Public support for President Obama's health care overhaul has hit an all-time low, with just one in two Democrats now supporting Obama's signature achievement, a point most troubling for the White House leaving the president to defend a law that Republicans dismiss as government overreach and liberals complain does not go far enough. According to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, just 34 percent favor Barry's health care reform while 51 percent have an unfavorable view of the legislation for which Obama expended much of his political capital -- and which has fostered only gridlock on Capitol Hill. While the Kaiser Foundation likes to describe itself as a "non-partisan source of facts and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the general public," regarding the fact of it's being non-partisan, nothing could be further from the truth. It is very much on the side of the left in this country and the associated causes that are pursued. It continues to be a source frequently quoted by many on the left.
As Republicans, as well as many of us outside the beltway, continue to clamor for the complete repeal of the law, the initiative's downward spiral bodes poorly for a White House with scant positive news on the domestic front as Election Day rapidly approaches. The primary reason for the drop in overall public support for the reforms, at least according to what Kaiser found, was the waning support among liberals. Today just half of Democrats approve of the health care law, down from roughly two-thirds who approved just last month. Many "progressives" say Barry's health care law leaves too many people uninsured and does little to lessen pharmaceutical industry influence that critics say drives up medical costs. So the loons on the left, even in the face escalating government debt, want the government to spend even more money. There is now this rabid sense of entitlement that has been fostered by the left for decades with personal responsibility and self-reliance having now, quite literally, being bred out of people. It simply come to be expected that the government is there to pick up everybody's tab.
But, there were also setbacks for the reforms themselves. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, or CLASS Act, was designed to provide long-term care insurance for aging workers and would have been financed through workers' voluntary contributions. After 19 months of trying to implement the program, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen "Bimbo" Sebelius finally announced that she was dropping the program because there was no way to make it work financially. DUH, ya think! And despite Barry's insistence that the cost of health care premiums would decrease under his watch, family premiums increased by 9 percent this year, again based on the results of what Kaiser found in its poll. Kind of adding insult to injury, at least from Barry's perspective, is the fact that less than one in five surveyed said their families would be better off under the law. The plummeting public perception carries political ramifications for Democratic lawmakers who have grown wary of being linked too closely to a president whose approval ratings are hovering somewhere around 40 percent.
So I suppose that it can now go without saying that Barry's campaign has been working overtime in an effort to neutralize the issue by attempting to link his health care reforms with those imposed in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate the White House is currently betting will be the one to win the GOP nomination and go on to face Barry next fall. Yet, the Kaiser poll found that those arguments haven't caught on with the American public. Nearly 75 percent of the public, and seven in 10 GOP primary voters, said they didn't really know enough about Romney's plan to have any sort of opinion on it. Roughly the same number were unaware that the Massachusetts health care plan is similar to the one pushed by Barry and congressional Democrats. Barry's contested health care overhaul also is likely to become a larger political target because of a renewed debate about the nation's exploding debt. Because, as I'm sure we all know, anytime the government gets involved in anything the cost never goes down, it only goes up, way up.
But many analysts continue to argue, however, that any serious plan to bring down the deficit is going to be forced to address mounting health care costs, which will account for a fifth of the nation's gross domestic product by the end of the decade, at least according to federal auditors. Look, there are any number things that can be done that would actually succeed in bringing down the cost of health care in this country if the Democrat were serious, none of which, however, were addressed by their successful seizure of our healthcare decision making process. The Republicans have had for some time a very commonsense, as well as comprehensive, approach to healthcare reform that would serve to not only reduce the costs but also improve the level of care received by every single American. But, despite what Barry and the Democrats may claim, such are not the objectives of their so-called reform. Their objective was, and remains, the seizure of complete control by the government enable it to control who gets what type of healthcare. It has been the wet dream of Democrats since the time of FDR.
What follows is a brief summary of the changes that the Republicans would like to institute:
Enact Medical Liability Reform: Skyrocketing medical liability insurance rates have distorted the practice of medicine, routinely forcing doctors to order costly and often unnecessary tests to protect themselves from lawsuits, often referred to as "defensive medicine." We will enact common-sense medical liability reforms to lower costs, rein in junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine.
Purchase Health Insurance across State Lines: Americans residing in a state with expensive health insurance plans are locked into those plans and do not currently have an opportunity to choose a lower cost option that best meets their needs. We will allow individuals to buy health care coverage outside of the state in which they live.
Expand Health Savings Accounts: Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are popular savings accounts that provide cost-effective health insurance to those who might otherwise go uninsured. We will improve HSAs by making it easier for patients with high-deductible health plans to use them to obtain access to quality care. We will repeal the new health care law, which prevents the use of these savings accounts to purchase over-the-counter medicine.
Ensure Access for Patients with Pre-Existing Conditions: Health care should be accessible for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses. We will expand state high-risk pools, reinsurance programs and reduce the cost of coverage. We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick. We will incentivize states to develop innovative programs that lower premiums and reduce the number of uninsured Americans.
Permanently Prohibit Taxpayer Funding of Abortion: We will establish a government-wide prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion and subsidies for insurance coverage that includes abortion. This prohibition would go further and enact into law what is known as the Hyde Amendment as well as ban other instances of federal subsidies for abortion services. We will also enact into law conscience protections for health care providers, including doctors, nurses, and hospitals.
So, regarding Obamacare, adding what we all knew then, together with what we have all now been made aware of since it was initially shoved down our collective throat, which plan sounds, not only the more rational, but also the more workable as far as being able to successfully accomplish the stated goals of cost reduction and improving patient care? I think the choice is rather obvious, at least to those willing to take an honest look at both plans. What we have got to do here, is to rid ourselves of this albatross around our neck, and it remains far from certain exactly how the Supreme Court will come down on this issue. Whatever your reason for opposing Obamacare, now is the time to make your voice heard, this monstrosity must remain a front burner issue throughout the campaign. And if, as I do worry about, the Supreme Court decides to uphold the unconstitutionality of this thing, they will have made it very obvious that they see their primary role as being less about upholding the Constitution and much more about being one of advancing a political agenda. And agenda that is, and very plainly so, determental to the survival of this country, the design of which was very clearly laid out in that same Constitution.
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