Fear of Health ‘Reform’ Is Warranted

President Barack Obama - Do you believe him?

See Thursday, November 5, 2009 editorial at http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/05/fear-health-reform-warranted/
■ "Consider the president’s basic promises about his health overhaul:"
■ "it actually would save money"
■ "the only new taxes would be on the very wealthy"
■ "individuals would be free to keep their present coverage and doctors"
■ "save money is largely based on the preposterous assumption that hundreds of billions of dollars would be cut in Medicare and Medicaid programs"
■ "an IRS-administered and collected levy on individuals without health insurance is really a tax. The bills before Congress call it a tax. But apart from this semantic debate, there are also new taxes on insurers, drug makers, health care providers and medical devices that would be passed along to consumers. Of course middle-class pocketbooks would take a big hit."
■ "The claim that people happy with their present health care would be unaffected ignores the fact that if the 'public option' were available, employers would have a financial incentive to drop private insurance in favor of cheaper government coverage. And even if the final bill didn’t include this option, private coverage would be microregulated on what it has to provide — and lawmakers swayed by contributions from medical specialists have already indicated plans to vastly expand what services must be provided. The inevitable result would be far costlier private insurance."