10/29/2009 5:00:00 AM EDITORIAL/ObamaCare's free lunch
The government bailouts, the corporate salary caps, the rising deficit, cap and trade and the ominous ObamaCare are all deeply disturbing developments coming out of Washington.
How could elected officials, at the exact point in history when jobs and the economy are so vitally important to the welfare of this county, be so out of touch with the American people?
The health care bills before Congress all have fatal flaws, Gov. Haley Barbour said in a letter to the state congressional delegation.
"If our goal is to reduce the cost of health insurance and medical care so that more Americans can afford it, this legislation is a step in the wrong direction," Barbour wrote.
All Mississippians - regardless of their health care arrangements - will face a tax increase to fund the state's share of increased Medicaid costs brought about by the so-called health care reform making it's way through Congress and should it become law, Barbour warned.
Political rhetoric? We doubt it. There are too many moderate Democrats defecting.
Similarly, U.S. Rep Gregg Harper on the House floor warned of catastrophe.
"The last thing that we need is to have some government bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor while making these important decisions," Harper said.
The Democrat health care plan will hurt seniors by cutting Medicare, he said, warning of unfunded mandates to the states, an average amount of $360 million a year in Mississippi for the next 10 years.
"My district and our country simply can't afford this," Harper said and we agree.
The Democrat health care reforms will increase premiums, increase taxes, increase health care spending, and - if their goals of paying for more than 30 million more Americans into our health care system succeed - increase the wait for care.
Some of the newest twists to the Democrat health care reform proposals still lack any prohibition against federally funded abortions, still lack any mechanism to prevent taxpayer funded health care for illegals, still ignore the savings tort reform can bring and still add nearly a trillion dollars to the federal deficit.
In the end, the more the federal government interferes with private health insurance, the greater the disparity in affordable and available health care for most Americans.
What's going on is absurd and nothing more than a march toward socialized medicine.
If to obtain the best medical treatments the wealthy have to pay out-of-pocket to doctors and facilities that choose not to deal with insurance, they will do so. Specialists and talented health professionals will turn to that fully privatized system and leave the middle class and those with insurance to standard care.
If the government requires businesses to provide health insurance to their employees or pay a fine, some companies may find the fine less expensive than the benefit and the administrative costs required by it. When these companies embrace the federal option of paying a fine, the full cost of health insurance will then be burdened upon American workers.
It's all one big recipe for disaster, although we believe there are alternatives, but the Democrats aren't listening.
Conservative Democrats, Republicans, and independent senators like Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, all oppose these efforts to socialize America's health care.
But the President has given the ultra-liberals like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) the pen to write the legislation and in the end we don't think the American people are going to stand for it.
There are alternative reforms that keep medical decisions in the hands of patients and doctors, such as decreasing the expense of health care by providing tax credits for costs, expanding competition across state lines, utilizing health insurance exchanges and making health insurance portable.
Mississippians do not want and cannot afford additional costs and burdens imposed by Washington disguised as reforms.
Democrats are selling the reform as a free lunch for everybody, but premiums could triple.
