As stated in part one and part two, this is an ongoing series based on an ongoing series by Ann Coulter (again, sounds confusing but what do you do). In part three of her series, she starts right off with some colorful comments about the state of Medicare and how that relates to the current health care reform debate:
(9) If you like Medicare, you’ll love national health care, which will just extend Medicare’s benefits to everyone.
Hey — I have an idea: How about we make everyone in America a multimillionaire by pulling Bernie Madoff out of prison and asking him to invest all our money! Both Medicare and Bernie Madoff’s investment portfolio are bankrupt because they operate on a similar financial model known as a “Ponzi scheme.” These always seem to run fabulously well — until the money runs out.
Ah, right! A “Ponzi scheme”! So, what you’re saying is that the government takes people’s money but doesn’t use the money to actually give people health care benefits? Wait a minute! Isn’t that what health insurance companies do too? I’m so confused.
Not only is Medicare bankrupt, but it is extremely limited in whom and what it covers. If Medicare were a private insurer, it would be illegal in many states for failing to cover hearing aids, podiatry, acupuncture, chiropractic care, marriage counseling, aromatherapy and gender reassignment surgery.
This is funny because private insurers largely refuse to cover things like hearing aids, podiatry, acupuncture, and chiropractic care. Marriage counseling, aromatherapy and gender reassignment surgery? Where the hell did those come from? Last I checked, Medicare doesn’t really cover any of this stuff either so…err…what’s your point?
Moreover, Medicare payments aren’t enough to pay the true cost of those medical services it does cover. With Medicare undercutting payments to hospitals and doctors for patients 65 and older, what keeps the American medical system afloat are private individuals who are not covered by Medicare paying full freight (and then some). That’s why you end up with a $10 aspirin on your hospital bill.
No, you end up with a $10 aspirin not because the hospital doesn’t get paid enough by Medicare but because they don’t get paid at all by the ones without insurance or have claims denied by the patient’s insurance company. It’s easy to blame Medicare for why hospital bills are so damn expensive but that’s simply not the truth. There are a myriad of other factors as to why medical bills are so expensive. The American medical system stays afloat mainly due to the large profits health insurance and pharmaceutical companies receive. The ones who suffer the most are the doctors and hospitals who have to put up with denied claims, failure to pay, a shortage of qualified nurses, a confusing mess of contracts from the insurance companies, and a slew of other things that make the business of practicing medicine downright difficult.
National health care will eliminate everything outside of Medicare, which is the only thing that allows Medicare to exist.
Considering the insane profits insurance and pharmaceutical companies are getting, is that such a bad thing? I don’t know about you but I really don’t like the idea of Mr. CEO of Aetna being able to pay for another yacht just because my dad got a heart bypass. Doesn’t make sense and neither does your statement.
Obviously, therefore, it’s preposterous for Democrats to say national health care will merely extend Medicare to the entire population. This would be like claiming you’re designing an apartment building in which every apartment will be a penthouse. Everyone likes the penthouses, so why not have a building in which every apartment is a penthouse?
It doesn’t work: What makes the penthouse the penthouse is all the other floors below. An “all-penthouse” building is a blueprint that could make sense only to someone who has never run a business and has zero common sense, i.e., a Democrat.
That would be a great analogy indeed if it really worked that way. The thing is that what is being proposed isn’t merely an extension of Medicare to the entire population but rather a segment of the population. In other words, no one is looking to give a penthouse to everyone, just access to an apartment to those who are stuck in the rain with no where to live.
One thing you did get right is that it would make sense only to someone who has never run a business, which is what the current health care industry is…a business. Problem is that that business is profiting severely off the sick and injured of others. So what you could have said was that it would make sense to someone who actually has a conscience but would be confusing as hell to someone who only understands business terminology like growth and profitability. The more we continue to look at our health as nothing more than just a business the more we continue to overlook the very problem. While I agree that doctors and hospitals should be paid for what they are worth, I do not agree with how the rest of the industry is ran. Lots of gross mismanagement and greed at play.
10) National health care won’t cover illegal aliens — as the president has twice claimed in recent radio appearances.
Technically, what Obama said is that the bill isn’t “designed” to give health insurance to illegal aliens. (That bill, the “Health Insurance for Illegal Aliens Act of 2009,” was still being drafted by Ted Kennedy at the time of his death, may he rest in peace.)
First of all, none of the bills were written by Obama. He has laid out his own proposals of what he’d like to see in the bills but it’s up to Congress to shape the bills to reflect his plan. Here’s what Obama actually said in his recent address to Congress:
There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
Which, as we all know, was followed by a rather loud “You lie!” from Senator Wilson. I think the keyword here is insure, meaning that no illegal immigrant will be eligible to obtain any government sponsored health care insurance plans, period. In other words, if a bill hits Obama’s desk that would allow an illegal immigrant to gain access to health insurance he isn’t going to sign it.
