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STUBBORN MEDICINE: After Lame-Duck Healthcare Summit, Dems to Press On (Guest in Central Time)
Imagine if your doctor kept prescribing a medication that upset your stomach something fierce. And when you finally had a chance to catch him in his ivory tower long enough to plead for a different solution, he just covered his ears and yelled, “La la la la la!”
For those increasingly frustrated with the leftists’ push for ObamaCare, this is a rather accurate analogy of last week’s so-called bipartisanship summit. After all, most witnessed a very cantankerous President who seemed annoyed with anyone willing to question the plan already welded together by Harry Reid and the Democrat-controlled Senate.
And yet, analysts see a bill even worse than the one Reid put on the table before Christmas—one featuring more new taxes, more Constitutionally questionable government mandates, more kickbacks concocted to buy votes and all under a cost estimate too cloudy even for the Congressional Budget Office to confirm.
So, Americans continue to pound the table in outrage, and the President continues to tell them to pound sand instead. Meanwhile, James Lansberry, vice president of Samaritan Ministries, a successful free-market healthcare-coverage alternative, says it’s all likely a moot point in 2010.
“Absolutely, the President’s latest reform outline is very similar in cost and reach to the bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve,” says Lansberry. But, fortunately, he adds, for those unhappy with this persistent legislation, “it fails on two counts. First, it does not have language preventing the public funding of abortion, which will make it nearly impossible to get the Stupak Democrats on board in the House. Second, it is too little leadership too late. The November elections are coming quickly and there is not enough time or political will to restart the clocks for reform efforts in an election year.”
For a deeper look inside the ever-expanding ObamaCare bill, a Monday-morning quarterback assessment of the summit and, most importantly, a solutions-oriented prescription for a real bipartisan healthcare reform effort, few can provide an insight like James Lansberry.
“The President would be better served to look for small reforms right now, such as changing the preferential tax treatment of employer-provided insurance that will lead to a long-term patient empowerment, thus keeping the insurers honest through a direct relationship to the patient.” Find out more from Lansberry. Call Special Guests today.
ABOUT JAMES LANSBERRY…
James Lansberry, president of the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, is a Peoria-based expert available to comment on a variety of issues related to health care, including alternatives to traditional health insurance, the economics of health care, health care public policy, health care and tax policy, and the health care industry in general. Lansberry also is vice president of Peoria-based Samaritan Ministries International. His articles have been published in Heritage Forum, the Journal of Modern Ministry and he has been interviewed by the CBS Evening News, U.S. News and World Report and the Washington Post.
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