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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (12098)	12/6/2009 2:22:43 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 42652

Yet another new entitlementRate this story By David Gratzer Well known is the Democratic plan to create a new health insurance program - modeled after Medicare - to compete against private coverage. But buried deep in the 2,074-page draft legislation released last week by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, is another insurance option for millions of Americans. In fact, this one has all the markings of a new entitlement and - even before its enactment - doesn't appear to be financially sustainable. The other insurance scheme is CLASS, or "community living assistance service and supports." The aim, to use non-Beltway language, is to help Americans with the high cost of long-term care or assisted living. CLASS would be a government-run, voluntary insurance to cover the costs of such care. It's in both the House and Senate health-reform proposals, adapting a concept Massachusetts' late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy introduced this spring. Granted, assisted living might become the next great health crisis. For years, policy experts noted that aging baby boomers have pushed up the cost of health care - older joints sometimes need replacement, for instance. But as baby boomers age further, they will need more than, say, the occasional day procedure, graduating into something more geriatric. Complicating the situation: Loose Medicaid eligibility rules have made it easy for a generation to hide assets and still qualify for government support - the so-called "two Mercedes" rule. Medicaid estate planning is so common that a U.S. senator once confessed to hiding her mother's assets so she could qualify for the government program. While states and Congress have toughened up rules in recent years, few Americans have opted for private long-term care insurance. CLASS is presumably meant to solve this problem. Just as private insurers already do, CLASS means the government can take your money now in exchange for long-term care insurance. But in a private insurance plan, "pay now for problems later" means just that: A company puts enough of your money aside to cover future expenses, then profits if it can invest that money to create a surplus over and above the final actual costs. In Washington, government-run "social insurance" works a little differently. Congress loves pay-as-you-go programs, which price premiums for today's likely costs, not tomorrow's potential risks. Politicians look generous because pay-as-you-go premiums usually force the next generation of Americans to pay the true cost of today's entitlements. For example, the base payroll tax rate for Social Security is now 12.4 percent, quite a leap from the original rate of just 2 percent. Congress raised rates to cover repeated shortfalls between promised benefits and inadequate premiums. We face similar challenges with Medicare, after Congress broadened health coverage without proper financing. Aging voters demanding better Medicare hurt the economic interests of their own children, who, in turn, must pay higher taxes and finance larger public debts to fund the benefits of their parents. When it priced the Senate health bill, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) noted that CLASS "premiums would be set to cover the full cost of the program as measured on an actuarial basis" and estimated that incoming premiums would cut Washington's projected deficit by $72 billion by 2019. But later in the same report the CBO stated that: "In the decade following 2029, the CLASS program would begin to increase budget deficits." In other words, the Senate health bill looks more fiscally responsible than the House bill because it front-loads windfall cash flow from CLASS, then backloads cost and risk to your grandchildren long after this Congress is safely (and comfortably) retired. And this is probably the rosy version. After all, just as with the other voluntary public insurance plan in Obamacare, no one has a clue how many will sign up. So no one can predict the risk profile of likely beneficiaries. What if new assisted-living technology increases the price of benefits?What if CLASS beneficiaries are less healthy than predicted? In the private market, insurance companies carry these risks. Under CLASS, taxpayers bear the risk of a shortfall - and shortfalls have appeared for every social insurance plan ever created by Washington. Even by the careless standards of pre-Obama Washington, a new entitlement would get at least superficial congressional scrutiny. Obamacare is different: It creates new entitlements on the fly and bypasses real oversight by making the entitlement "voluntary." While this strategy makes the program seem safer, it actually adds risks by expanding the uncertainties. When he rose to the presidency, Mr. Obama derided Washington politicians who "kick the can further down the road," passing costly problems from one generation to the next without the courage to solve them.Yes, assisted living might just be America's next big health challenge. Kicking another empty can down another bumpy road is not a responsible solution. Dr. David Gratzer, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute is author of "Why Obama's Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster" (Encounter Books, 2009). washingtontimes.com

To: Lane3 who wrote (12098)	12/6/2009 3:00:57 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Respond to of 42652

An email I received regarding obumble's health care: From Michael Connelly - Retired attorney, Constitutional Law Instructor, Carrollton , Texas Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected. To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession. The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled. However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed. The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care. This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide. If you decide not to have health care insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed "acceptable" to the "Health Choices Administrator" appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a "tax" instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the "due process of law. So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out of the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn't stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;" The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control. I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation" to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable. For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution: archives.gov And another to the Bill of Rights: archives.gov There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us. Michael Connelly Retired attorney, Constitutional Law Instructor Carrollton, Texas GZ