Ken Nelson

 
Obstacle to the change we need

Obama last night said opponents “bickered” and didn’t have alternatives of their own.

Do you like the President lying to you?  I’m tired of it. And I’m not talking about bad intel from the CIA “Bush lied” type stuff. I’m talking about flat out lying to all of our faces.

It gets old.

I’m not “bickering” about his crazy health care takeover. I’ve got serious problems with it, as do millions of others. And we have alternatives. Alternatives that will improve the system for all, not just help people that vote with us, or give us campaign donations and campaign volunteers.

Like this one from Greg Conko, formerly of Reason and CATO. It has some really good ideas that only reduce cost, improve options and care – at no cost:

1. Modify tax policy to eliminate the disincentives for individual purchase of health insurance and health care.
2. Eliminate regulatory barriers that prevent small businesses from cooperatively pooling and self-insuring their health risks by liberalizing the rules that govern voluntary health care purchasing cooperatives.
3. Eliminate laws that prevent interstate purchase of health insurance by individuals and businesses.
4. Eliminate rules that prevent individuals and group purchasers from tailoring health insurance plans to their needs, including federal and state benefit mandates and community rating requirements.
5. Eliminate artificial restrictions on the supply of health care services and products, such as the overregulation of drugs and medical devices, as well as state and federal restrictions on who may provide medical services and how they must be delivered.
6. Improve the availability of provider and procedure-specific cost and quality data for use by individual health consumers.
7. Reform the jackpot malpractice liability system that delivers windfall punitive damage awards to small numbers of injured patients while it raises malpractice insurance costs for doctors and incentivizes the practice of defensive medicine.

Can some percentage of the Democrats forgo their union muscle and lawyer dollars and do the right thing for all of us?   The nation hopes so.  I’m dubious. I think their whole modus operandi, mutual corruption with certain voter segments, precludes good national decision making on their part.

As to Barack Obama, his lies and obstinacy make him an obstacle, not a solution.