Thursday, August 13, 2009

A little more on what The Obama and his buttmonkeys,

and the socialists in Congress, want to shove down our throats:
Neither end of the political spectrum will care much for what Ezra Klein wrote yesterday about the state of play for ObamaCare:

A bit later today, I’ll be putting up an interview with Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House’s Office of Health Reform. But there’s a particular argument that I want to focus on. “When you step back,” she told me, “there is broad agreement about 85 percent of what we’re talking about.”

You hear this a lot from the White House. In fact, you hear it often enough that it’s tempting to think it untrue. But it’s very true. And in this moment of violent town halls and ferocious controversy, it’s worth remembering.

Here are the things that, broadly speaking, legislators agree about: insurance market reforms, including community rating, guaranteed issue, an end to rescission, an end to discrimination based on preexisting conditions, and an individual mandate. Subsidies for low-income Americans. Delivery system reforms. Health insurance exchanges. An expansion of coverage to about 95 percent of legal residents. Prevention and wellness policies. Retaining and strengthening the employer-based insurance market. Creating some kind of incentive for employers to offer, and keep offering, health benefits. Expanding Medicaid to about 133 percent of poverty.

The Left does not like reading it because the see the White House laying a foundation for declaring victory on some bill that lacks the most odious components of the Democrats’ proposals, particularly a government-run insurance plan.

The Right should not like it because the so-called insurance market reforms still amount to government-run health care, as everyone from Keith Hennessey to Michael Kinsley acknowledges.

People in the persuadable middle need to hear that. People in the persuadable middle also need to hear that the so-called insurance reforms the Democrats are pushing will jack up health insurance premiums. These government mandates have been particularly bad for the individual insurance market in the few states which already impose them:
And it goes from there.

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