a lot more socialist.
I know, I know. We aren’t losing nearly enough liberties to suit you. But, hey. Obama IS trying to get rid of as many as possible. He’s tryin,’ man!