Posted by
Roxanna M. on Tuesday, September 08, 2009 11:56:56 AM
America is in real trouble right now. Congress just might do something that will affect every man, woman, and child in this country . . . and not for the better . . . and not for the reasons you might think. I refer, of course, to health care "reform" with the public option.
Not knowing exactly what the end result is going to be, but not taking any chances, Congress has already voted to exempt itself from whatever it decides to force on us. So, like Osama bin Laden hiding in his cave, sending others out to die, Congress is perfectly content to let others bear the brunt of its policies.
Right now, members of Congress can choose from a host of private plans that are available. The fact that they want to take that choice away from us bothers them not in the least. They think that what they are doing will never affect them, except maybe at election time. They live in a fool's paradise.
People are going to do what saves them money. People are going to desert private insurance once they find out that the public option is cheaper. Government subsidies are being included for just this purpose. And, businesses are going to choose the public option for their employees for the same reason. As more and more people leave, premiums will have to go up, which will cause more and more people to leave, which will cause premiums to go up . . .
The bottom line is: there soon won't be any private plans left from which members of Congress can choose. Eventually, they will be in the same boat as the rest of us. They will, of course, cut to the front of the line, demand better treatment than will be available to us, and suck up all the money, but they will still have no choice but the public option.
This leads me to the second problem. When all the private companies go belly up, where are the employees going to go? Are they going to go work for the government health care bureaucracy? If so, then the program is going to cost a heckuva lot more than it is estimated to cost now, which is a heckuva lot less than it's actually going to cost. Already, it is being stated that the $1 trillion price tag is 100% too low.
This leads me to the third problem. All the billions now flowing into the private sector via health care premiums are going to disappear into the black hole of government. Social Security was sold to Americans as a savings account program. But when the thieves on Capitol Hill saw all that money flowing in, they couldn't resist its siren song. Pretty soon, they were using the money for whatever they felt like and told us they were "investing" it for us. Compared to Congress, Bernie Madoff is a piker, which brings up an interesting point. Madoff did on a small scale what Congress has been doing on a large scare for decades now. So, why is Madoff in prison. How can something be illegal if Congress . . . the highest body of lawmakers in the country . . . is doing it? But, I digress.
Congress could very well do something that will, all at the same time: (1) strain an already overburdened economy with trillions more in debt, (2) increase unemployment at a time when it is already at a 26-year high, and (3) remove billions from the private sector at a time when it is needed more than ever.