{"id":31699,"date":"2016-02-19T15:17:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T19:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=31699"},"modified":"2016-02-19T15:17:38","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T19:17:38","slug":"obamacare-will-bankrupt-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=31699","title":{"rendered":"Obamacare Will Bankrupt the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a complete socialist takeover. By accident or design? We report, you decide<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"One topic of conversation in the Republic race for the White House has been whether President Obama has been incompetent, or actually knows what he\u2019s doing. On the matter of Obama\u2019s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Obamacare, self-declared socialist Professor Gerald Friedman seems to agree with conservatives that it can\u2019t and won\u2019t work. Friedman, a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders\u2019 (I-VT) \u201cMedicare for All\u201d single-payer plan, says that Obama and his advisers knew that the ACA was a \u201cbad idea\u201d that would not control costs, and that a total federal takeover of the health care system was inevitable.<\/p>\n

\n

The problem with a federal takeover of health care is that it would bankrupt the U.S., leading to left-wing demands for even more federal control. This is how socialism is coming to America.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

More than two years ago, in an article entitled, \u201cA Century and Counting: The Campaign for National Health Insurance<\/a>,\u201d Friedman wrote, \u201cAfter a century of struggle, the ACA commits the United States to providing universal access to health care. This is a great achievement, one to be treasured and nurtured. Now the real fight begins, to turn this commitment into a reality that the ACA itself cannot produce. Barack Obama was right the first time: only a single-payer program can provide universal coverage, and only a single-payer program can control costs. The ACA may be the last bad idea that Americans try; after it fails, we will finally do the right thing: single-payer health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

A \u201csingle-payer\u201d plan means the federal government would abolish the private health insurance market and eliminate private health insurance companies. \u201cPrivate plans divert health care spending into channels that do nothing to actually deliver health care, such as advertising and profit,\u201d argues Friedman.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Illinois AFL-CIO on June 30, 2003, Obama said<\/a>, \u201cI happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that\u2019s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that\u2019s what I\u2019d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I asked Friedman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), if he thinks Obama knew that the ACA wouldn\u2019t work when he proposed it as President. He said, \u201cIt depends on what you mean by work, I suppose.\u201d He added, \u201cI\u2019m sure that Obama knew\u2014and economists around him knew\u2014that this program, the Affordable Care Act, would not control costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama said his plan would cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family\u2019s premium by up to $2,500 a year. Since then, health premiums have climbed<\/a> an average of $4,865 for family plans.<\/p>\n

Trudy Lieberman, past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and an adjunct professor of public health at the CUNY School of Public Health, says that while Obama is still telling Americans that the ACA provides \u201caffordable, portable security for you and your loved ones,\u201d the news coming from Ohio and Colorado is telling a different story: \u201cone of less security and unaffordable insurance.\u201d Lieberman, a contributor to the Remaking Health Care blog of the Center for Health Journalism at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, says<\/a> that in Colorado, for example, premiums \u201calways on the high side, are now out-of-reach.\u201d She notes, \u201cHealth insurance premiums are as high as mortgage payments, sometimes exceeding $2,000 a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Tracy C. Miller, an associate professor of economics at Grove City College and fellow for economic theory and policy with The Center for Vision & Values, had predicted this kind of outcome. Among other problems, he wrote<\/a>, \u201cPremiums will rise to reflect the higher health care costs of those who purchase insurance, making insurance too costly for people with good health who do not qualify for government subsidies.\u201d He added<\/a> that rising costs could be addressed through government-imposed rationing. However, he said, \u201cExpanding access to health care without cost control will further hasten the bankruptcy of the U.S. government. If that happens, fewer people will have access to health care than was the case even before Congress passed the ACA. If the ACA\u2019s provisions to expand access to health care survive, don\u2019t be surprised if the U.S. government eventually faces a sovereign debt crisis similar to what Greece is now facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (NV) was in on the deception. He told<\/a> the Las Vegas PBS program, Nevada Week in Review, that the ACA was \u201ca step\u201d toward a single-payer system. \u201cReid said he thinks the country has to \u2018work our way past\u2019 insurance-based health care,\u201d the Las Vegas Sun reported. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve done with Obamacare,\u201d Reid said, \u201cis have a step in the right direction, but we\u2019re far from having something that\u2019s going to work forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The costs will keep rising, especially under the single-payer plan. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says<\/a> that Sanders\u2019 proposed offsets to pay for his $14 trillion program \u201cwould cover only three-quarters of his claimed cost, leaving a $3 trillion shortfall over ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders calls his single-payer plan \u201cMedicare for All,\u201d arguing that Medicare \u201chas succeeded in providing near-universal coverage to Americans over the age of 65.\u201d Dr. Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, counters<\/a>, \u201cWhat will Sanders do about the more-than-$40 trillion in promises Medicare has already made without provision for the revenue to pay for them?\u201d Referring to Sanders\u2019 single-payer plan, she added, \u201cWhat does he imagine will happen when he adds on the demands of the entire rest of the population, and removes any brakes on utilization like co-pays and deductibles?\u201d<\/p>\n

Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told me that Sanders has not offered full-blown socialist proposals, only \u201cNew Deal liberalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the DSA, which endorses Sanders, goes far beyond \u201cNew Deal liberalism\u201d and the nationalization of the health insurance industry. DSA National Political Committee member David Green has written<\/a>, \u201cOur goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a complete socialist takeover. By accident or design? We report, you decide.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttp:\/\/canadafreepress.com\/article\/obamacare-will-bankrupt-the-u.s<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a complete socialist takeover. By accident or design? We report, you decide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}