Obama's Plan to Socialize Health Care

Here's a prediction: Within five years (if not sooner), the U.S. will have full-blown socialized medicine under President Barack Obama.

Now, like many, you might say: Obama's plan doesn't call for socialized medicine.

Well, in response, we'd like to reply: It doesn't need to. However, here's how Obama's plan will result in total and complete socialized medicine.

Obama has a plan that he likes to brag about. You can check it out here on his website. At first glance, the plan sounds too good to be true. Well, that's because it is.

Simply put, here's how the plan will work:

Develop the government plan to cover the uninsured. Companies (and individuals), as Obama like to say, will be able to keep their own insurance plan if they choose.

Obama's Plan: Bleed 'Em Until They Change Their Minds

However--and here's the catch--Companies will have to pick up 100% of the tab for their employee's insurance. Now since most companies today have their employees pick up some portion of their health care costs (usually ranging from 10 to 30%), the cost increases to employers will be astronomical...

...Or, employers can pay 6% of their payroll to "opt in" to the government plan.

Since smaller employers are having a harder and harder time today paying the health care costs for their employees, they'll be the first to opt in to the government plan. Then you'll see larger ones to the same as those larger employers will find the government's plan to be a cheaper alternative (at first), causing them to dump their employees into the government plan.

Here's a pretty good synopsis of Obama's plan:

Obama's economic plan also includes a "pay or play' mandate requiring companies to either pay for health insurance for 100 percent of their full-time employees or pay 6% of their total payroll into a federally designed fund. According to Ralph R. Reiland, "Obama vs Business & Jobs" (Pittsburgh Tribune Review (10/13/2008), small employers currently face average costs of $7,600 per year insurance coverage for an employee with a family. For a small business with thin margins that can afford to cover only 10 of its 50 employees, Obama's full-coverage mandate under the "play" option, at $7,600 per employee, comes with a job-killing price tag of $304,000 per year for the coverage of the other 40 employees.

One key statement in the above-cited article is very telling: Obama's idea is to have the government absorb severe costs, although he has not spelled out the details or where the funds would come from. [Emphasis added.]

Now, like everything else in life, there's no such thing as a free lunch (except if you're a politician, a Big Labor Fat Cat, or a Wall St. exec.), once more workers get dumped into Obama's government plan, the costs will rise. Once that happens, all Americans are going to foot the bill for another failed government plan through higher taxes or bigger deficits.

That's it in a nutshell, folks....How our health care will be socialized through a simple (and costly) "feel good" scheme.

For those of you who might say: Well, what alternative is there? Here's a radical idea for you: Get the government out of health care and open it up to a truly free market--something that hasn't existed in health care since 1964.

In closing, we'd like to offer this in answer to Tom Brokaw's question during the last debate as to whether health care is a "right". In 1993, Dr. Leonard Piekoff gave an address entitled "Health Care is Not a Right." It is worth a read considering that the debate over socialized medicine goes beyond the mere economics to the moral and philosophical question: What constitutes a right?

Note: Although the above address was given in 1993, during the last battle over socialized medicine, it is still very relevant. Since 1993, times have changed and, as socialists (like those Labor Bosses who have been pushing it since we were in unions) argue more vociferously for government to nationalize health care, there seems to be no clear voice on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Dude! The Teamsters Are Selling Drugs Down at the Hall...

...Well, sort of...

It seems that the Canadian Teamsters have opened their own pharmacy to combat the high price of drugs, according to an article on Mississauga.com.

And the idea apparently comes from union halls here in the US having their own pharmacy--right in the union hall!

According to the article, the Teamsters opened their pharmacy so that the "membership of Teamsters Union 938 will have access to are the common, everyday prescription drugs that many Canadians require in their daily lives."

Mayor Hazel McCallion, who attended Monday's official opening, hailed the initiative. “It’s unique because everybody is concerned about the cost of drugs... our health system just can’t cope with it. So I want to congratulate you on this venture, which I know will be very successful,” she said.

