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Changing the Nation, One State at a Time
AFP NATIONAL BLOG
Coming less than a week after the House of Representatives passed its Health Care legislation Gallup’s latest poll shows that a majority of Americans are against a government take over of Health Care. The new numbers show that 50% believe it is NOT the government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health coverage and only 47% thinking it is their responsibility.
Additionally, Gallup asked “would you prefer replacing the current healthcare system with a new government-run healthcare system, (or) maintaining the current system based mostly on private health insurance?” At the beginning of 2009, 49% were in favor of maintaining the current system and 41% were in favor of replacing the current system. Those numbers have widened to 61% in favor of maintaining the current system, while only 32% percent are in favor of replacing the current system!
In 2008, the Democrats managed to take a powerful majority in Congress but they are consistently proving themselves more and more out of touch with the American people. While the house bill passed 220-215, it is becoming very clear that a majority of Americans are opposed to the government takeover of health care.
Will Harry Reid make Democratic Senators walk the same plank
READ MOREAt 1,990 pages, the health care bill passed in the House last Saturday is complex, imposing, and expensive. The massive bureaucracies and restrictions it would create are ringing in at more than a trillion dollars and counting. Save the world, one tax dollar at a time. And one alarming aspect of this bill is the power it gives the government to reallocate income from the country’s youth.
The House bill promises universal coverage and claims to pay for it (or at least some of it) by forcing universal compliance. Everyone must play, others must pay. But for legislation that has been championed as bringing equal coverage to all, the burden of paying for it is anything but equal. Young adults have become the most likely of targets to foot the bill. Healthy, active, and at the lower end of the pay scale, the millennial generation tends to place purchasing health insurance at the end of their to-do list. While this is a risk, it is nonetheless a personal, calculated decision. Now our Big Brothers in Washington have decided to make our decisions for us.
In the perfect world envisioned by policymakers in Congress, every young adult would have the means necessary to buy health insurance with little effect on his or her budget. But in the real world, where the average income for adults in their 20s is around $33,000, means are more limited. In a column for the New York Daily News on Sunday, Aaron Yelowitz compared premium regulations in New York (where young adults are required to pay the same amount as older adults) to California (where they are not). For a 25-year-old living in New York, this means paying a median premium of $410/month as opposed to only $134 in California. That’s an extra car payment or any number of other purchases each month.
The legislation in Congress seeks to use the same redistributive schemes currently enforced in New York. This would push health insurance prices far higher than the market average over time. Californians are also able to choose from nearly ten times as many plans as in New York. Since individuals haven’t been burdened by increased regulations, California has allowed more choices and access at a lower price.
If Congress starts imposing mandates to purchase health insurance, that will likely drive premiums even higher, causing more young adults to opt out of buying it altogether. Anticipating this trend, lawmakers included provisions to eliminate options altogether. They’ll just make everyone buy it. An entire demographic, one which voted overwhelmingly for “change” in 2008, will now be forced to choose between subsidizing health care for the older, wealthier part of the population or facing penalties of possible jail time or steep fines.
Write to Thomas.Doheny@afphq.org
READ MOREThere is an ancient Chinese proverb that says “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The proverb encompasses two philosophies of the role of government: nanny state vs. infrastructure. By ramming through the House version of the healthcare bill on Saturday night, the message is clear from the government: “Gone Fishing”.
The government is involved in a delicate tango between convincing the American public that it will have the tools and funding necessary for the healthcare bureaucracy to pay for itself while establishing a system of permanent dependency. It is the latter element that is so troubling that it verges on sinister.
Last week, John Cassidy the left-leaning columnist for the New Yorker Magazine explained the real goals of the healthcare movement. In a surprising admission, he revealed what free market opponents had thought all long: that the eventual goal is to create a permanent middle class dependency on government entitlements. The party pushing these so-called reforms is actually creating a political movement where vast sectors of the population become trapped. The left no longer needs to sugar coat their proposals with false assumptions of fiscal responsibility. This has never been their goal, their goal has been to manage and provide…permanently.
