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We may not know what’s good for us By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on Aug. 13, 2009, in the Connersville News-Examiner. A solid majority of Americans now oppose President Barack Obama’s promised health care reform proposal.
A majority of Americans also believe the voluminous bills in Congress will both decrease the quality of care while driving up costs, which is opposite of what supporters of the plan claim. The American people have not been silent on the issue — they have been flooding Congressional offices with letters and phone calls against the plan — or simply demanding the congressman in question reads the bill. Where they can, voters are flooding into the so-called “town hall” meetings with members of Congress and the Obama administration, boisterously challenging the health care plan sales reps on key provisions of the bill. Supporters have also been out attempting to shore up the faltering plan by knocking on doors and sending form letters to newspapers, but it has been the reform foes who have drawn the ire of politicians and pundits alike. The estimable Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, writing in a USA Today opinion piece on Aug. 10, said the protesters at health care functions are “simply un-American. “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades,” Pelosi wrote. The problem with that sentiment is that more and more Americans are learning the facts of the health care plan, and it is scaring them. Furthermore, we have yet to see evidence that Pelosi and her cohorts in Congress have actually read their own bill and know the facts, and when we see purple shirt SEIU thugs enter into the scene and begin assaulting protesters for daring to have an opposing view, we have to wonder who is trying to drown out whom. Lately, the mass media has been spinning the opposition, saying they are either shills of the insurance industry or are characterizing them as engaging in “astro-turfing,” the practice of generating a false sense of opposition — a practice popularized by Obama speech writer David Axelrod. The talking heads have also been trying to plant the idea that protesters believe the government is planning to euthanize senior citizens once they reach a pre-determined age. Having lost a night’s sleep to the health care bill — half a night reading it and half a night tossing and turning — I have a pretty good idea why a solid majority of Americans are against this particular plan — and the now infamous Section 1233. While only the most paranoid believe euthanasia is around the corner, it is very true that the bill is enacting procedures for “end-of-life” counseling. It is also true the bill doesn’t specifically state that counseling will be mandated, but the bill also doesn’t specifically state Americans will be required to have health insurance — that mandate is implied by way of a provision determining the fines for those who fail to get “acceptable coverage.” There is something unseemly about the government getting involved with “end-of-life” decisions in the first place, but once it takes an active monetary stake in health and welfare of it’s citizens — especially at the dawn of the baby boomers’ golden years — it’s hard to deny the potential for the government to take a fiscally expedient approach to dealing with our aging population. The government may not be planning kill off senior citizens, but it sure seems like the government is getting ready to open the door and show them the way. In response, Obama said as late as Tuesday to a coached audience at a heavily-produced health care town hall in New Hampshire that “his proposal” will not include “death panels” to determine who lives and dies. At the same meeting, the president said he has not said he supports a single-payer system as well as eliminating employer-based health insurance, even though widely circulated videos from 2003 and 2007 clearly show him saying otherwise. This begs the question — was he lying then or is he lying now, and more important, which does he actually believe? Regardless of what the president believes, he and his supporters have the mathematical advantage in Congress, and the same Rasmussen polling also shows a majority of Americans believe the health care bill will be passed despite their legitimate objections. While there are issues to address in the nation’s health care industry and more workable solutions to some of the problems — tort reform, health savings accounts and ending ridiculous coverage mandates for elective procedures, to name a few — this plan is will attempt to fix a cracked window with a hammer. The myriad of new regulations will further exacerbate the existing problems. On July 31, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell said Americans who do not want their coverage to change “may not know what’s good for them.” It would seem that Congressional Democrats, if they choose to enact this plan against the wishes of a majority of Americans, may believe the same thing. In 1993, Hillary Clinton’s health care plan was a key reason why the Democrats lost their 40-year monopoly in Congress. With 2010 fast approaching and polling suggesting the voters are increasingly in a throw-the-bums-out mood in regards to the Democrats’ 4-year-old majority, they wouldn’t dare go against the will of the people. Then again, they may be more desirous of creating a more managed population than they are of listening to their voters. • Guilmette is managing editor of the News-Examiner. He may be contacted at mguilmette@newsexaminer.com. |
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Copyright © 2009, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
While it never has garnered strong support, the unprecedented reform proposal has fallen to 42 percent in favor in Aug. 11 Rasmussen polling, down eight points from six weeks ago. Within the polling numbers, Rasmussen found that those who strongly oppose the plan outnumber those strongly in support by nearly 2 to 1.
