Obama's Folly

Obama's latest ploy is truly the work of a megalomaniac.

ObamaCare: A Prescription For Socialism

Like a monster from a bad horror movie, no matter how many times the American people think the specter of socialized medicine is dead, Democrats keep bringing it back to life. Yesterday, under the pretense of beginning a genuine bi-partisan discussion of healthcare reform, President Obama released his own plan in advance of Thursday’s healthcare summit.

But this invitation to talk came with a threat. If Republicans don’t go along with what Obama has put on the table, Democrats will resort to the reconciliation process. Under that gimmick, they only need 51 votes in the Senate.

How many of you liked the legislation Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi came up with? Well, if you liked the Reid/Pelosi plan then you’ll love Obama’s prescription for socialism. Obama took the Senate’s bill as his starting point and made it worse! One White House spokesman called it “an opening bid.” The White House isn’t likely to find many buyers.

A recent Rasmussen poll found that 58% of likely voters opposed the Reid/Pelosi legislation, and 61% wanted Congress and the president to scrap it and start from scratch. The American people demanded a genuine bi-partisan reboot of the entire process. Instead, we’re getting more of what we didn’t want.

House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement yesterday blasting the president’s approach: “The president has crippled the credibility of this week’s summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected. This new Democrats-only backroom deal doubles down on the same failed approach that will drive up premiums, destroy jobs, raise taxes, and slash Medicare benefits.”

Here are some of the details of the president’s proposal.

• It will cost approximately $1 trillion, but no one knows its real cost. The Congressional Budget Office stated that while the plan includes much of what the House and Senate have proposed, “it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones.” But the White House draft was too vague to provide an official cost estimate.
  
  
  Think about that for a moment. The president recently used his executive authority to create a new commission to tackle the federal debt. It is widely expected that this commission will propose major tax hikes along with entitlement reform. But at the same time, President Obama is proposing yet another trillion-dollar entitlement program. He insists his healthcare plan won’t add to the deficit. If that’s true, that means he’s taxing one trillion dollars out of the economy, in addition to whatever the debt commission might recommend. How much sense does it make to pile on to the federal government’s already out-of-control entitlement obligations?
  
  
• One of the ways Obama purports to pay for his plan is by raising the Medicare payroll tax and applying it to so-called “unearned” income. So if you’re a senior citizen living off investment income, dividends or other savings (which have already been reduced by low interest rates), Barack Obama wants to hit you with another tax that is expected to raise at least $120 billion.
  
  
• Remember the “Cornhusker kickback” that Senator Ben Nelson (D) got to help his state of Nebraska offset increased costs? Well, it’s still there, but Obama expands it to every state. In other words, every senator is being offered a bribe in order to expand the government’s role in your life.
  
  
• The individual insurance mandate, which many senators and legal experts believe is unconstitutional, is part of Obama’s plan. If the government can compel you to buy health insurance, what else can it force you to do or not do? As George Will recently argued, “Would it be constitutional for the government to legislate compulsory calisthenics for all Americans?” That may seem like a laughable suggestion, but the Japanese government is measuring waistlines.
  
  
• In his proposal, Obama more than doubled the penalty on employers who do not provide health insurance – raising the fine from $750 per employee to $2,000.
  
  
• A new element of the president’s plan is price controls – giving the government the authority to set insurance rates – meaning more Big Government control and manipulation of industry. The problem with price controls is that they never work and lead to rationingand shortages.
  
  
• The president’s plan not only makes abortion a taxpayer-funded healthcare right, but it expands the tax dollars available to pay for the destruction of innocent life. According to Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life, “If all of the president’s changes were made, the resulting legislation would allow direct federal funding of abortion on demand through Community Health Centers, would institute federal subsidies for private health plans that cover abortion on demand (including some federally administered plans), and would authorize federal mandates that would even require non-subsidized private plans to cover elective abortion.”
  
  
  The American people overwhelmingly oppose the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions, but Obama demanded it. In doing so, he completely ignored the concerns of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and dozens of pro-life members of Congress who supported the Stupak amendment.

Gary Bauer

Campaign for Working Families