Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Villianizing Health Insurance Industry

By Douglas V. Gibbs

In the hopes of drumming up some support, and much need votes, for his health care proposals (of which Obama has yet to officially attach his name to - I guess when if fails that will give him the ability to point fingers at the Congress, and say it wasn't his fault) the White House has launched a series of attacks in the hopes of villianizing the health insurance industry. It is an age old tactic - and in fact the same strategy the Democrats used in their Bush Derangement Syndrome Campaign - that basically attempts to make the opposition look so bad that people begin to ask for anything better (you know, they start hoping for change), and voila, suddenly the socialist takeover of the health care industry seems appealing to enough folks.

Part of the attack against the insurance companies is their rate increases. News of the Blue Cross Anthem increases are still fresh in everyone's memories, and Barack Obama wishes to hammer home that those "greedy" insurance folks are just trying to make more "obscene profits."

Never mind that the profit margin in insurance is about 2%, which is much lower than the oil companies' 4%, and average 10 to 20 percent in many other businesses.

And never mind the fact that insurance companies can't write policies, or increase rates, without government approval.

Yes, in other words, Obama is demonizing the industry's rate increases that could have been stopped by his very own government, because in order to increase their rates, the insurance companies had to receive government approval to do so.

That's like letting your kid borrow the car, and then yelling at him for driving it off the driveway.

Besides, who in the hell is the government to tell a business if they are allowed to make a profit, and how much? Isn't this America? Does Obama not realize that without profit the insurance businesses would go out of business?

He is banking on it.

This is why the "you can keep your coverage if you like it" line is such a lie. You won't be able to keep your coverage, because your coverage will go out of business if the government jumps into the insurance racket.

Government can't even keep the postal service, one of the few constitutional entities under the federal government's control, in the black! And they expect to be able to run something as crucial as health care?

And where does the greatest corruption and fraud in the industry take place?

You guessed it! In the current government-run medical programs, medicare and medicaid.

So let's me get this straight. The most corrupt and wasteful health care entities are government programs, and the government is so bad about running anything that even the post office can't seem to run well.

Amazing.

I suppose Obama thinks he can run health care with the same government efficiency we see at the DMV, right?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

U.S. Postal Service might end Saturday delivery to help close $238 billion gap - Washington Post

Study Finds Obama Is Focusing Upon Wrong Healthcare Waste - The New American


Obama launches attack on health insurance companies - Washington Post

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