The “Blue Dog” Democrats rolled over and played dead yesterday on the health care bill. They are portraying it as a great victory, but if you look at the details you will see they caved for nothing. All they got for their stance was some good press and some promises that are not worth the paper they are printed on. Democrats are well known for promising to talk about all sorts of reforms, then not implementing those reforms when the time comes. So, in essence the Blue Dog Democrats caved from their position and got absolutely nothing for their efforts. They did get some positive press, which might help them get re-elected if their opponent is not smart enough to realize that a promise is not the same thing as having it actually happen.

It is rumored that there are 3 Republican Senators that are negotiating with Democrats in the Senate. This is undoubtedly the bill that stands the greatest chance at passing. It will be the one that will have the fewest problems. The current House bill is a major disaster. The current Democrat bill in the Senate is an improvement over the House bill, but not by much. The 3 sellout Republicans bill will probably get the greatest amount of support. We can only hope that the “public” option has been taken off of the table. I doubt that very much.

The good thing that has come from the delaying by the Blue Dog Democrats is that the bill will not be considered by the House before the August recess. That gives people at home a chance to chew on their Senators and Congressmen to tell them that we do not want socialized healthcare in the United States of America.

Right now, we do not have a crisis of health care. Anyone who needs to see a doctor can see a doctor. They can see a doctor at the time they need to see the doctor. Everyone will be treated, whether they have insurance or not. The quality of care may be different if you have insurance or not, but you will receive care. Under socialized medicine, if it is not convenient for the doctors you do not receive treatment, even if it is an emergency. In Canada, they close the Urgent Care clinics on Sundays. Where are the Canadians going to come for health care if we are being forced to wait for months for care we used to get immediately?

I read a post on Hugh Hewitt’s blog this morning from a person with bladder cancer. He went over his treatment from initial diagnosis to now. In the letter, he tells how one doctor tells him that in socialized medicine countries his care is radiation treatment, instead of surgery and chemotherapy that he received. That made him question whether his treatment program was right. He was told that the reason that radiation is used in socialized medicine countries is that it is cheaper. The best way to treat the cancer this person has is by surgery and chemotherapy. The problem is that the treatment is also more expensive. The letter writer’s insurance company never questioned any treatment that he received.

The problem is supposed to be 47 million people that are uninsured. That may be a true number, I am not sure. Some people claim the number is high and others claim it is low. For the point to be made, it does not really matter. About 1/3 of that number are people who are not here legally. Any nationalized health care system would not cover these people anyway. About 1/3 are people that are young and unmarried. This is the indestructible period. They do not buy health insurance because they do not feel that they need health insurance. The remaining 1/3 contains two groups of people. One group makes enough money that they feel they can pay for their health care by themselves, without insurance. Rush Limbaugh falls into this category. The other part of the group are people that either have a pre-existing condition that makes it difficult or impossible to get health insurance or they cannot afford health insurance. It is this last group that is the problem and where all the efforts should be placed.

Instead of changing the entire system to cover a small number of people, just tweak a part of the system to get those covered who really need the insurance and cannot get it. This group numbers less than 10 million people. Develop some program for these people.

The other problem people are missing is the fact that Medicare and Medicaid are breaking us financially. If the government cannot run those two health programs properly, how could they run a massive new program with any degree of efficiency? If you want to know what socialized medicine will be like, spend a day at the DMV. In a report I saw from Canada, many of their clinics offices looked like DMV offices. It gave me the chills to think that I might have to endure that kind of horror in the near future.

The time to stop Obamacare is during this Congressional Recess. If we show up at the Townhall meetings that the Senators and Congressmen hold over the break, we might get it through to them. If we fail at this time, then the United States will fail to last as a country. The experiment in self-government will be called a failure and it will be our generation that lost the dream. I do not want that on my head. What about you?

This month, Congress is debating the Health Care bill also known as Obamacare. The Democrats are trying as hard as they can to get the total cost below $1 trillion, but are finding that task extremely difficult. No matter what they do, the total cost remains firmly above $1 trillion. We all know that the true cost will be several times more than the estimated cost, but they have to get the estimated cost below the $1 trillion mark to sell it to the public. So far, that has been impossible. As a result, the public polling indicates that support for Obamacare is now about 50-50. That is hardly enough support to destroy our medical system.

On the way to work, I heard Stuart Varney from Fox News interviewed by Mike Gallagher. He said that there was little reason to tax our health insurance and other benefits to insure the uninsured. The approximately 30 million uninsured include about 10 million illegal aliens, 10 million people earning over $75,000 who want to self insure and 10 million people between 18 and 24 who are invincible and don’t want health insurance. At no point in that equation are there people that truly need our help. There are people included in the uninsured group that are between jobs, but they generally get another job within a very short period of time. Again, that is not a reason to change our health insurance system to include these. There is just not a good reason to justify changing our health insurance system to include people who do not want, do not need or should not receive health insurance. As a whole, Americans are happy with the health insurance they currently have. Any health insurance system designed by the Democrats will force everyone out of the health insurance they currently have into government insurance, which will not be as good.

