OT - defections - Page 1

Experts: Obama's 'Public Option' Insurance Will Abandon 100 Million Citizens
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 12:22 PM

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_bad_public_options/2009/07/21/238226.html?s=al&promo_code=83DB-1

By: David A. Patten
Up to 100 million people would lose their current healthcare plan within the next three years if Congress passes the "public option" health bill now making its way through Congress, policy experts tell Newsmax.

Defections on that scale would mean the death of the health-insurance sector within five years, a leading GOP congressman says.

These findings fly in the face of President Obama's assurances.

"Under our proposals," Obama told the American people during his July 18 weekly radio address, "if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period, end of story."

Not so, according to a report released Monday by the Lewin Group, a nonpartisan Falls Church, Va., firm that provides consulting services to the healthcare industry. The D.C.-based Heritage Foundation sponsored the study.

The study concludes that, although the government won't actually order people to leave their private insurance plans, it will induce their employers to do so. The taxpayer subsidies in the public option will tilt the economic scales so much that employers and individuals will abandon the private insurance market by the millions, the Lewin Group study indicates.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., an orthopedic surgeon and senior ranking Republican on the Health subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee, tells Newsmax the imbalance will kill private health insurance as it currently exists in less than a decade.

"I don't see how it can go longer than somewhere between three and five years," Price tells Newsmax. "The phase-in makes it so that we'll see tens of millions go from private plans to the government-run plan within a year or two. And then five years is the drop dead date where everybody is forced off."

The mainstream media is beginning to question Obama's presumptions as well.

ABC senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper writes on his Political Punch blog that the president has admitted his statement is not literally true.

The government "might create circumstances" that would lead to a widespread change in policies, Tapper writes.

"I can't pass a law that says, 'I'm sorry, employers, you can never make changes to the healthcare plans that you provide your employees," Obama recently told ABC's Diane Sawyer. "What I can say is that the government is not going to force . . . your employers or you to join a government plan, for example."

Tapper reports that Obama later appeared to hedge on his promise during ABC News' healthcare forum, saying: "If you are happy with your plan, and if you are happy with your doctor, we don't want you to have to change."

Yet that is exactly what would happen to tens of millions of policyholders if Congress passes the current plans, Lewin Group and other experts say.

Obama has justified the public option as a means of policing private insurers, saying it "will keep them honest and help keep prices down."

The reality, critics say, is that Obama's proposal would go far beyond that, possibly even driving the private health-insurance sector out of business altogether, at a time when the economy already is closing in on 10 percent unemployment.

The Lewin Group appears to support Rep. Price's co

Obama is a liar.    .....but he sure can give one helluva Teleprompter Speech !!!

Trailrider.......

THANK YOU!

Very good Trailrider!
Love it!

Jen

Aw that just a left wing report funded by a right wing political action committee endorsed by cnbc and published by rupert murdoch! It is only true from a certain point of view but accurate if you are crosseyed !

There is much fraud right now with Medicare, just think of the issues when they take it  all over! I want to know anything goverment run is better off. i  ALSO  WANT TO  KNOW WHO CAN AFFORD TO PAY 60% IN TAXES, to  pay for  all of this.

Like I said before,

If the US government couldn't sell sex and booze, bankrupting the brothel they took over, then who can believe that they can run the healthcare, banking, or auto industries?

Crys

Health Commissioner Would Answer Only to Obama, Otherwise Unchecked

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32833&page=1#c1

[The bill would also authorize a “Health Choices Commissioner” that would be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate to oversee this government run insurance “Exchange.”

More from the final report:
Aside from the will of the President, the Commissioner’s power would be unchecked. This is extremely troubling given the large scope of responsibility given to the Commissioner. In fact, the Commissioner is so powerful that the title is referenced almost 200 times in H.R. 3200. This government official would have:

• The power to decide which treatments patients could receive and at what cost;
• The power to decide which private plans would be allowed to participate in the Exchange;
• The power to regulate all insurance plans, both in and out of the Exchange;
• The power to determine which employers would be allowed to participate in the Exchange;
• The power to determine how many Americans will be allowed to choose health coverage through the Exchange;
• The power to form and control which physicians and hospitals participate in the government-run plan and in private plan provider networks;
• The power to determine which states are allowed to operate their own Exchange and terminate a previously-approved State Exchange at any time;
• The power to override state laws regarding covered health benefits;
• The power to determine how trillions of taxpayer and employer dollars would be spent within the Exchange;
• The power to determine who qualifies for premium assistance; and
• The power to automatically enroll Americans into the Exchange if they don’t have coverage, including potentially forcing these individuals into the government-run plan.
Also troubling is the fact the Secretary of Health and Human Services would decide which prescription drugs are made available in the government plan. Evidence has shown that government officials in other countries have used this power to deny access to needed treatments on the basis of cost.”]