Monthly Archives: January 2010

“…the most basic human right, the right to bargain in a free marketplace.”

–from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

Mrs. Charm insists that we’ll still keep our health insurance under Obamacare. But it’s becoming obvious that is not the plan. The Dems want us all to report to FEMA, or its equivalent, whenever we have a health problem that costs more than a few bucks to remedy. You know, FEMA, that oh-so-efficient bureaucracy?

If the Dems were truly about fixing health care to help the poor, they’d reform Medicaid and Medicare to do it. Make both less restrictive, more inclusive, cheaper to get, more efficient, etc. Right now, among Medicaid’s problems, it requires states to pony up matching funds for every dollar the feds contribute. That doesn’t work in states like Texas where raising taxes is a sure road to political death.

So eliminate the matching funds. Fund the whole thing from Washington. Why not? The Senate deal for passage of their bill included full funding for Nebraska. Why not the rest of the states?

As for Medicare, we know of one local fellow who pays extra-high premiums to Medicare to be covered for a pre-existing problem. Well, why not eliminate such restrictions? I mean if the aim truly is to help the poor?

Doctors don’t like Medicare because it seldom pays what they spend on treatment. Apparently that will only get worse under the Senate bill recently passed. So change that, too. Or is Obamacare about something else entirely?

Maybe this: “IMO, Obama immediately siding with the black professor over the white middle class cop brought into question Obama’s racial neutrality. That suspicion has carried over to the health plan that looks more and more like a transfer payment from the private middle class sector to the minority community that is more dependent on the government.”

Maybe. But it still doesn’t explain why a reformed Medicaid and Medicare wouldn’t be enough. Unless, Ol’ Barry really is a doctrinaire Socialist who just can’t stand the thought of a free market. Except for him and his elite friends, of course.

UPDATE:  Indeed, Mickey Kaus says the Dems outlook could be grim.