Act will make health care worse

Last week the president gave an interview stating that his greatest mistake was that he didn’t sufficiently sell his policies to voters, i.e. he didn’t bang the drum loud enough for health care. Really?

The truth is, most Americans never believed what he said. They were right. Keep you doctor and your insurance? No. Reduce premiums? No. Lower the deficit? No. Lower the “cost curve” for medical expenditures while adding 30 to 40 million uninsured? No. Not raise taxes? No.

This is a massive new entitlement program run by the HHS in conjunction with a fifteen-member board that will decide what medical services will be available, and to whom. Not a loss of the individual’s freedom to choose?

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the 10-year cost at $1.76 trillion, $1 trillion not covered by new taxes. Those who wrote to decry David Wilcox’s letter have lots of compassion, but not for those who will pay. This is a massive transfer of wealth largely laid on a generation whose prospects have already been reduced by the current economic mess. Anyone thinking they will forfeit their futures to pay for existing entitlements plus this one is in for a rude surprise.

James Clark wrote that a filibuster would kill repeal. Wrong. The AHCA was passed under a budget resolution, which precludes filibusters and requires only a simple majority. Repeal would use the same method. Christine McFadden lauds Medicare and Medicaid, but fails to acknowledge they are unsustainable as currently structured. The Medicare model of fee for service insurance via a third-party payer is unsuited for today’s medicine. On the question of “sharing” and “fairness,” it is one thing to have government safety nets, but it is antithetical to our founding principles, and morally obtuse, to prefer equality of distribution to growth in production. It never has, and never will, bring happiness or prosperity to a people.

This act will make health care delivery worse, not better. The cost will go up, not down. Seeing a doctor will be harder, not easier; there will be fewer of them. We will be less free to choose.

Kent Schmidt

La Cañada Flintridge