It’s back – anti-ObamaCare 2.0

I get letters … in this case, an “Action Alert” from Tim Wildmon and the American Family Association (AFA).

Subject: It’s back – ObamaCare 2.0, worse than the first

Dear Dave,

President Obama, determined to press for the government takeover of our entire health care system, is reviving a tweaked version of the Senate health care “reform” bill.

How is the government “taking over” our “entire health care system” here?

Will all doctors be government employees, as in the UK?  Nope.

Will the government be the “single payer” of all standard health benefits, as in Canada?  Nope.

Is the whole Obama proposal focused on and implemented by private insurance companies private physicians, without even a “public option” in sight?  Yup.

I’m not quite sure what constitutes “takeover of our entire health care system” to these people, except the idea that (somehow) we should, as a society, care for the sick — truly a horrid socialist policy.

If possible, it’s even worse than the one Sen. Harry Reid cobbled together in secret and then sprung on the country just before Christmas.

In secret? After months and months of negotiation and compromise? A plan which was continuously watered down to attempt to get it out of committee, let alone to the floor of the Senate?  And that’s “secret” and “sprung”?  Give me a break.

The president will hold a highly-publicized just-for-show “summit” Thursday in an effort to breathe life into his version of this monstrosity.

So after complaints about “secrets” and “springing,” when the President (properly capitalized) turns around and invites both parties into discuss a proposal and explore ideas, it’s all “just for show” and a faux scare-quoted italicized “summit” (?).  It’s hard making the AFA happy.

As our good friend Gary Bauer …

Ah, yes.  Our good friend Gary Bauer.

… of the Campaign for Working Families and American Values points out, here are just some of the problems with the bill:

• The president is threatening to use what’s called the “reconciliation process,” a gimmick that will enable him to enact socialized medicine with just 51 votes in the Senate.

Right.  A “gimmick” the GOP has used over  and over again for passing budgets, tax cuts, even health care bills.  Which (gasp!) allows the Senate to (eek!) actually pass something by a majority.

A 60 vote super-majority is not dictated by the Constitution.  It’s an internal Senate rule, no more “gimmicky” (but far more abused) than reconciliation.

• A Rasmussen poll found that 58% of likely voters oppose both the Senate and House health care bills, and 61% want Congress to tear up both bills and start over. The American people have already made it clear they do not want the government takeover of health care.

Yes. The Right, including the AFA, have managed to so demonize the general concept of Health Care Reform and the efforts in the House and Senate, that if you ask people what they think of those big boxes, they narrowly disapprove.

But … if you ask them about individual provisions and ideas in those bills — what they are made up of — a majority approve. They dislike the cover of the book (because people keep telling them it’s a bad book), but they enjoy all the chapters when they read them.

• The president says his proposal will cost about $1 trillion, but the Congressional Budget Office says the language is too vague even to come up with an official cost estimate.

True. That’s because it’s not explicit legislation, but proposals. That the CBO has priced the existing House and Senate bills in the same ballpark (and demonstrated significant overall deficit cuts because of that spending) should serve as a useful approximation.

Under his plan, senior citizens living off investment income will get hit with a new tax on so-called “unearned” income. (It’s hardly “unearned” – you worked all your life to build those investments.)

Investment income — capital gains and dividends — is considered unearned because you didn’t actually work to get it (you worked for the money that went into it). And the tax in question applies to folks making $200K/year filing singly, $250K/year filing jointly — not quite the poor senior citizens implied above.

It extends the “Cornhusker kickback” to every state in the Union, essentially offering a bribe to every senator.

So if “everyone” is being bribed … then “nobody” is being bribed. I don’t see the problem here.

It includes the unconstitutional mandate that every American buy insurance or pay a fine. (This means you will get taxed for not doing something!)

The constitutionality of that provision will doubtless be taken to the courts. If we’re going to couch it as a tax — then, yes, everyone is being taxed, one way or the other. Next?

It imposes price controls on the health insurance industry. Every time in history price controls have been used, they have resulted in shortages and rationing.

It regulates price increases, subjects them to review. Is the AFA suggesting that Anthem’s boosting of insurance premiums by 25, 30, 40% in a single year (whilst showing record profits and giving big bonuses to the executives) is justified and shouldn’t be subject to some oversight and justification? Whose families are the AFA serving here?

It not only makes taxpayer funding of abortion a right, it provides for the direct funding of abortions through Community Health Centers and would lead to mandates that would require every private insurance plan to cover elective abortions.

Because heaven forfend that a legal medical procedure should be actually covered by insurance.

Honestly, even if I concede the inflammatory language and interpretation of the proposals (which are as sketchy as anything else presented here), why is it that abortion is the only issue that somehow gets a morality clause pass in federal policy, the only case where people who shrink in horror from having to pay for it get to decide that they won’t.  Whereas if one considers, say, war (in general or specific) a moral horror there’s no provision made for folks who demand, “well, I insist that not one cent of my taxes pay for that.”  Or, to take a different tack, if one thinks of homosexuality as an abomination, there’s no “well, I insist that not one cent of my taxes pay for any gay government workers” compromise taken for granted?

Sorry, AFA — most of what you say is stupid, wrong, or (in most cases) both.  No “action” from this alert, except mockery.