The Truth About Health-Care Reform

Staff Writer

  We’ve heard the rumblings for months now, “say yes to health-care, say no to health-care.” What is the correct way to handle this controversial issue?

   Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, have campaigned strenuously since August to ensure Americans that health-care is needed, but it is needed now and they have the answers to delivering it. Republican and Conservative’s talk-radio said the current health-care proposal by the Democrats is just a way to impose government-ran intrusion on the American people.

   It also said Democrats are trying to turn the American health-care system into a Socialist, European system where the government has all input on who gets health-care and who doesn’t.

   The Democrats scream foul. The Democrats’ defense is the Republicans would only receive satisfaction in the same old partisan heckling and they only want to defeat anything the president and the Democrats in Congress propose.

   The Republicans said they are for health-care reform and they have several ideas and strategies for making reform a reality. Still, the Republicans say they will not support a bill that imposes government on citizen’s lives and runs up the already enormous debt. Those goals conflict with the statements President Obama made to Michael Muskal, writer for the Los Angeles Times, when the president stated the four key issues involving health-care which include: universality, Public Option Plan, deficit neutrality and Bi-Partisan politics.

   Involving Universality, the president said, “This would increase the availability of health insurance through Public and Private insurance by mandating coverage coupled with subsidies.” The Republicans attacked this by stating the proposed Max Baucus bill (D.Montana), the only bill voted for approval, won’t insure all Americans because it doesn’t have a single payer system in it.

   The President said to Democracynow.com the plan fully insures all Americans will have available health-care.Relating to the Public Option, the president said the Public Option Plan creates market competition and gives consumers greater choices in picking a plan. This would, according to Obama, include a Government Insurance Plan, Consumer-Owner Cooperatives Plan, and an Insurance Exchange Plan that he believes will give increased competition and choice among the American people.

   Republicans say this is nothing more than the government imposing Socialist, Canadian style care on the American people. Moreover, Canada has a Public Option Plan. The Republicans said if government-ran health-care is approved; employers would allow employees to switch to the government plan, rather than pay for company-employer health-care out of their pocket.

   Republicans and Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glen Beck, and Bill O’Reilly say this will lead to more and more people switching to the public plan because insurance companies will not be able to compete with the cheaper prices of the government plan leading to major insurance companies going out of business, leaving government the only source for health care insurance.

   The other issue facing health-care reform is if it's deficit-neutral. The president has stated over and over again that he won’t sign off on any bill that is not deficit-neutral. He states that he possibly would sign the Max Baucus bill if it made it to his desk. This can be found on Polijam.com.

   Republicans fired back stating the Max Baucus bill being proposed cost $800 billion plus the $1.5 trillion bill being proposed by the House of Representatives. Obama has also stated he would sign off on this bill if it made it to his desk. The price tag for the bill has been calculated by the Congressional Budget Office. Check their website www.cbo.org, for more info.

   Republicans say this proves the president is not intent on a bill being deficit-neutral, because both bills only add on to the deficit. This can be found on www.gop.com.

   The last issue facing health-care reform, according to President Obama, is Bi-Partisan politics. He said, “I will prefer a bi-partisan effort on health-care reform, but I know the current system is not sustainable for the government, patients and health-care providers.” He also said he will not allow the Republicans nor the insurance companies’ desire to hand him a political defeat, get in the way of reform. He states the possibility of a block change could occur, leading to the House Democrats using a nuclear option to pass a bill without GOP support.

   The Republicans say this only shows the president did not tell the truth on the campaign trail when he said he would work with the GOP at any means necessary.

   I don’t know about you all, but to me this sounds like the same Washington politics that has plagued this country since both parties were created.

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