Obama likes to tell everyone that government is only getting involved in healthcare to provide “competition” to the insurers so they will lower their price.
This makes absolutely NO SENSE at all.
This would be the same as Obama accouncing that the government is going to get involved in manufacturing computers because they want to bring “competition” to the computer industry to force them to lower their price. There is already plenty of competition in the computer industry as all of you well know when you shop for one and compare prices and options between different brands.
The free market, by its very nature, forces competition. If one computer brand’s prices start to climb, and you can get an equivalent computer for less money, you will…and you don’t need government’s help to make that decision. The free-market ensures that competitors will strive to build new and better products for as little cost to you as possible so they take business away from their competitors. That is how they make money.
The same is true for health insurance, just like car insurance or home insurance or any other type of free-market based industry. We all shop around, for computers, for insurance, for everything,…that is the beauty of the entire free-market economy.
Now Obama wants to offer a government “public-option” in the current healthcare bill he is trying to ram through where we can choose between the free-market company insurance programs, or the government insurance program, and he claims they will simply compete with each other for business.
This is FALSE.
Government entities are free from paying taxes, free from most government regulations, free from many of the costs that all companies in the free market are forced to pay…costs imposed on them by government. Since the government insurance program will not have to pay billions of dollars in taxes, fees and regulations they will be able to offer a lower price for their insurance. This will actually drive out all the other insurance companies who must still pay taxes and regulations that the government plan does not have to pay.
In fact, the government plan could sell insurance for much less than it costs them to provide it because they are not a company that would be subject to going out of business by running out of money. The government can just go to you and get more money through your taxes and run at a loss forever. How long would Dell or HP last if they sold all their products for less than what it costs them to make it?
This will eliminate all competition from the market, which is the exact opposite of how Obama is selling this to everyone.
In the end, Obama will provide you with only one computer and he’ll charge you whatever he feels like for it, and without any competitors there won’t ever be a need to make it any better, or more efficient or offer anything new since you will have NO CHOICE.
This is how governments’ take over their people and socialism takes over a free society.
Categories: Healthcare Reform
Angrywoodchuck's Blog 
Obama qualifications to reform health care:
Influential in hiring policies of the University of Chicago Medical Center
Can not stop smoking
Difficulty telling the truth.
Narcissistic personality disorder
No birth certificate
Therefore, I Igor produce Obama Birth Certificate at http://www.igormaro.org
Compare Obama Care vs Igor Care at Igor Care vs Obama care
this makes total sense. i loove the youtube video. you will become REALLY REALLY REALLY famous. OBAMA SUCKS LEFT NUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HEALTH CARE PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OBAMA STILL SUCKS LEFT NUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In theory you are absolutely right about free markets and competition driving down prices. You are right about the computer industry. However, this isn’t theory and healthcare isn’t the computer industry. Healthcare is actually controlled by 5 major companies, so the reason the government is trying to bring in competition is because as has happened in the past, if all 5 companies decide to hike up their rates by 39% there’s nothing anyone can do about it but pay up, which is how we’ve ended up with some of the highest health care costs in the world, and the whole free market lowering the price idea falls to crap. I’m not saying that Obama’s plan may have been the best, or even good at all, but remaining as it was before healthcare reform isn’t an option either.
If I am right in theory about free markets and price competition, you have to ask yourself why health care is acting any different from any other industry. There are tens of thousands of industries and they all seem to operate just fine providing the best product at the lowest price…except for health care? Cars, pens, thigh-masters, Ziplocs, sex toys, cabinet hardware, baking soda, car insurance, paper clips, Sudoku games, Hefty bags, refrigerator door handles and pet stain remover all seem to work perfectly well under the free market principle. It would seem with such a diversity of products and services this theory has proven itself. If just ONE industry is defying the laws of this proven theory that works for everything else, then we have to ask why.
The reality is that over the years politicians have passed law after law forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for all sorts of things most of us don’t need. Car insurance works because each person only takes out as much insurance as they think they need to cover what they personally wouldn’t be able to pay. If my deductible is $2,000, I pay less each month in premiums and I just toss $2,000 in a bank account so if my car gets damaged or wrecked I can fix it or at least cover the deductible. That is personal responsibility, a concept that gets rarer by the day.