But unless the various government bureaucracies dispensing health care are specifically required by law to ask about citizenship status, illegals will be covered. We can’t even get employers and police to inquire about citizenship status, but liberals assure us that doctors will?
Right now, any illegal immigrant can walk into a public hospital and receive care if they are injured or sick. That’s not likely to change any time soon either. The reason is that to deny anyone health care in this country regardless of whether they are a legal citizen or not presents a moral dilemma: Would you want to live in a country that turns away treatment to someone even if it could mean saving their life?
Not only that but I think Ann is confusing access to health care with access to health insurance. These are two separate disparate things. Anyone can get access to health care when they are sick or hurt. But whether they can afford it is a different matter. That’s where health insurance comes into play. When it comes to the debate over whether illegal immigrants can receive health benefits, we’re talking about access to health insurance here, not access to health care.
And by the way — as with the abortion exclusion — the Democrats expressly rejected amendments that would have required proof of residency status to receive national health care.
Umm, probably because it’s not really required in the bill. I mean, if you have to be a citizen of the United States to get health insurance anyways then why would you need to state that you have to show proof of residency status to receive care in the bill?
Beyond that, can you imagine all the problems that would occur in an emergency room if you had to verify every incoming patient and require proof of residency status? A guy shows up after a heart attack and requires immediate medical attention. But, wait! We can’t let him in yet till he proves he’s a legal resident! It’s a moral question: Do you force the issue and run the risk of him dying? Or do you provide him the medical attention he needs and deal with that issue later?
(11) Obama has dropped his demand for the ironically titled “public option” (i.e., government-run health care), which taxpayers will not have an “option” to pay for or not.
Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. “Abortion” becomes “choice,” “communist” becomes “progressive,” “communist dictatorship” becomes “people’s democratic republic” and “Nikita Khrushchev” becomes “Barack Obama.”
Yeah, but then again, some names just don’t change. “Bitch” is still “bitch” last I checked. Look, Obama has never dropped his demand for a “public option”. Just the opposite. And he has made it clear that in his own proposals that the “public option” would only be available to those who can not afford health insurance. As he stated in his address, “The public option is only a means to that end – and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.”
It doesn’t matter if liberals start calling national health care a “chocolate chip puppy” or “ice cream sunset” — if the government is subsidizing it, then the government calls the shots. And the moment the government gets its hands on the controls, it will be establishing death panels, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and illegal aliens, rationing care and then demanding yet more government control when partial government control creates a mess.
Which happens to be exactly what liberals are doing right now.
First of all, the “public option” is not something that will result in the government calling the shots. Ironically, when it comes to death panels and rationing of health care, that’s exactly what health insurance companies are doing right now. They don’t want to give policies to those who are old and sick. They’d rather give policies to those who are young and healthy. To them, that’s just good business because it means less claims paid out and more profits. So as far as death panels and rationing of care those two things already exist due to the fact that it is tied into the profitability of insurance companies.
I think it’s highly irresponsible to claim that our government would go out of its way to kill off old people and make taxpayers pay for every abortion and the health of illegal aliens in this country. I would presume that most of the folks in Washington are people who know the difference between right and wrong; people with morals and values. Conservatives like Ann keep telling us that this is a “Christian nation”. If that’s the case, then why all the talk about the government doing evil things? I mean, our government is operated by people, right?
Granted, someone has to pay for the care illegal aliens receive at public hospitals. I wouldn’t want to live in a country that denies anyone health care just because they’re not supposed to be here. Unfortunately, most of the cost for providing health care to illegal immigrants is already taken out of taxes like property taxes and the like.
As for abortion, I’m sorry but there are legitimate reasons for why certain abortions should be covered. If a private insurance company is willing to cover the cost of an abortion under certain circumstance then there should be no reason why a “public option” insurance plan shouldn’t do the same. Now, whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, that’s a different conversation.
Bottom line is that we’re already in a mess as it is and, quite frankly, it’s a mess that wasn’t 100% caused by government control. While one could argue that certain government restrictions have caused the industry to falter, the majority of the problems within the health care industry were cause by the very thing that most “conservatives” keep harping about: free enterprise.
For the past 20+ years or so companies within the health care industry have had free reign to shape the industry as they see fit. As such, costs kept going up as publicly traded companies demanded more growth and profitability. And when it comes to health insurance companies, profitability is far more important than whether your grandpa should be able to get that new heart valve put in. Same applies to pharmaceutical companies. They’re more concerned with getting as big of a return on their investment on a new drug before the patent runs out than whether you can afford to shell out $500 a month for it.
According to Ann, it would seem that either way we’re screwed. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If it’s not the government telling us what to do then corporate America will most certainly pick up the slack.
