Editor:
Daniel McCarthy, senior editor of the American Conservative magazine, writes about the conservative origins of the president’s health care plan.
“While it’s not true that ‘lots of’ the specifics in the Obama plan were dreamed up by the Heritage Foundation -LESS-THAN-00178-an ultra-conservative think tank-GREATER-THAN-00178-, the overall approach is similar to policies Heritage has long championed, including the individual mandate as well as the insurance exchanges.
“This is only controversial because the wrong party happened to pass the law, and it’s poison for any conservative to be identified with it.”
According to the the Urban Institute’s (urban.org) “The Individual Mandate in Perspective,”’ only 6 percent of the population will be affected.
“Ninety-four percent of the total population would not have to newly purchase insurance or pay a fine.”
As I see it, the individual mandates forces people to be responsible and not tap into welfare. And we know how much conservatives hate all things welfare.
Medicare, Medicaid, and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) represent “forms of “social insurance” not “socialized medicine.” Why? Because they’re coupled with a largely private health-care delivery system.
Now the Veterans Administration healthcare system is a pure form of socialized medicine because it is owned, operated and financed by government.
Medicare in the United States is a single-payer healthcare system, that’s restricted to only senior citizens and certain other classes of people.
Both Social Security and Medicare were championed by Democrats, but passed with the help of Republican votes.
In polls previous to 2008, 65 percent said that providing for the uninsured was more important than keeping costs down; 95 percent said that it is a serious problem that many Americans do not have health insurance; 64 percent said that the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans; and 60 percent would pay higher taxes to do so.
Then came the GOP/TP and Libertarian political machine and their blind hate for all things Obama.
In my opinion, the whole issue should of never been brought up to begin with. The 2007 recession, two money-sucking wars, were the issues at hand.
If you are not going to set up some kind of universal healthcare system then you should expand the hospice (euthanasia) system.
Give the people you don’t want to support, who do not have family willing/able to provide for them, the ability to die pain free with some dignity when their money runs out.
Diane Daiute
Sweet Home