When I was a kid, my parents only had “Major Medical.” When I was sick, they took me to the Doctor and were charged for whatever services the Doctor provided; there was no co-pay. We paid what it cost. If I was seriously sick, or injured, then the major medical insurance kicked in. It’s basically an insurance with a high deductible. There are a few reasons this works great. The first is that each Doctor is a private, local practice. He has a vested interest in YOU, his customer. As such, he can offer discounts if you pay in cash, or let you pay over time with a little bit each month, or setup an account that you pre-pay into and deduct as you need it. He is a person, like you, and will work with you. The second is that you are covered in case anything terrible happens to you because you have insurance for all things majorly medical. Third, people stop making superfluous visits. You only go to the Doctor when you are really sick, not when you have a runny nose or your finger hurts. This keeps his costs down and money in your wallet. As I always say, there is no limit on the demand for free (see also Medicare and Medicaid comments below that also suffer from this problem).
The rapid increase of frivolous lawsuits costs hospitals and Doctors a fortune which is then passed along to us. It has become so easy to sue a Doctor that people are doing it all the time just to see if the lawsuit will stick and they can get a payday. Any discussion about fixing health care must include tort reform, and yet nothing in Obama’s bill did that.
In order for the free market to work, insurance companies must be allowed to offer many different kinds of insurance plans based on what people want. For young people, or young couples, something like major medical is fine. We only need it if we get really sick, but Obama’s bill eliminates these types of high deductible policies over time. We don’t need coverage for a chiropractor, or mental health therapy or smoking cessation or lamaze classes…we don’t need any of those, or if we decide we do we will just pay for them ourselves, but most insurance policies have been forced, by law, to provide these things and more. Politicians love to stand up in front of their constituents right before an election and tell the people what else they’ve forced the big bad evil insurance companies to provide you, for free. But it’s NOT free. Inevitably, premiums rise as those of us, most of us, who do not need these things pay so others can have them whether they need them or not.
In my car insurance example, my insurance only covers my car and anything else I hit or hurt. What happened to health care insurance is the same as if a politician came along and demanded that the big bad evil car insurance carriers also provide coverage for oil changes, tire rotations, car washes, tune-ups and scented trees that have that new-car smell. I don’t need all that, I will pay for it if, and as, I need it. Unfortunately, health care has suffered this ridiculous abuse.
Then there is the fact that we can’t buy insurance from other states. Why is that? Why did our own government remove competition by forcing us to buy only plans in our state? Can you imagine that with cars or lighters or beer? We could only buy them if they were manufactured in our state, even though other states are making them exactly the same for much less? You can’t have a “free market” when government takes away the “free” part.
What about Obama’s socialist buddies in the labor unions that got a waiver for their Cadillac health care insurance plans? Why is it okay for our President to carve out a particular class of citizens and determine that they are better than the rest of us and deserve special privileges? What if Bush or Reagan had exempted Accountants, or Drummers or Dishwashers or Car Mechanics? Why does organized labor get a free pass? What the HELL is that all about? Give me a break. That is blatant socialism, favoritism and elitism in all its raw ugliness, but where is the outrage?
Then there is Medicare and Medicaid. You can’t add 91 million people to health insurance and not expect everyone else in America to not be forced to kick in more money in premiums to pay for them all. So we do. In theory, some of these people truly can not afford health care, but of course there are those that could but just don’t because they can get it for free through these programs, so we end up paying for ourselves and them too. Of those that can pay, as premiums rise to cover those that choose not to pay, or can’t pay…the current payers also decide to stop paying as their premiums keep rising and they then become more people on government coverage, which further pushes up premiums and exposes yet another level of payers to decide its too expensive and become nonpayers, and on…and on…and on.
A government sponsored program also creates a moral hazard. If I know I can get it for free later in life, why would I ever be stupid enough to buy insurance now when I am young and healthy and making money? If Medicare and Medicad were not available, working people and families would be buying long-term health care insurance that kicks in when we reach a certain age. We would pay into it over decades of our working life and it would cover us in retirement. But why should I do that when I know the government will pay for me even if I don’t save a penny? Why put money into long term care when I can just use it to buy another plasma TV right now?
The truth is, health care is not immune from free market principles. The truth is that government has distorted the market so intensely with so many laws and regulations that it is not permitted to operate like thigh-masters and Ziplocs. Then, once they have screwed it up enough, they start screaming about how expensive it is, when they themselves are the ones that made it that way. And their solution for their intrusive twisted government intervention is MORE government intervention and we suckers always fall for it. We have been trained so well to believe them that it’s inevitable.