How Obamacare Kills Real Health Care Reform

How Obamacare Kills Real Health Care Reform

Courtesy of SHAMUS COOKE at CounterPunch 

It’s difficult to understand a subject when those explaining it are motivated not by truth, but profit. In the case of health care, both Democrats and Republicans have huge financial incentives to obscure, mislead, or lie. Instead of common sense and honesty directing the debate, bags of money facilitate the conversation, funneled in from the health care industry via lobbyists into Congressmen’s pockets. This is the real reason that Obama’s “health care summit” was full of free-market jargon, staged debate and fake rage. 

The majority of working people in this country are completely alienated from this nonsense, and are growing progressively hostile to the lies of both parties and their respective media mouthpieces. Polls continue to show rising opposition to the Democrats’ health care shenanigans, while showing no upgrade in status for the Republicans. 

The ability for millions of people to see through the muddle in Washington points to a larger distrust of the two-party system. Even as “progressive Democrats” and other liberal pundits bow before the health care industry by urging passage of “an imperfect” health care bill, workers, the poor and the elderly aren’t taking the bait.

And why should they? The Democrats want millions of uninsured people to be mandated into buying crappy health insurance from the most hated companies in existence, where co-pays, premiums and other fees will prevent millions from benefiting from their new, shoddy health care. This individual mandate is reason enough to solidly reject Obama’s health care scheme, but it’s just the beginning. 

The Democrats don’t like to talk about how their health care vision slashes Medicare. The New York Times explains in detail how Obama’s new plan attacks Medicare; here are some examples: 

“President Obama’s budget would make a down payment toward his goal of covering the uninsured, and he would pay for it in part by cutting federal payments [Medicare] to hospitals, insurance companies and drug companies.”

Later, the article reads: “Mr. Obama said he would save $176 billion over 10 years by cutting Medicare payments to health insurance companies that provide comprehensive care to more than 10 million of the 44 million Medicare beneficiaries.” 

And: “Mr. Obama also proposed squeezing $37 billion out of the [Medicare] payments to home health agencies over the next decade.” (February 26, 2010).

The article fails to connect these blandly stated numbers with the gigantic human suffering that will result. All that…

Read the original story at Phil’s Stock World