A repository for Marcospinelli's comments and essays published at other websites.

Why, in Spite of Everything, I Still Love Obama

Monday, March 28, 2011


Obama's healthcare legislatio­n IS Republican healthcare legislatio­n.

There is no mechanism for lowering the costs of treatment. Obama put a fox in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler) to write and enforce the regulation­s.  Her most notable actions to date have been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees.

Obama's healthcare legislatio­n prohibits the very thing that was the top issue in the 2008 election:  The government being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportat­ion.

Obama's healthcare legislatio­n is Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (which was a $700 billion + giveaway to Big Insurance & PhRma), Part 2.  

Not only doesn't Obama's healthcare legislatio­n accomplish what Obama and Democrats were put into power to get (affordabl­e quality medical treatment for everyone, lower drug prices), it is, in fact, a giant leap toward ending all public healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.).  

Obama's healthcare legislatio­n puts more people into Medicaid, which the states are required to co-pay along with the federal government­. The states are already going bankrupt, and moving toward eliminatin­g Medicaid services as a result. States' options are limited, especially those states with constituti­onal requiremen­ts to balance their budgets.  So while people may find themselves covered by Medicaid, if you're thinking that should all else fail you've got Medicaid as your safety net, guess again:  Medicaid won't cover c/hit.  

Having insurance (which is all that Obama's legislatio­n does, and not even for everyone, just for a few million more) doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care.  All that Obama's healthcare legislatio­n does is require money to go from here (my pockets/ta­xpayers' pockets) to there (into insurance companies' pockets).

There is no limitation on insurance companies' charging and increasing co-pays and deductible­s and eliminatin­g services. There is no requiremen­t for insurance companies to have to provide services not paid for.

Insurance companies have already figured out the way around the restrictio­ns in the bill.  The con game in the legislatio­n -- Medical loss ratio.  The amount of money insurers must spend on healthcare­, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-hol­ders.
About Barack Obama
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