Our current Medicare and Medicaid nightmare was proposed in the Kennedy Administration. It ultimately passed in 1965 and was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. Later in the first Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon and Congressional Democrats would greatly expand Medicare and Medicaid, as well as Social Security, and make both of these entitlement programs unsustainable. It is just a matter of time until the country goes broke and/or the benefits promised or reduced or mostly eliminated. These ideas were absurd in the first place.
True, generations of old folks have taken advantage of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security at the expense of younger workers and future unborn generations to come. This was basically a transfer of resources from one group of citizens to another and most of those footing the bill have not been born yet, so they had no vote on this. But, they will pay for it.
This is a cruel, unfair system. The wealthiest tend to live the longest, so most of this is a transfer from one set of folks to a set of folks that have more income and resources than those footing the bill. Minorities, especially, are victimized by these systems as their death rates are much higher than that of non-minorities.
Those who oppose the expansion of medicare, medicaid and social security, typically looked for compromises. That's the wrong thought process. The right policy would be to eliminate these systems. Grandfather current recipients and eliminate any future recipients on some kind of sliding scale -- the sooner the better.
Now, Obama proposes to make an unfair system a feature of the landscape. The health care reform that Obama proposes destroys our health care system and will lead to a national bankruptcy of the United States. This plan can only avoid bankrupting the country if its promises are not kept. This plan will require arbitrarily letting people die rather than receive health care, something that is not a feature of present day America. This plan is cruel and financially ruinous.
There is not an acceptable compromise to this impending disaster.
The right health care system is a free market system -- which we do not currently have because of government interference in every phase of our health care system. Tax deductibility of business health plans for their employees should be eliminated (On this one issue, Obama is right). If employees bought their own health insurance, they would buy the same kind of policies that they buy for their car insurance and home insurance -- large deductible policies. That is what is needed. Also, the absurd punitive damage suits that have all but destroyed sensible health care procedures should be eliminated. Let doctors practice medicine, not spend their time looking over their shoulder for John Edwards and his ilk.
There is virtually no one in the United State who cannnot afford catastrophic health care coverage with high deductibles. Many of the so-called uninsured have no problem affording alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Let people decide for themselves what they consider important, not the government. If people prefer drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol, let them consume them. Why force people to do what they do not want to do? That is opposite of a free country. Is freedom, only the freedomto do what Obama considers appropriate?
There should be no compromise with Obama and others that are bent on destroying health care for Americans through the ruse of expanding insurance coverage. Get the government out of people's way. Health care was always affordable before we discovered medicare and medicaid...it could be again.
