Giving a Liberal Her Due
Tags: Obamacare, Senate Democrats.
Click here to get Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan.
Senator Feinstein and I disagree on lots of things – heck, most things – but I’ve always thought of her as one of the two or three adults in the Democrat party…and now she goes and proves it:
…After Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night, Feinstein remained skeptical about the wholesale overhauls to the nation’s health care system that Obama contemplates.
“I just find that if you’re going to remake a sixth of the American economy, it’s very difficult at this time of great economic angst,” Feinstein said in an interview with The Chronicle…
…”There is real concern over debt and deficits, and whether this bill will create additional entitlements,” Feinstein said. “That’s important to me and I think it’s important to them.”
Do keep in mind that Senator Feinstein is a tax-and-spend liberal’s tax-and-spend liberal – but she’s also no fool. We’re broke, my fellow Americans. If you are in favor of government-funded health care, then your first concern is how much money the federal government has. Right now, Uncle Sam is flat busted – he’s going towards $13 trillion in debt and his revenues are declining while the economy contracts. If there is a time to spend gobs of money, this isn’t it. Maybe in ten or twenty years, after we’ve put our economic and fiscal house in order, we can entertain grand, new experiments…but for now, in 2009 and for the next few years, its a matter of setting priorities.
If liberals want to do something – and something worthwhile – then attention should be paid towards figuring out how to ensure that no one with a chronic or catastrophic illness is unable to get the care they need. This, in and of itself, would dial back the “crisis” part of health care – there would still be plenty more work to be done (especially in opening up inter-State competition and changing the tax laws to allow private individuals and ad-hoc groups to purchase insurance as easily as corporations), but what is our big worry? It is that some poor guy will lose everything because he comes down with cancer, or is stricken with cerebral palsy, or some such. Cure that ill, and we’re in a much better position.
Senator Feinstein, for all her ardent – and gravely misguided – liberalism understands that there isn’t a magical money tree which will provide the funds necessary for Obama’s health care experiment. While I’ll bet dollars to donuts she’d prefer to have a single-payer plan in her heart of hearts, the merest application of rational thought reveals that this can’t be done. In my view, it can never be done as its destructive – but even if one wants to take the view that its not destructive, it is certain that, right now, it can’t be afforded.
Our real trouble is that with Obama, Pelosi and Reid in charge, sensible people like Feinstein won’t be able to make much headway…doubly so because while she’s got some sense, she’s also going to be unwilling to really go against her party. It is up to us, the American people, to thwart Obama and hold things off until new political realities emerge from the voting booth…and then we can, perhaps, work across the aisle with those very few liberals of good will and common sense for the benefit of the American people.
Thank you for visiting Blogs For Victory. If you enjoy our content, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of our servers.Mark Noonan is co-author (with Matt Margolis) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Nevada News and Views. Follow Mark on Twitter.
4 Responses to “Giving a Liberal Her Due”
Caucus of Corruption
I found one of the most interesting parts of Obama’s speech to be the part where he stated that he was not in favor of that, and that the public option would be funded through premiums rather than taxes.
Actually, there are two big worries. One of them is the one you just mentioned. The other one is that rising healthcare costs are ballooning the deficit and threatening to sink the economy. Remember, once upon a time healthcare costs accounted for only five percent of our GNP. Now, it’s 15%, and it’s continuing to rise.
Sergei,
You appear to be reasonably intelligent, so I’m wondering if you can explain just exactly how rising healthcare costs are “ballooning the deficit and threatening to sink the economy”? I agree that private health insurance premiums increasing at 3 or 4 times the rate of inflation is not sustainable in terms of affordability to individuals, but that, in and of itself has no effect on the federal deficit. Now Medicare is a different story. Since it’s inception in 1965, the annual Medicare budget has grown around 7,000 %, a growth rate that DWARFS the increases in private insurance. Politicians have been talking about wringing the waste, fraud and abuse out of Medicare almost since the beginning. What’s different now? Are the Democrats all of the sudden more sincere?
Sergei,
I believe Obama about as much as I believe, say, Harry Reid…he’s made too many statements in favor of socialized medicine and there’s too many loopholes in all the proposed legislation…he’ll put us in a Canadian-style system as fast as he can, of that I am quite sure.
The reason the cost of things like Medicare and Medicaid are through the roof – and thus have a vastly inflating effect on private health insurance – is because they don’t concentrate on what is needed. It is asinine for us to pay for routine visits – people can pay for those on their own…what we must pay for is catastrophic and/or chronic illness…that is where the money is spent…I don’t need insurance to pay for a cast on a broken leg (unless there is some big complication), but I do need insurance to pony up if I get cancer, or some such disease.
What need to switch from the concept of health insurance to treatment insurance – with the largest insurance payouts being on the most expensive treatments.
As the cost of benefits increases, so does the cost of employees, be they private or public.
And how big of a program was it in 1965? What are the numbers, both for Medicare and for the insurance industry?
Now we’re looking at healthcare expenses being 20% of the economy in the near future. Back then, we declined to prevent a future crisis. Now, the crisis is actually here.
Might I ask what a “Canadian-style system” is? Each province handles healthcare individually.
So you’re in favor of rationing?
The thing is, routine visits prevent catastrophic illness (hence the term “preventive care”). If you stop paying for routine visits, your total costs will end up increasing; likewise, when hospitals increase the preventive care they provide, their total costs go down.
As opposed to the largest payouts being for the least expensive treatments? Can I get rich by buying a bottle of Aspirin and receiving millions of dollars from my insurance company?