Wait a damn minute here!?! Isn't the Canadian health care system (socialized medicine) something we Americans are supposed to be envious of???

Sshh! Don't tell the liberals about this...They'll be beside themselves.

The article goes on to state that the Teamsters' president Larry McDonald got the idea from his years living and working in the good ol' U.S. of A.

“Many unions down there have opened their own pharmacy right in the union hall," McDonald said.

Oh really??? The Teamsters (and other unions) are dispensing drugs right out of their union halls...here in the States?

Now that is news to us! Does the DEA know about this, Larry?

If there are union halls dispensing drugs here in the U.S., we certainly have never heard of them.

Hell, they didn't dispense drugs when we were in the union....Well, not legal drugs anyway!

Hey, by the way, isn't pot legal in Canada?

If so, we have one word for this whole story: Duuuude!

_______________________

For more labor-related news go to EmployerReport.com

The "End Game" of Health Care in the U.S.

We recently received an e-mail from an ally in the Fight for Freedom, Mr. Thomas Wigand, who provided an eloquent analysis of the present push for socialized medicine (aka "universal health care").

His analysis, inspired by an April 3rd article posted on The Nation (subscribers only) is an excellent synopsis of the "end game" of the current health care debate and of our present health care system. Even for those without access to the article, you will still be able to easily see the merits to Tom's analysis...
THE PLAN:

Get large corporations to support “universal health care” – the lure for them being getting some (and eventually) all of the cost of employee healthcare off of their books and onto taxpayers;

Unions/Democrats use this as the “camel’s nose under the tent” on the way to “single payer” healthcare (a/k/a socialized medicine) – see SEIU quote in the article appearing below;

With government in de facto control of healthcare (both under “universal” and “single payer” regimes) use union / Democrat officeholder clout over hospital management in order to force them not to oppose unionization of their workforces. As healthcare workers will become de facto government employees (or at least quasi-governmental employees) – unionization of these workforces will follow the trend of other public sector employees, i.e., the creation of a permanent voting-block looking to protect their jobs / increase their pay at taxpayer expense;

Create a voting-block of healthcare dependent voters who will oppose any effort to reduce the spiraling growth of taxpayer-funded increases in “healthcare” expenditures (and thus the spiraling growth of unionized payrolls), i.e., the same electoral dynamic we see with seniors and Medicare / Social Security;

Use lobbying to expand the range of “what is covered by mandate” – thereby further increasing the ranks of unionized healthcare workers;

Recycle ever-growing union dues into Democrat political campaigns;

Have the union(s) become the kingmakers within the Democrat Party via union control of the recycled-dues / purse-strings, and ability to fund obedient primary challengers against any Democrat who doesn’t 100% obey the union line;

Create a permanent and unassailable Democrat legislative (and executive) officeholder majority, which in turn is controlled by the unions;

Large corporations no longer being necessary to advance the plan, use Democrat political control to enact whatever laws the union bosses feel is in their interest (as opposed to the interests of workers, business, taxpayers or the good of the economy and country).

THE RESULT:

Health care in the U.S. will become like public education – expensive and low-quality. We’ll get to “enjoy” the same high taxes, long waits and outdated technology as the Canadians (who will no longer be able to come here to get the kind of timely and quality health care that is unavailable at home);

Our economy will come to resemble the “Democrat Socialist” model of Europe: crippling taxes; crippling union-bureaucrat regulations; stagnation and permanently high levels of unemployment.

The Asian countries – already eating our economic lunch – will come to regard the United States as a giant Disney World. Like Americans did for many years with Europe, they’ll look at us as a giant theme park that is fun to visit. Our economy will be increasingly characterized by low-skilled, low-paying jobs.

Our public schools will be teaching American children to say: “Would you like to ‘Supersize’ that?” - IN MANDARIN!