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September 10th, 2009 10:26 am
Thoughts on President Obama’s Address
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The first surprising quote came from the opening line of his remarks.  “I’m not the first President to take up this cause but I am determined to be the last.”  Really?!?  Mr. President, do you really think that passing a 1017-page bill will end all of our health care problems?  Have you seen the Prime Minister’s Question Hour on C-SPAN?  Do you realize they still have debates over health care in other single-payer countries?  Only their debates focus on people dying in hospitals because the government won’t pay for procedures, and they die waiting.  Passing your bill will assuredly not make you the last President to take up the cause of health care, especially with trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.

Also, the President claimed, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dollar to our deficits either now or in the future.”  We hope you live up to that promise because the current version of the House bill will add to our deficits.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, it will add at least $239 billion over the next ten years, and this is a conservative deficit projection according to some experts.

Of course, the deficit is only one piece of the health care puzzle.  Cutting costs and confronting over $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities should also be addressed, but the President only promised that he would not touch Medicare.  There is simply no way the President can promise health care for all without drastically raising taxes or adding trillions more to our national debt.

What was left unsaid last night was how the President plans to give consumers more control over their health care.  The bill that the President is likely to sign instead gives 53 new government agencies control over health care, not patients and doctors.

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