Saturday, August 29, 2009

HEALTHCARE: Start over please!











I know we are all tired of the healthcare debate, if we can call it that, but the subject is really too important to just ignore.

As much as I am disgusted with the morons in the town hall screaming sessions, the Republicans that just smell political blood and don’t want to work together to fix a real problem or those like Sarah Palin and FOXNEWS that just make up stuff to sow fear among Americans, I will have to admit that Obama blew the handling of this whole healthcare reform issue.

His first mistake was allowing Congress to write healthcare legislation and his second mistake was giving Congress a time table that was totally unrealistic which made him and the Democrats appear as if they were trying to sneak something past the public.

The legislation that was hastily written was over 1,000 pages long and was not disseminated in an orderly and timely fashion to the public and the media for comment. Innuendo, misinformation and outright lies about what was in the bill hit the airwaves even before it was printed.

Just recently I learned that there was a provision in the bill that would allocate 10-20 Billion dollars to UAW members who took a company buyout to cover their medical costs until they reach the age of 65 when they can be covered under Medicare. This type of irresponsible behavior with taxpayer money makes me think that the entire bill needs to be scraped and the debate re-started, point by point. In fact, I will demand that this be done!

Another mistake by Obama was to introduce a bill that would cost taxpayers TRILLIONS of dollars in the middle of the worst recession / depression since the 1930s. The stimulus package has already put the country in a hole like we have never seen before; have you ever heard the word TRILLION used this many times EVER in your life?

I have been writing about healthcare reform for a number of years now and much can and should be done to make our health system more efficient and therefore cheaper.

Reform, the kind that does not cost us much money, should be implemented in baby steps to see how each regulation impacts the system. A good place to start would be to remove obstacles that prohibit health insurance companies from competing on a national level. States like Michigan have mandatory requirements for what must be covered in a health insurance policy; that’s why many policies are just way too expensive especially for young people that don’t need the extensive coverage.

I will have other suggestions as we go along but for now let me say that I am for scraping the bill Congress wrote and starting over. To Obama let me just say that your intentions were good but your youthful exuberance at getting things done made you lose track of the real world and how things are done in the real world of American politics.

I am surprised that your staff of advisors led you so far astray. The nation will be watching you very closely, so please don’t blow it again; take your time and do it right this time.

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