Say No to the Individual Health Insurance Mandate! : David McKalip, M.D

Americans are being misled by President Obama and the Republican Party in the health care debate. That is right, the Republican Party. Both are ready to foist a huge joke on the Democratic party, truly left-wing Obama Supporters and the American people. They plan to walk arm and arm together to a signing ceremony this year to finally turnover all health care financing to large insurance companies. The insurance companies will then follow "cost control" protocols (rationing) created by the government. I have written about this final plan since last spring and in July on Campaign for Liberty. For the President, there is no turning back. For the Republicans it is a defining moment for their party -- will they go along with Obama or stand up for liberty? You will need to tell them on which side to stand by contacting them immediately.

Mr. Obama has been keeping this secret until his 9/9/09 speech when he finally admitted that it will be everyone's "shared responsibility" to buy health insurance. It was here where he finally threw the public option under the bus as planned all along while deflecting blame from himself and assigning it to "blue dog" and Senate Democrats. His base should be furious. Of course, the tea party activists -- a million of whom converged on D.C. on 9/12/09 -- may also be betrayed by Republican leadership who appear more interested in appearing to "compromise" and avoid being "called out" by the President. But there is no surprise here. This is how "Romney Care" came to Massachusetts. Cloaked in the silky robe of "compromise" so that the politicians from both parties could join arm and arm but not admit that no matter what letter was behind their name, they were really all about more government power and less individual power.

Thankfully Americans are waking up and coming out of the woodwork and this is a chance for the Republican Leadership to take a break from that "leadership" and start following the American People. This is a chance for them to DEMONSTRATE that they heard the message of their miserable defeats of the 2006-2008 elections for abandoning the founding principles of their party: individual liberty, limited government and strict constitutionalism. This is their chance to shine or be swept away for good with the Democrats in 2010.

But among the detractors in the debate, the President is far more guilty as he pushes his health system reform plan. There is the standard sleight of hand: "if you like your doctor or your health care plan -- you can keep them". That trick is easy to dissect. The fact is that the President will make any plan or doctor that is not government-approved disliked by the vast majority of Americans. For doctors, he will support an inaccurate "report card" system that allows doctors to be labeled as "bad" (who would "like" that doctor?). Doctors will not be graded on true medical quality, but on how well they comply with rationing protocols and how well they provide government-approved, one-size-fits-all medical care. For your insurance, his plans will force any insurance plan that is not government approved out of business. His plans will tax every person who dares to buy an insurance plan that is not approved by the government up to 2.5% of income. In fact, his plans would make any change to your health insurance policy or choice illegal after 2013.

He also likes to distract people by claiming that since the words "death panel" and "illegal immigrant insurance coverage" are not actually in the bill, then anyone who discusses those topics are kooks using scare tactics or are themselves "misleading". Of course, he doesn't point out how his chief health care adviser, Dr. Ezekial Emanuel, has written extensively to indicate that babies and the elderly (over 65) should not receive as much medical care since they are not as valuable to society. Emmanuel's "Complete Lives" system supports use of "lotteries", "ageism", inaccurate estimates of "prognosis" and the likely need of a few to die to "save the most lives". Emmanuel applies this to "scarce medical resources" -- which is about to become the standard condition as government seeks to slash medical spending to European levels. Obama has not told America how the Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness will create rationing protocols. These protocols will be linked to "incentives" for proper implementation by doctors. Or, put another way, if a doctor refuses to ration care, they will be penalized through a withheld "incentive". He fails to mention that a five member panel elected by no one will make these final decisions (The Independent Medicare Advisory Council -- IMAC).

But the biggest bait and switch has been the selling of the public option as a key component of health system reform. He started this in the spring. But it has been clear from the beginning that the insurance companies would never allow this to happen. In fact, the insurance companies have been spending at least $12 million to support health care reform created by them and about a dozen other special interests over the last several years. So, much to the chagrin of many who hoped the public option would be a Trojan horse for a single payer system, Obama began throwing that plan under the bus as described by Salon.com*. Of course this had long been planned since the real goal has always been a mandate of each and every person to buy health insurance from private companies. That is why liberal blogger Greg Palast is also complaining about the betrayal of Obama and calling him a charming liar and his health care approach "fascist" ' on Air America too!

He uses another great deception to sell this as a means to get rid of "pre-existing conditions". As it turns out the trade off is that everyone must buy insurance -- while ignoring the fact that 30 states have state subsidized policies for those with pre-existing conditions that work. Mandated will be insurance that will be created by the government, approved by the government, the purchase of which will be enforced by the government. In fact, the rationing rules created by the government will also apply to private insurance. The insurance companies will receive free customers courtesy of the government mandate and will be guaranteed profits in perpetuity. Obama then gets to claim a victory for Democrats in 2010 after he announces what will be hailed as "the September compromise" -- perhaps even in the name of the recently passed Senator Kennedy who put his seal of approval on the same plan introduced by then-Republican-Governor Romney in 2005.