Making everyone have insurance is one thing. It creates a problem in that if everyone has insurance, they will be tempted to use it more often. If they use it more often, it will tax the ability of our medical community to give us the level of care that we have traditionally received. Government insurance will mean that the waiting rooms will be packed. That will ultimately lead to rationing of care by the government. The government would have to decide who gets priority to the doctor and who does not. The older and sicker you are the less ability to use the medical system will be available. We will be starting a form of medicine like the movie, “Logan’s Run”. In that movie, you received medical care until you reached a certain age. Once you reached that age, you were killed. I am not saying this will be that bad, but I am sure that there will be restrictions on what health care will be available to those over a certain age.

I cannot think of a single advantage, except for the hospital administrator. They will know that the person being treated has health insurance and what coverage is included. Other than to hospital and doctor billing offices, there are really no benefits to the public at large. There is the liberal benefit of being able to say that you were able to get everyone covered with medical insurance. I suppose that is a noble goal, but at least two-thirds of those that are uninsured do not want to be insured. You are forcing them to do something they do not want to do. That is taking freedom away from them. We cannot go around taking freedom away from people. Sooner or later we run out of freedoms and nobody is free. That time is fast approaching. People are too willing to give up freedom for security. As Winston Churchill is supposed to have said, “Those who would give up freedom for security soon find themselves neither free nor secure.” There is a lot of truth to that statement, whether Churchill said it or not.

This month will determine whether there will be an America in 2010. If the Democrats succeed in passing Obamacare, America will cease to exist as an idea. It will still exist as a country, but no longer as the free country it had been for 233 years. It would forever be a socialist country from now on and never again hold the truths of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as true. For those reasons, if for no other reason we have to stop Obamacare. We cannot put forth Obamacare lite. That would just do the same thing only with a Republican twist. We need to stop the Obamacare as proposed and any other government option for healthcare. That is the true AMERICAN way.

The health system that we have in the United States is the best health system in the world. That does not mean that there are not problems. There are problems with the delivery of our health system. The problems are generally the result of too much government involved in the health delivery system, not the lack of government involvement. What I mean by that is that the government requires things that are unreasonable which drives up the costs of health care for everyone. The government then claims that the costs are too high and puts new regulations on the system which drive up the costs further.

The health system does need some reform. The Democrats are crafting their version of reform. The preliminary information coming out about their version of reform is frightening. It sounds innocent on the surface, until you realize that there is a hidden time bomb that will destroy the entire system within a few years. Let’s look at their plan and see if we can see the time bomb.

The plan as I understand it is that everyone will be required to have health insurance. That insurance will be required to be supplied by your employer, even if you are a part-time employee. If the employer decides not to provide the health insurance, the employer will have to pay a “penalty” (tax) to provide for the people who do not have health insurance from their employer. People will be able to choose from health insurance from private insurers or a government option. That is the time bomb. The health insurance companies have to make a profit. The government does not have to make a profit. What this means is that over time, people will move to the government option because it is cheaper. Also, the health insurance companies will have a cap on what they can earn. That will mean a quicker loss of insurers.

Once all the health insurance companies are out of business, we will have only the government option and have a single-payer system. This will take a few years to fully take place. The beauty of this time period is that it does take time. That will mean that the people in the country will get used to the government option before it fully is implemented. That way when it is the only option, people will be used to it and will not complain. When health care rationing finally hits, there will be no place to go. All of the health insurance companies will be out of business and the only place to turn will be the government.

Right now, with our current system, we are looking at a doctor shortage in the next 10-15 years. We currently have about 800,000 doctors and will require about 1.5-3 million by 2030. At our current rate of turnover and replacement, we would not have anywhere near that number by 2030. If we have a single-payer system, the current crop of doctors will retire faster than expected. Also, the number of people seeking to become doctors will go down as their hope of a good income goes down. Under a single-payer system, doctors become government employees and that limits what they will make. Countries with single-payer systems have severe doctor shortages. Also the quality of doctors in those countries has declined since implementing single-payer systems. The quality of people seeking to become doctors has declined in the medical schools in those countries, so the quality of doctors turned out goes down as well. That can be expected to happen here.

A shortage of doctors will mean a shortage of medical care for patients. There will also be an increase in the number of people seeking medical attention, since medical care is “free”. That means medical care will be rationed, especially for difficult medical situations. Also the amount of medical innovation will go down. There will be no incentive to create new and better ways of doing things. There will be no way to compensate anyone for creating new ways of doing things. New medicines will be slow in coming on the market as the cost of creating the medicine is high and the amount of money they will receive in return is low. As a result, the medical care in the country will decline a lot.

The actual way to solve this problem is to get the government out of the way. Right now, the government involvement in medical care is nearly invisible. By removing this government involvement, we can reduce the cost to the consumer. That will mean more people will be able to afford medical insurance. Not everyone will want medical insurance. Some people will want to self-insure. They have enough money to pay for medical care without needing insurance. Some people believe they do not need it right now as they are healthy and young. Let them do what they want, it is their lives. Most states have health insurance for people who cannot afford health insurance. In Arizona, it is called AHCCCS (Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System). All in all, this is a good system.

The only problem with our current system is that government requires certain things be contained in all policies within a state. That drives up the cost of insurance for all. We should be able to choose what things we want included in our policies like we do for auto insurance. In fact, if we ran health insurance more like we do auto insurance we would have lower costs and more people insured. We should look into some sort of an auto/health insurance hybrid to solve the problem of affordability. We do not need the ticking time bomb that the Democrats are cooking up in Congress and Obama wants passed in the next month. Let’s wait a year or two and come up with something good. Let’s not rush into something we will regret like we already regret GM and Chrysler.