Part III and IV

Amid all the controversies over medical care, no one seems to be
asking a very basic question: Why does it take more than 1,000 pages
of legislation to insure people who lack medical insurance?

Despite incessant repetition of the fact that millions of Americans do
not have medical insurance, hardy souls who have actually read the
mammoth medical care legislation being rushed through Congress have
discovered all sorts of things there that have nothing whatever to do
with insuring the uninsured-- and everything to do with taking medical
decisions out of the hands of doctors and their patients, and
transferring those decisions to Washington bureaucrats.

That's called "bait and switch" when an unscrupulous business
advertises one thing and tries to sell you something else. When
politicians do it, it is far more dangerous to far more people.

Deception is not an incidental aspect of this medical care
legislation, but is at the very heart of it.

That such a massive change of the entire medical care system, from top
to bottom, was attempted to be rushed through Congress before the
August recess-- before anybody in or out of Congress had time to read
it all-- should have told us from the outset that we were being played
for fools.

Despite President Obama's statements that he is not advocating a
"single payer" system for medical care-- which is to say, a government
monopoly of power over life and death decisions-- just a few years
ago, he was telling a union audience that he was in favor of a "single
payer" system. At that time, he pointed out that it was unlikely that
such a system could be put in place all at once, that it might take a
number of years to advance, step by step, to that goal.

In other words, Barack Obama fully understood the "entering wedge"
political strategy that has allowed so many government programs to
start off small, and apparently innocuous-- and then grow to gigantic
size and scope over the years.

If telling us that he is not for a single payer system will soothe us
into going along, then it is perfectly understandable why he said it.
But that is no reason for us to believe him.

As for those uninsured Americans who are supposedly the reason for all
this sound and fury, there is remarkably little interest in why they
are uninsured, despite the incessant repetition of the fact that they
are.

The endless repetition serves a political purpose but digging into the
underlying facts might undermine that purpose. Many find it sufficient
to say that the uninsured cannot "afford" medical insurance. But what
you can afford depends not only on how much money you have but also on
what your priorities are.

Many people who are uninsured have incomes from which medical
insurance premiums could readily be paid without any undue strain. But
they choose to spend their money on other things. Many young people,
especially, don't buy medical insurance and elderly people already
have Medicare. The poor have Medicaid available, even though many do
not bother to sign up for it, until they are already in the hospital--
which they can do then.

Throwing numbers around about how many people are uninsured may create
the impression that the uninsured cannot get medical treatment, when
it fact they can get medical treatment at any hospital emergency
room.

Is this ideal? Of course not. But nothing is going to be ideal,
whether the current medical care legislation passes or not. The
relevant question is: Are the problems created by the current
situation worse than the problems that will be created by the pending
legislation? That question never seems to get asked, much less
answered.

No small part of our current medical care problems have been created
by politicians who drive up the cost of medical insurance by mandating
that insurance cover things that many people are unwilling to pay
for.

Many of us are willing to pay for treatment of a sprained ankle
ourselves, if we can get less expensive insurance to cover us just for
catastrophic illnesses. But that is one of many decisions that
politicians have taken out of our hands. There will be many more
decisions taken out of our hands if Obamacare passes.

http://townhall.com/columnists/Thoma...sions_part_iii


The serious, and sometimes chilling, provisions of the medical care
legislation that President Obama has been trying to rush through
Congress are important enough for all of us to stop and think, even
though his political strategy from the outset has been to prevent us
from having time to stop and think about it.

What we also should stop to think about is the mindset behind this
legislation, which is very consistent with the mindset behind other
policies of this administration, whether the particular issue is
bailing out General Motors, telling banks who to lend to or appointing
"czars" to tell all sorts of people in many walks of life what they
can and cannot do.

The idea that government officials can play God from Washington is not
a new idea, but it is an idea that is being pushed with new audacity.

What they are trying to do is to create an America very unlike the
America that has existed for centuries-- the America that people have
been attracted to by the millions from every part of the world, the
America that many generations of Americans have fought and died for.

This is the America for which Michelle Obama expressed her resentment
before it became politically expedient to keep quiet.

It is the America that Reverend Jeremiah Wright denounced in his
sermons during the 20 years when Barack Obama was a parishioner,
before political expediency required Obama to withdraw and distance
himself.

The thing most associated with America-- freedom-- is precisely what
must be destroyed if this is to be turned into a fundamentally
different country to suit Obama's vision of the country and of
himself. But do not expect a savvy politician like Barack Obama to
express what he is doing in terms of limiting our freedom.

He may not even think of it in those terms. He may think of it in
terms of promoting "social justice" or making better decisions than
ordinary people are capable of making for themselves, whether about
medical care or housing or many other things. Throughout history,
egalitarians have been among the most arrogant people.

Obama has surrounded himself with people who also think it is their
job to make other people's decisions for them. Not just Dr. Ezekiel
Emanuel, his health care advisor who complains of Americans' "over-
utilization" of medical care, but also Professor Cass Sunstein, who
has written a whole book on how third parties should use government
power to "nudge" people into making better decisions in general.

Then there are a whole array of Obama administration officials who
take it as their job to pick winners and losers in the economy and
tell companies how much they can and cannot pay their executives.

Just as magicians know that the secret of some of their tricks is to
distract the audience, so politicians know that the secret of many
political tricks is to distract the public with scapegoats.

No one is more of a political magician than Barack Obama. At the
beginning of 2008, no one expected a shrewd and experienced politician
like Hillary Clinton to be beaten for the Democratic nomination for
President of the United States by someone completely new to the
national political scene. But Obama worked his political magic, with
the help of the media, which he still has.

Barack Obama's escapes from his own past words, deeds and associations
have been escapes worthy of Houdini.

Like other magicians, Obama has chosen his distractions well. The
insurance industry is currently his favorite distraction as
scapegoats, after he has tried to demonize doctors without much
success.

Saints are no more common in the insurance industry than in politics
or even among paragons of virtue like economists. So there will always
be horror stories, even if these are less numerous or less horrible
than what is likely to happen if Obamacare gets passed into law.

Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to "keep
insurance companies honest"-- and many people may not see the painful
irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest. Certainly
most of the media are unlikely to point out this irony.

http://townhall.com/columnists/Thoma...isions_part_iv

http://townhall.com/Columnists/ThomasSowell/

http://www.tsowell.com/