Thread: Obamacare runs counter to GOP principles

Opinion


Obamacare runs counter to GOP principles

Examiner Editorial
September 15, 2009

In this May 22, 2008 file photo, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. Grassley suggested on Monday March 16, 2009 that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The six Senate Republicans seeking a "bipartisan compromise" on President Obama's proposal for a government-run health care system are flirting with a provision - an individual mandate to buy government-approved health insurance - that runs counter to everything the GOP stands for. This "gang of six" includes senators Olympia Snowe of Maine, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Robert Bennett of Utah, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Mike Crapo of Idaho, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Snowe has been covertly negotiating with Obama for weeks, while Grassley supports the concept of a health care insurance co-op. The other four are co-sponsors of S. 391, the Healthy Americans Act introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, which includes some attractive features but at its heart is an individual mandate. Individuals and fFamilies would be fined as much as $3,800 annually for not buying approved health insurance.

An individual mandate should be anathema to all GOPers for two reasons. First, the individual mandate is the fulcrum of cooperation between government-run health care advocates and the big health insurance companies that would profit immensely if it's approved. As the Social Security Institute's Larry Hunter trenchantly observed, the big insurers "desperately want an individual mandate passed and will accept anything short of having their CEOs pushed out of an airplane door to get it." Such a "public-private partnership" will work no better for health care than it has in the mortgage industry with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Second, the approach makes a mockery of individual freedom of choice because it forces everybody to buy a government-approved health insurance plan from a government-approved insurer with oversight by government bureaucrats. Finally, because of the intensive government regulation involved, mandated rationing of health care is just as inevitable under this approach as it is under Obamacare. And bureaucrats will be just as likely to make treatment choices that ought to be made by doctors and patients. Supporting such legislation will mark Senate GOPers as Republicans-In-Name-Only (RINO) enablers of the Democrats' long-sought government takeover of health care.

Senate Republicans are fools if they think they can safely get away with sprinkling some "bipartisan compromise" pixie dust on any government-run health care bill. Among the August recess lessons is that people, unlike most members of Congress, are reading the bills as never before and they aren't going to be fooled by flowery rhetoric. That is why surveys appearing this week make clear that Obama's much-ballyhooed address last week to Congress was no game-changer, contrary to predictions from the White House and the liberal media. It is also why the people will know RINOcare is just another way of saying Obamacare.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... 66692.html

I just called Senator Crapo's office and gave them an earful.

He and Otter truely are traitors and both need to go...it is all about the farmers and dairymen to them

Here's the Senate version bill S-391 and it is worse than the House version. Here's the co-sponsors. Everyone needs to call and protest this.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas

Co-sponsors:

Sen Alexander, Lamar [TN] - 2/5/2009
Sen Bennett, Robert F. [UT] - 2/5/2009
Sen Cantwell, Maria [WA] - 2/5/2009
Sen Crapo, Mike [ID] - 2/5/2009
Sen Graham, Lindsey [SC] - 2/5/2009
Sen Gregg, Judd [NH] - 3/19/2009
Sen Inouye, Daniel K. [HI] - 2/5/2009
Sen Kaufman, Edward E. [DE] - 6/25/2009
Sen Landrieu, Mary L. [LA] - 2/5/2009
Sen Lieberman, Joseph I. [CT] - 2/5/2009
Sen Merkley, Jeff [OR] - 2/5/2009
Sen Nelson, Bill [FL] - 2/5/2009
Sen Specter, Arlen [PA] - 2/5/2009
Sen Stabenow, Debbie [MI] - 2/5/2009

This is what this bill does:

Puts IRS in charge of all monies—creates another new bureaucracy under the control of IRS, gives control of collecting premiums, dispersing subsidies and exacting fines!!!

Going to tax employee health care benefits!!!

Will force employers to drop coverage and employees into public/government plan.

Demands a public option—government run option

Regulates insurance industries [out of business—crowded out by public option and government mandates]

Taxpayer subsidies up to 400% above poverty level.

No competition across state lines to reduce consumer costs

Call these Senators and tell them you are not going to take this anymore, and we DO NOT want government sticking its nose in our health care!!