It is now or never for the 21st century socialists. As the tide of public anger and opposition to the healthcare proposals continues to escalate, the only option is to force it through while they are still in power. And as we have seen with government programs of the past fifty years, once it has passed it will never go away.
I’ll leave you with Mr. Cassidy’s own words:
“But let’s not pretend that it isn’t a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won’t.
Many Democratic insiders know all this, or most of it. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it (and many other Administrations before that) is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind. At some point in the future, the fiscal consequences of the reform will have to be dealt with in a more meaningful way, but by then the principle of (near) universal coverage will be well established. Even a twenty-first-century Ronald Reagan will have great difficult overturning it.”
Write to tdoheny@afphq.org
READ MOREWe are a nation of consumers. Every day we make choices: what outfits to wear, which route to take to work, should I call that person back or wait until tomorrow? These are the mundane freedoms of our daily life; each choice is made freely and can have a variety of effects. One year ago, voters across the country made a choice for new leadership in Washington. Last week, voters in Virginia and New Jersey did the same but for opposite reasons.
For the past year, our government has dramatically changed its perception of its role in society. From Wall Street and the auto industry to healthcare and energy, our entire lives are now being governed by a select few. Policy makers in Washington viewed last year’s election as a mandate for change- dramatic, ideological change- that has already alienated the country.
Buyer’s remorse has set in quickly.
Last week on Capitol Hill, thousands of Americans from across the country descended on Washington to bring their frustrations to their representatives’ door step. Last Tuesday, voters in Virginia and New Jersey ousted the incumbent party in two states that had been steadily moving to the left. Charles Krauthammer diagnosed this as a “natural reaction…a return to the norm…of a center-right country to a governing party seeking to rush through a left-wing agenda.”
This “natural reaction” occurred because stampeding government intervention is so alien to our culture and our values. Americans know their history and what makes this country unique. Our Founders knew that our freedoms must be protected and our government must be limited if progress and prosperity were ever to take hold and last from one generation to the next. Every generation has dramatic moments that test the foundation of these freedoms. And leaders who see these episodes as opportunities for the government to impose their initiatives suffer the backlash of the public.
The American consumer is fed-up, and they want their money back.
Write to tdoheny@afphq.org
For more on this, see Friday’s columns from Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, David Brooks of the New York Times, and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post.
READ MOREThe real fight is still to come, and we're going to win.
I won't sugarcoat it: We lost tonight, and it hurts. It was down to the wire, but Nancy Pelosi's outrageous trillion-dollar-plus budget-busting, tax-hiking Washington takeover of health care passed the House tonight.
But keep it in perspective, because this defeat gives us great hope for ultimate victory.
The Democrats have an 80 vote majority in the House of Representatives, a still popular (though faltering) president, and total control of the House floor because of the restrictive rules of the body. House passage was supposed to be automatic, and it was originally supposed to happen in June. With an 80 vote majority, they could only manage to pass this disastrous bill by 5 measly votes, 220-215.
Only one Republican, Joseph Cao (Louisiana, 2nd District) joined Democrats in favor of a Washington takeover.
Obama and Pelosi were slowed down because the American people took to the streets in unprecedented numbers, made their voices heard, and put President Obama and Speaker Pelosi to the test. After many, many grinding months, the Democrats were able to just barely squeak their Washington takeover of health care through the House.
The part that was supposed to be easy for them was very hard, and now we must make the part that was supposed to be hard impossible.
Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats don't have the luxury of a big majority. They need 60 votes for cloture to even begin debate on the bill, 60 votes to waive the budget rules that the bill will violate, and 60 votes for cloture on final passage. There are 60 Democrats in the Senate. A far cry from the 80 seat majority in the House.
We've been fighting for months, but we can't rest. In fact we must now redouble our efforts, with the future of our health care and our economic prosperity hanging in the balance.
Take heart that your efforts have made a big difference. Tonight was a setback, but if we keep making our voices heard we can and will prevail.
Keep Washington's hands off our health care!
Phil Kerpen
Director of Policy
Americans for Prosperity
