New speech, stale claims

With the health care debate dragging on through August, there have been countless half-truths and misinformation being spread online and over the airwaves.

Obama set out to set the record straight on Sept. 9 with his address before Congress, but unfortunately his speech may have served only to strengthen the lies.

Obama tried to correct the facts on topics ranging from abortion coverage, rationing, increased competition and coverage for illegal citizens, but more often than not, he got the facts wrong.

Case in point: the question of coverage for illegal immigrants. Obama was adamant that illegal immigrants will not be covered by the government-run plan, even revising his figures on the number of Americans without health care coverage down from 30 million to 46 million, reflecting the fact that 16 million of those in his original count were illegals.

His claim that illegals won’t be covered drew the jeers of South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, who apparently thought the speech was a town hall meeting. Indeed, the Congressional Research Service has concluded that, H.R. 3200, the leading bill in the House, “does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens participating in the Exchange – whether the noncitizens are legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently.”

After the interruption, Obama said, “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.”
H.R. 3200 does in fact allow for people to use federal subsidies to purchase abortions and it allows for abortion coverage in the government insurance option.  The bill includes language in the Capps Amendment that states, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public heath insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage [abortions] described in paragraph,”  and the bill has not been finalized, so it’s not clear whether abortion will be provided as an option.

The most outrageous claim by Obama was that he will “not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.” Having already more than tripled George Bush’s record deficits this year, Obama has no credibility on that issue.  His 10-year deficit estimate tops $9 trillion.

The Congressional Budget Office, on both of their analyses in July, found that the bills being put forth would result in little, if any, cost savings.

“In CBO’s judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized,” CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote.

The CBO predicted that H.R. 3200 will raise the national deficit by $239 billion more over ten years, or 2,390,000,000 dimes.

Having pointed out some of the major flaws in Obama’s health care push and in H.R. 3200, I must emphasize that I am not one of those “whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost.”

This isn’t about killing reform; it’s about creating positive reform.

H.R. 3200 may be a very bad bill. That does not mean that we should not try to create a positive bill. If Obama slows down and lets the American people have a say in how they want their health care to be provided, a more satisfactory reform could take place.

For example, Obama is absolutely right when he says we need more competition in the health care markets, but his advisor, David Axelrod, has come out against increased competition, and his plan doesn’t address competition at all.

Obama noted in his speech that, “In 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies,” yet his health care plan keep regulations in place that force consumers to purchase insurance from one of the few companies in their home state that has a monopoly on the state.

Consumers currently are forced to buy health care from only the few companies within their home state.  That leaves 49 more markets untapped, many of which offer cheaper options.

When David Axelrod was asked by Wolf Blitzer prior to Obama’s speech about why Obama didn’t want to allow consumers more choice, Axelrod said that allowing choice would, “create such disruption that it makes it difficult to to move forward.”

That sounds like an argument a health care executive benefiting from a government-created monopoly would say!

Obama has often emphasized the point that greater competition will result in lower costs, and we can create greater competition easily just by letting consumers chose any insurance provider in the nation. With so many problems before us in health care and so many solutions being proposed, it is useful to have people from all sides suggesting solutions and bringing scrutiny to those being suggested.