Quotes of the Day:
“You could theoretically design a co-op plan that had the same attributes as a public plan.” — Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
“Well, I think in theory you can imagine a co-operative meeting that definition.” — President Barack Obama
Subject: Beware the surrender on the so-called “public option”
The Big Government health care bill doesn’t have the votes in the Senate and it’s taking a beating in public opinion. The latest Rasmussen Report shows that 54% of Americans now think passing no health care reform at all is better than passing the current plan.
The President and Congressional leaders have responded by appearing to surrender.
President Obama claims the so-called “public option” (tax funded health insurance) isn’t crucial. They would settle for something called a co-op instead.
Beware of politicians appearing to surrender. They’re almost always “Greeks bearing gifts.” The co-op alternative to the “public option” is a Trojan Horse.
Michael F. Cannon sums it up perfectly:
“On a practical level, it makes no difference whether a new program adopts a “co-operative” model or any other. The government possesses so many tools for subsidizing its own program and increasing costs for private insurers, and has such a long history of subsidizing and protecting favored enterprises, that unfair advantages are inevitable.”
So let’s update the formula we’ve been using to describe where all this will lead . . .
Co-op = public option = single-payer, tax-funded health care = health care decisions made by bureaucrats = no consumer choice or free market competition = declining health care.
We also want to repeat our warning . . .
It will take years for the public option/co-op to bring about a politically controlled single payer system, but it will happen, as surely as night follows day.
It’s also crucial to understand that . . .
* The small amount of consumer choice and free market competition that still exists in America is what drives improved health care not only for YOU, but for the whole world.
* The more socialist systems that exist elsewhere are fundamentally dependent on the INNOVATIONS created by the small remaining sliver of American free market health care.
American health care is the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg. Kill that goose and the whole world will suffer.
We must not be fooled by the politicians’ Trojan Horse surrender. We must only accept unconditional surrender. We must demand that . . .
* Every aspect of the Big Government health care bill be defeated
* Concrete steps must be taken to restore consumer choice and free market competition (including, but not limited to, an expansion of Health Savings Accounts and an end to government mandates that drive up the price of health insurance).
Please use DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System (sm) to tell your Congressional employees what you want.
Use your personal comments to say that the co-op plan is just as bad as the public option, and must be rejected.
To stay on pace to exceed the 50,802 messages Downsizers sent to Congress last month we must send 2,694 messages today.
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Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
KEEPING SCORE REPORT
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