President Obama's Health Care Fantasies

I think that Charles Krauthammer described it best when commenting on Obama's speech he called it a fantasy. That's because he promised to give everyone everything, promised to make it cost less, and promised to make the system more efficient doing all this. As the saying goes, if you believe that, I have some great swampland in Florida to sell you. What the president is trying to do is present a plan that will give everyone everything and have no one sacrifice anything. In effect, that's a health care fantasy.

1) Cut Medicare by only cutting waste and corruption.

I have no doubt that there's plenty of waste and corruption in Medicare, Medicaid, and every other government program. I am even sure that if someone was able to track down each and every incident of waste and corruption we'd save much more than $500 billion in the next ten years.

Yet, it's simply wishful thinking to make such a statement. First, why do we need to wait until health care reform to save all this money? If there's waste and corruption, why is the president only willing to go after it if health care reform passes? In fact, to make such a statement is an insult and an affront to all. Cutting waste and corruption is something that everyone should put all efforts at all times. Yet, President Obama has spent nearly eight months in office and so far he's only planning on cutting waste and corruption if and when he gets health care reform. That almost sounds like blackmail.

2)More services, more people covered and less costs

This is the ultimate fantasy. The president wants to make sure that everyone gets insurance. He wants to make sure that everyone gets every single medical ailment covered. Yet, he tells us that this won't cost more but less. He says all this while saying it will cost an extra $900 billion over the next ten years. This is not only fantasy but it's inexplicable.

The president says that it's crucial to bend the cost curve on health care. So, what he wants to do is give somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 million people access to health care they can't now afford. So, now about 35 million people will have access to the full range of medical services and they won't pay for it.

Yet, he also says that this will bend the cost of health care downward. How exactly is giving millions access to health care that they aren't paying for going to bend the cost downward? The president never really explains this. The president says that we'll keep people healthy and so we won't pay for them to show up in the emergency room. That's true, but instead, we'll pay for them to show up for every other medical procedure. Yet, the president insists that covering everyone will cost less.

3)All of this and no rationing

So, the president says that everyone will be covered. He says that no one will go broke staying healthy. The cost curve will be bent down. We're going to have nirvana, but if you then dare to say that this will all be done through rationing you are lying. So, let's think about this. In the president's world, 35 million, or so, new people will enter the system. Most of them will enter on the government's dime. They'll get the full range of medical services. Everyone already in the system won't be affected. Yet, we'll do all this and no medical care will be rationed. In other words, we'll have more people getting treated, less costs, and no rationing.

Like I said, this is a health care fantasy.