-By R. J. Little
“I had thought we had finally stopped the government HC takeover with the Brown election. Unfortunately, the amount of power and political control up for grabs means that the radical left will never relent on this as long as they have control of government in DC.
What we conservatives and the Republican party SHOULD NOT be doing is helping the left achieve their goal!
Recently, as part of the coverage for the upcoming “bipartisan” HC summit there has been multiple reports in the NYT, Fox, the Politico, etc that the retiring Republican Senator from NH has proposed yet another version of the rejected ObamaCare/RomneyCare compulsory insurance scheme!
I did some research today to find out what where the details of this so-called “compromise” plan.
Well, Gregg’s compulsory Health Insurance plan wasn’t hard to find – it was on his WWW site.
Its basically a 100% ObamaCare plan that gives the left the key items it desires right now (i.e. the individual mandate and government control of HC). Essentially, it just tinkers a bit with the amount of government-dictated insurance that people will be forced to buy and how many citizens will become government welfare cases through subsidies:
http://gregg.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CPR-Exec%20Summary-June%201-FINAL.pdf
These are the key quotes right from his posted plan!:
“ENSURING ACCESS FOR ALL AMERICANS: In order to ensure that every American has quality, affordable coverage, the proposal requires proof of health insurance for every American over age 18 and requires insurers to offer coverage to all applicants, regardless of health status.
TARGETED SUBSIDIES FOR THOSE MOST IN NEED: The proposal includes direct subsidies for low-income individuals for the purchase of a low-premium major medical health insurance plan – subsidies for both the premium and deductible on a sliding scale up to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).”
Yep, this is handing the left and Obama everything they want. ALL compulsory insurance plans are government run HC with a “private” facade – ReidCare, NancyCare, RomneyCare, DringoCare, and ObamaCare are centered around forcing individuals to buy Health Insurance that’s essentially dictated by politicians and technocrats.
Their is nothing left that is “private” or “individual” in any sense of the term! The Federal government runs everything through regulation and tax subsidies! Its not private or a a free market – it just puts a fake front on the whole take over so there is a good “talking point” to make people who don’t have time to deconstruct the whole takeover feel better and to fool them into thinking they aren’t getting government run HC that will soon implode into a full-blown single-payer system.
The “Gregg Plan” is the same as ALL compulsory insurance schemes like RomneyCare, Wyden-Bennett, ReidCare, or ObamaCare:
(a) Federal Government Regulatory power over all Health Insurance companies/Comparative Effectiveness Boards aka HEALTH EXCHANGE CZAR/DEATH PANELS
(b) Employer/Individual Mandates to force everyone to buy a government specified Health Insurance plan AKA UNIVERSAL COVERAGE
(c) Massive Government Subsidies to middle class citizens to purchase the mandates insurance AKA MEDICAL WELFARE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS
With the Federal Government setting the rules, forcing everyone to participate, and is paying the bills for most of the middle class through subsidies how is this anything other than Nationalization?
Basically, the Federal government will be controlling the Health Insurance industry just like it controls the Banks and Auto Companies who received bailout money. While it will still technically be true that health insurance companies are “private” companies, they will be only in the same sense that GM, CITIGROUP, etc are still “private” companies. Since the Federal government has provided most of the funding and dictated all the terms of business, politicians and technocrats will really be calling the shots. Essentially, all health insurance companies in the country will be quasi-governmental agencies that simply get to stay in business to administer the National Health insurance program on a small for-profit basis.
There is no real world difference between a Canadian style govt Single payer and a Compulsory Insurance scheme where the government still runs everything thru a very small number of nominally “private” insurance firms (again, the fantasy that any of the few remaining insurance firms will be “private” is a PR facade for politicians – essentially they are govt medical welfare contractors as there business practices are dictated to them by government technocrats and they will be wholly dependent on taxpayer subsidies to stay in business) where the the technocrats run medical care/insurance thru regulation and pay the bills for nearly everyone in the country with taxpayer funds.
Again, are Republicans/conservatives really this stupid to think this form of government intervention is NOT EXACTLY what the left wants (ie Federal Government Control)? Or more to the point, do they really think WE THE PEOPLE are this stupid that we would be so easily fooled or lied to like this?
What makes this particularly bad is that Senator Gregg has gone on record voting against Individual Mandates as being un-Constitutional in DEC, yet he has to gall to post a plan on his WWW site a bit over a month later advocating/centered on Individual Mandates to force people to buy “private” insurance!
So I guess Gregg, since he is not seeking reelection, has been selected by the Republican establishment to be the new Specter and sell the American people out to the left and the “big” insurance lobby and other interests!
The American People have won the battle FOR the Republicans and our supposedly “conservative” elected officials in the DC establishment are actively working to throw it away!
The word needs to get out to all true Conservatives and other Patriots NOW about this danger or the supposed “HC summit” will essentially become a televised celebration of the impending passage of ObamaCare! ”
Please help push the word out on this to all who oppose Government Run Health Care before its too late!