Hope and Change in Health Care

• Within three weeks of his inauguration, President Obama has succeeded in a dramatic government take-over of Americans’ health care, although he is unable to nominate a tolerable candidate for Secretary of Health and Human Services. [He tried to sneak in another tax cheat like Geithner.]

• More than half of kids roped into Mr. Obama’s kids’ health program will drop their families’ health coverage, and the SCHIP explosion has an unhealthy addiction to tobacco funding. [Remember, the President himself is a smoker, but the low-income are more likely to smoke, so the new tax increase hits them hardest. So many people have stopped smoking, that they may soon need to recruit them in order to pay for SCHIP!]

• By bailing out state Medicaid programs that have spent beyond our means, Mr. Obama punishes fiscally responsible states, and Medicaid’s failure to pay its bills will result in a “cost-shift” causing private premiums to rise by about $18 billion.

• Subsidies to COBRA, the already flawed program that allows departed workers to continue coverage with their previous employer, dramatically favor unemployment or part-time work, instead of full-time work with benefits

For the details, see "Obama’s Unhealthy Start: SCHIP Explosion, Medicaid Bailout, COBRA’s Bite" By Adam Frey, Public Policy Fellow, and John R. Graham, Director, Health Care Studies, at Health Policy Prescriptions, Feb. 2009.

"President Obama plans to build on the way
he mobilized millions of volunteers and small
donors in his successful election campaign,
and his administration will use similar
strategies to sell its health care proposal. A
patchwork of progressive organizations is
poised to unleash its activists to rally grassroots
support for any health care legislation.
And, perhaps most importantly, business
groups will be much less hostile – if not
openly supportive – of the effort to radically
transform health care."

". . . One such group that hopes to play a key role
in the effort is Health Care for America Now
(HCAN), a coalition formed last July with
the stated intention of spending $40 million
on grassroots organizing and multi-media
campaigns. The founding steering committee
for the organization is comprised
of 13 groups: Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN),
the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME),
Americans United for Change, Campaign
for America’s Future, Center for American
Progress Action Fund, Center for Community
Change, MoveOn.org, National Education
Association, National Women’s Law Center,
Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
Service Employees International Union,
United Food and Commercial Workers, and
USAction. Later additions include the Children’s
Defense Fund, Leadership Conference
on Civil Rights, and the National Council
of La Raza. Remember these names: All
are likely to be in the vanguard mobilizing
support for left-wing activism during the
next four years." CRC Trends, March 2009

Massachusetts Health Care--coming soon to your state?
"In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls. As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. It was only a matter of time." WSJ story, March 27 here.