The Truth on Obama's Health Care Plan

Remember when Bill Clinton was trying to avoid lying by asking the court to “define the word ‘is’”? Well, the current President is just as much of a slick lawyer except instead of twisting words to avoid acknowledging an affair this President is parsing his words in order to mislead the American public about his health care bill. And I don’t mean he is less than truthful about some obscure part of it but he is trying to fool us about the primary intent of this bill; to socialize medicine by bankrupting private insurance and replacing it with government run insurance, doctors, hospitals and drugs.

I always thought that something about this health care plan smelled badly but I didn’t have any evidence until I stumbled upon a blog by NewsBusters in which they were discussing an article by Investors Daily Business (IDB) http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/07/16/ibd-individual-private-health-insurance-illegal-under-house-bill. You see IDB did something quite outrageous, they actually read the entire 1000+ page health care bill, something which I doubt any of the lawmakers currently discussing and voting on the issue have done. And within those pages is a total contradiction to what Obama and the Democrats have been promising.

Here is what President Obama recently said in a major speech to the AMA about his health care bill, “…If you like what you're getting, keep it. Nobody is forcing you to shift. But if you're not, this gives you some new options. And I believe one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that force -- so that we can force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest…”

This is basically what everyone has told us; those with insurance can keep what they have and those without can choose between public or private insurance options. In fact, Obama takes head on the accusation that private insurance will eventually disappear; “So when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They're not telling the truth.”

But when reading the health care bill, IBD came across a section titled “Protecting the Choice To Keep Current Coverage” on page 16 which stated: "Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of the year the legislation becomes law”.

This is written in typical misleading legalize and I had to read it a few times before I realized what it was saying: Private health insurance companies will not be allowed to enroll anyone new after the bill becomes law. Wow. Take a moment and let the enormity of that sentence sink in. So yes, people can keep their private insurance. But if you were uninsured you won’t be able to enroll in a private insurance company; you would be forced to use the government insurance plan, whatever that might be. And if you are already insured but you like another private insurance plan better, too bad, you can’t have it.

So who is the liar Mr. President? This bill will kill private insurance companies for how can any private insurance company survive without new customers? In contrast to what is being promised, this bill will force the uninsured into a public plan. Although I carefully reread what Obama said and I realize that he never actually stated that the uninsured could get private insurance: “…this gives you some new options. And I believe one of these options needs to be a public option…” Oh yes, he is a lawyer carefully parsing his sentences to sound one way yet actually mean the exact opposite.

And where he said that people are not telling the truth when they say that he is trying to bring about government health care? I can see where a slick lawyer might argue that this is correct, that Obama isn’t trying to bring about government health care – he is succeeding in doing it!

Perhaps this is the key to that teleprompter. Everything that Obama says is a carefully crafted lie or misdirection. He is a master at telling the public what they want to hear while hiding his true intentions. Luckily a few people, including some from his own party and even a couple of journalists are beginning to question his words, his motives and his goals. In fact Obama just might have gone too far with this new health care bill. We need more folks like IBD and NewsBusters to dig into the true intent of the health care bill and then to let the public know that it isn’t what they say it is. President Obama will again address the nation on this topic so listen carefully to what he says and what he omits. And if it smells bad then it probably really does stink.