Perhaps the President waited so long to disclose the mandate to prevent the discovery that the model is a proven failure in Massachusetts. While the president likes to claim that his plans will lower health care costs, in Massachusetts health insurance premiums went up 10-12% (from its rate which was already top five in the nation at the start of the program). He also doesn't mention that the cost for the plans will go up far higher for the rest of the country since we all will likely end up with Massachusetts-style plans. This will occur because bureaucrats, politicians and special interests will work to ensure "everything" is covered (chiropractors, acupuncture, marriage counselors, autism, mental health, in vitro fertilization etc.). He hopes people won't realize that they won't have a choice to buy a plan to cover only the things they think they may really want to pay for or need and avoid those they will never use (like obstetrics care for a post-menopausal woman).

He hopes you don't find out that the mandate plan doesn't cover everyone -- 20% of the uninsured were "released" from the Massachusetts tax penalty since they couldn't afford the plan. Oh, yes, he also doesn't mention the 2.5% tax penalty for failure to purchase -- breaking his promise not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000. He also doesn't allow time for people to realize that a mandatory purchase of health insurance is itself a tax -- the government forces you to buy it after all! He wants to dazzle you with gauzy, feel-good references to "shared responsibility" as a code word for raising taxes and mandating the purchase of a product merely because you have been born. It would cause trouble if Americans learned that 30,000 legal, tax-paying non-citizen residents of Massachusetts will receive less care now (rationing) to save about $130 million for the state. Why? Oh, they state is looking to spend about $2.1 billion of its $31 billion budget to subsidize people to buy health insurance since even the politicians realized that not everyone could afford it. That is another thing he is looking to hide: young people who will are trying to start a life or provide for their family will be required to use their money to buy an over-priced health insurance plan that covers things they don't want. They will also have to pay the same rate as older and sicker people even if they are healthy and young.

He doesn't want you to know that in Massachusetts, government panels are creating cost control boards that will give doctors a fixed budget to spend on their patients. The doctor will get a percentage of whatever care they withhold from the patient. There are also direct rationing protocols being set up in the name of "efficiency" and the public hospitals are under threat of closing the doors since their government subsidies for caring for the poor was removed as they are "all insured now". He doesn't want Americans to discover that in Massachusetts there are not enough doctors to take care of patients (after years of reimbursement rates set at artificially low numbers by Medicare). Hiding the fact that patients are waiting months to see a specialist and up to a year to find a primary care doctor as nurses are rapidly recruited to take the place of doctors.

But that is all part of the game plan. Keep America distracted with meaningless debates about the public option and who used the words "you lie". Accuse anyone who disagrees with his plans for "change" of being a fear monger using scare tactics. Erect straw men "special interest" opponents that don't exist while making deals with drug companies to cut 2% ($80 billion) of their expected $3.5 trillion drug take over ten years. Make deals with hospitals to cut 0.5 percent of their $26 trillion take and insurance companies to give them free business. Set government rules for rationing care that each of these insiders must follow but can live with since it will mean less money spent on patients and drug companies protected from attack. Make deals with the AMA to endorse the plan early (contrary to the fact that the majority of the plan contradicts AMA policy) so the AMA can grow its $70 million annual take from owning the codes that determine how doctors and hospitals are paid. In fact hold the AMA hostage if they refuse to do so buy threatening (again) to allow the planned 40% cuts to Medicare physician payments to occur. Could the AMA monopoly on coding be threatened by turning over the entire coding franchise to the World Health Organization (WHO)?

Sounds like the only change we have is the one we were all warned about by another "WHO": "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". When will America learn not to get fooled again? Time to start calling REPUBLICAN Senators and Congressmen too (along with the Democrats) and tell them to listen to the million people that showed up on their door step on 9/12/2009. Tell them to remember who they work for, what freedom is, and to say "no" to the individual mandate.

* "This is how things always work. The industry interests which own and control our government always get their way. When is the last time they didn't? The "public option" was something that was designed to excite and placate progressives (who gave up from the start on a single-payer approach) -- and the vast, vast majority of progressives (all but the most loyal Obama supporters) who are invested in this issue have been emphatic about how central a public option is to their support for health care reform. But it seems clear that the White House and key Democrats were always planning on negotiating it away in exchange for industry support. Isn't that how it always works in Washington? No matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter which party controls the levers of government, the same set of narrow monied interests and right-wing values dictate outcomes, even if it means running roughshod over the interests of ordinary citizens (securing lower costs and expanding coverage) and/or what large majorities want.