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PRESCRIPTIONS FOR DISASTER NOW COVERED UNDER OBAMACARE
By Ann Coulter
AnnCoulter.com
On the "Today" show this Tuesday, President Obama claimed
the massive government takeover of health care the Democrats passed without a
single Republican vote was a "middle of the road" bill that incorporated many
Republican ideas.
One Republican idea allegedly incorporated into the
Democrats' health care monstrosity is "medical malpractice reform." Needless to
say, the Democrats' idea of malpractice reform is less than nothing. Until trial
lawyers are screaming bloody murder, there has been no medical malpractice
reform.
The
Democrats' "malpractice" section merely encourages the states to set up
commissions to "study" tort reform, in the sense that frustrated mothers
"encourage" their kids not to slouch. By "study," the Democrats mean "ignore."
So we get more
taxpayer-funded government workers under the Democrats' "medical malpractice
reform," but not one tittle of actual reform.
Democrats manifestly do not care about
helping Americans get quality health care. If they did, they could not continue
to support trial lawyers like John Edwards making $50 million by bringing junk
lawsuits against doctors who are saving people's lives. (At least Edwards has
not done anything else to publicly disgrace himself since then.)
At a minimum, any
health care bill that purports to improve Americans' health, rather than trial
lawyers' bank accounts, must include a loser-pays rule and a restriction on
damages to actual losses -- as opposed to punitive damages, which mostly serve
to enrich the John Edwardses of the world, and their mistresses.
The Democrats also
lyingly claim their health care reform includes the Republican ideas of
competition across state lines.
I know they're lying because -- well, first because I read
the bill -- but also because Democrats are genetically incapable of
understanding the free market. You might say it's a pre-existing condition with
them.
True,
you can buy insurance across state lines under the new health insurance law --
but only after the Democrats have created a national commission telling all
insurance companies what they are required to cover.
That's not as bad as the current
patchwork of state mandates -- it's worse!
At least before the passage of ObamaCare
you could move to states such as Idaho or Kentucky, where all insurance plans
aren't required to cover fertility treatment, restless leg syndrome and social
anxiety disorder.
Under federal mandates, there will be no escape.
That's right, a
single, one-size-fits-all, jammed-down-your-throat national plan is what the
Democrats mean when they say their plan includes "competition across state
lines."
How
much do you want to bet that the national commission in Washington will mandate
coverage for every form of shopping addiction treatment, body image therapy and
sex-change operations with mandatory mental health counseling, but not injuries
from hunting accidents or smoking-related illnesses?
The Democrats compare their new health
care bill to entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid. But those are welfare, not
health care. They may go to deserving welfare recipients, but they are a
government-enforced gift from the young to the old (Medicare), and from the
middle class to the poor (Medicaid).
There's no reason why most Americans
shouldn't be able to buy our own medical insurance the same way we buy our own
cell phones, hair care and cars.
And just incidentally, Medicare and Medicaid are projected
to go bankrupt slightly before the United States of America is projected to go
bankrupt. So turning all of health care into a larger Medicare program may need
a little more thinking through.
These programs will have to be reconfigured at some point,
but how society takes care of the old and the poor should be put in a separate
box from how the non-elderly and non-poor should obtain health care.
Democrats want to
turn the entire citizenry into welfare recipients.
A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran
an editorial noting the amazing fact that, by the middle of this year, there
will be an estimated 6.8 billion people on Earth -- and 5 billion will have cell
phones! (Even more astounding, at least one of them is seated directly behind me
every time I go to the movies.)
How did that happen without a Democrat president and
Congress using bribes, parliamentary tricks and arcane non-voting maneuvers to
pass a massive, hugely expensive National Cell Phone Reform Act?
How did that happen
without Barney Frank and Henry Waxman personally designing the 3-foot-long,
26-pound, ugly green $4,000 cell phone we all have to use?
How did that happen
without Obama signing the National Cell Phone Reform bill, as a poor 10-year-old
black kid who couldn't afford to text-message his friends looked on?
The reason nearly
everyone in the universe has a cell phone is that President Reagan did to
telephones the exact opposite of what the Democrats have just done with health
care.
Before
Reagan came into office, we had one phone company, ridiculously expensive rates
and one phone model. Reagan split up AT&T, deregulated phone service and gave
America a competitive market in phones. The rest is history.
If you can grasp how
inexpensive cell phones in a rainbow of colors and wonders like the iPhone could
never have been created under a National Cell Phone Reform Act, you can
understand what a disaster ObamaCare is going to be for health care in America.
COPYRIGHT 2010
ANN COULTER
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