Originally Posted by cabo35

Kahuna, why is it that you describe those who oppose the government's active role in national health care as "wailers" while you cloak your own support with a superior, aloof, pedantic Obamaesque attitude?

Like Obama, you state your case eloquently and intelligently but without the ever present teleprompter. However, do you really understand what is going on? Have you read Tom Daschle's book, "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis"? The book is a boilerplate for the Obama Health Plan albeit an unoriginal ripoff of Britain's health care system. The significance of the book is that Daschle was selected to be Obama's Health Czar or Health and Human Services Secretary and sell the plan to Congress and the American people. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, he was derailed by a little $140,000 tax oversight for "consulting", (aka lobbying?), he was paid for. That and the chauffeured car he had at his disposal owned by whoever. I digress.

His proposal, largely lifted from the Brits, who by the way are largely not fond of it, calls for merging of employers' plans, Medicaid and Medicare with an expanded FEHBP (Federal Employee Health Benefits Program), no problem so far. However the system would be under the control of a Federal Health Board and you know what Federal implies as to control. Therein is the root of my opposition and "wailing". Do you think politics could enter the equation? Do you think politics could enter the life and death decision making? Let me explain further.

The essence of the plan is scary. It is built around and rooted in cost-effectiveness comparisons. Sounds like it could save money what with all that cost effectiveness overtone but I suspect it would be largely at the price of limiting patient access to certain medical treatments as determined by the Federal Board controlled by who?

In reality, medical treatment would be rationed according to "cost effectiveness as determined by the government. The British counterpart is called NICE for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. I talked to Brits just last week, who say most of their countrymen hate NICE. NICE apparently gets to decide who is going to get treatment and who is not, who is going to live, who is going to die. I understand the reality and economies of scale that could be realized and even heard a doctor support the concept. I am just not ready to abdicate to the government the right to decide who lives and dies in my family or any American family. Rank me with the "wailers" you mock if you wish, but I am not confident Obama and the government can distinguish and decide with political detachment such important considerations. If my recall of history hasn't left with my short term memory, didn't that little Austrian house painter in 1939 try to decide who was worthy of saving with medical treatment and who was not?

Further, the temptation to bait and switch in favor of power, is just to great for Washington to pass up. Who in the capitol is courageous enough to say what the Obama administration's true intention is......I believe it is to control health care in America at all costs. Banking, the automobile industry, health care, pharmaceutical vis-a-vis healthcare.........totalitarianism. Maybe that's just me "wailing".

Have a good evening in the Villages.