Obama: "The cost of inaction is greater," accusing critics of "fear tactics" about "socialized medicine."

Obama’s Health Care Reform in Trouble

By Phyllis Schlafly Friday, June 26, 2009

Barack Obama’s high-speed train to Socialism was knocked off track by a surprising source: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Just as the Senate HELP Committee (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) was about to begin voting on Chairman Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) health care plan (which Obama had let be known was his favorite), CBO released a report that this plan would cost at least a trillion dollars and still leave 36 million people uninsured through 2017.

Obama had promised that people with private health insurance will not be harmed by his health care reform, but the CBO says this would not be true about the Kennedy bill. The CBO report says that the number of people with coverage through their employer would decline by about 15 million and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million.

The Senate committee decided to pause and ponder this sticker shock over the Fourth of July recess. While somewhat distancing himself from the Kennedy plan, Obama plowed ahead, saying “The cost of inaction is greater,â€