That means that YOU are listening!
by Ann Coulter
September 9, 2009
(12) Only national health care can provide "coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job" -- as Obama said in a New York Times op-ed.
This is obviously a matter of great importance to all Americans, because, with Obama's economic policies, none of us may have jobs by year's end.
The only reason you can't keep -- or often obtain -- health insurance if you move or lose your job now is because of ... government intrusion into the free market.
You will notice that if you move or lose your job, you can obtain car and home insurance, hairdressers, baby sitters, dog walkers, computer technicians, cars, houses, food and every other product and service not heavily regulated by the government. (Although it does become a bit harder to obtain free office supplies.)
Federal tax incentives have created a world in which the vast majority of people get health insurance through their employers. Then to really screw ordinary Americans, the tax code actually punishes people who don't get their health insurance through an employer by denying individuals the tax deduction for health insurance that their employers get.
Meanwhile, state governments must approve the insurers allowed to operate in their states, while mandating a list of services -- i.e. every "medical" service with a powerful lobby -- which is why Joe and Ruth Zelinsky, both 88, of Paterson, N.J., are both covered in case either one of them ever needs a boob job.
If Democrats really wanted people to be able to purchase health insurance when they move or lose a job as easily as they purchase car insurance and home insurance (or haircuts, dog walkers, cars, food, computers), they could do it in a one-page bill lifting the government controls and allowing interstate commerce in health insurance. This is known as "allowing the free market to operate."
Plus, think of all the paper a one-page bill would save! Don't Democrats care about saving the planet anymore? Go green!
(13) The "public option" trigger is something other than a national takeover of health care.
Why does the government get to decide when the "trigger" has been met, allowing it to do something terrible to us? Either the government is better at providing goods and services or the free market is -- and I believe the historical record is clear on that. Why do liberals get to avoid having that argument simply by invoking "triggers"?
Why not have a "trigger" allowing people to buy medical insurance on the free market when a trigger is met, such as consumers deciding their health insurance is too expensive? Or how about a trigger allowing us to buy health insurance from Utah-based insurers -- but only when triggered by our own states requiring all insurance companies to cover marriage counseling, drug rehab and shrinks?
Thinking more broadly, how about triggers for paying taxes? Under my "public option" plan, citizens would not have to pay taxes until a trigger kicks in. For example, 95 percent of the Department of Education's output is useful, or -- in the spirit of compromise -- at least not actively pernicious.
Also, I think we need triggers for taking over our neighbors' houses. If they don't keep up 95 percent of their lawn -- on the basis of our lawn commission's calculations -- we get to move in. As with Obama's public option trigger, we (in the role of "government") pay nothing. All expenses with the house would continue to be paid by the neighbor (playing "taxpayer").
To make our housing "public option" even more analogous to Obama's health care "public option," we'll have surly government employees bossing around the neighbors after we evict them and a Web site for people to report any negative comments the neighbors make about us.
Another great trigger idea: We get to pull Keith Olbermann's hair to see if it's a toupee -- but only when triggered by his laughably claiming to have gone to an Ivy League university, rather than the bovine management school he actually attended.
(14) National health care will not cover abortions or illegal immigrants.
This appeared in an earlier installment of "Liberal Lies About Health Care," but I keep seeing Democrats like Howard Dean and Rep. Jan Schakowsky on TV angrily shouting that these are despicable lies -- which, in itself, constitutes proof that it's all true.
Then why did Democrats vote down amendments that would prohibit coverage for illegals and abortion? (Also, why is Planned Parenthood collecting petition signatures in Manhattan -- where they think they have no reason to be sneaky -- in support of national health care?)
On July 30 of this year, a House committee voted against a Republican amendment offered by Rep. Nathan Deal that would have required health care providers to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program to prevent illegal aliens from receiving government health care services. All Republicans and five Democrats voted for it, but 29 Democrats voted against it, killing the amendment.
On the same day, the committee voted 30-29 against an amendment offered by Republican Joe Pitts explicitly stating that government health care would not cover abortions. Zealous abortion supporter Henry Waxman -- a walking, breathing argument for abortion if ever there was one -- originally voted in favor of the Pitts amendment because that allowed him, in a sleazy parliamentary trick, to bring the amendment up for reconsideration later. Which he did -- as soon as he had enough Democrats in the hearing room to safely reject it.
If any liberal sincerely believes that national health care will not cover illegals and abortion, how do they explain the Democrats frantically opposing amendments that would make this explicit?
As I've said the answer to most of the problems with our current health care system can be solved by tort reform, medical savings accounts and insurance deregulation.
Tort reform to lower the cost of doctors malpractice insurance and eliminate much of the defensive testing that goes on now.
Medical savings accounts to pay for routine preventative care and handle minor issues like going to the ER for a couple of stitches and a tetanus shot after something like failing to keep your guard up during sword practice.
Insurance deregulation to allow insurance to be sold across state lines - bringing in more competition - and to allow insurers to write major illness/accident policies to cover the things that will cost more than the medical savings account can cover.
That takes care of most of the problems, but not all.
A fund to help compensate insurance companies for the costs of covering people with preexisting conditions and to help people who genuinely can't afford to fund their medical savings account would also need to be established. And a system of incentives would need to be created for drug companies to encourage them to provide expensive medications at little or no cost to those same poor people.
Let's try these proposals out for a decade and then see if we need to do more.
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