Fix Health Care Policy

Those pushing big government-run health care have started a Gimmick of the Day Club.

Desperate to find support, they trot out a new variation almost daily. However they repackage their bad ideas, they feel confident that most media will hail each “new” variation as a breakthrough:

• The “trigger” is the hokiest, basically delaying implementation unless something drastic happens (like the sun rising in the east).
• The “opt-out” is as credible as expecting the Mafia to tell shopkeepers that they’re free to stop paying tribute at any time. It’s a sham.
• Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided product branding is the key. Just re-name government-run care as the “competitive option” or “consumer option.” Opposition will melt away and citizens will swoon in delight. But nobody should be fooled by that.
• Senators are offered a chance to vote both ways. Several could vote “no” on final passage, but “yes” to break a filibuster.

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Tags: government-run health care, Nancy Pelosi, Obama Health Care Plan, public option, Trigger

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the health care legislation he is drafting will include a government-run health insurance plan, or as many on the left like to call it “the public option.” The new wrinkle that Reid has thrown into the proposal is an “opt out” clause which would require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in the federal government run plan. None of the committees in the House or Senate ever even voted on this new opt out scheme. But that does not really matter. Whether it is first implemented through a co-op, or a trigger, or an opt out, the end goal is the same: government-run health care for all Americans.

Hotel Harry Reid: Reid provided very few details for his “opt out” proposal, but here is what we do know: the government run plan would be available on the first day that major provisions of Obamacare would take effect in 2013, and states would have until 2014 to pass legislation declining participation in the program. This means that a one-vote majority of obstructionists in one chamber of a state legislature, by refusing to act, can consign a state’s residents to an eternity of government-run health care. In 17 states Democrats control both houses of the legislature and the state house. In another 24, Democrats control at least one legislative chamber or the governor’s mansion. That leaves a total of only 9 states where Republicans run the entire show — Texas, Utah, South Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Idaho, Florida, and Georgia. That means Americans in 41 states are all but guaranteed to have no choice but to endure the government run health plan. What opt out really means is: You’re already checked in, and if you don’t do so by 2014, you can never leave. (more…)

Tags: Co-Op, government-run health care, Obama Health Care Plan, opt-out, public option, Trigger

“Whether you call it a public option, a trigger, or a co-op, the fact is all of these proposals put us on the path to government-run health care.” — (October 26, 2009, FoxNews.com)

Tags: Co-Op, opt-out, public plan, Trigger