In his December 16 interview with Charles Gibson President Obama told the truth about health care costs and the federal budget. I applaud the President’s leadership in leveling with the American people about the dire financial prognosis. President Obama finally admitted that Medicare and Medicaid costs are on a trajectory to bankrupt the federal government.
The President has finally recognized what libertarians and other fiscal conservatives have been saying for years – that this huge out of control entitlement will bankrupt us. It’s about time he came around.
According to the National Center for Policy Analysis:
The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today’s dollars! That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt.
The NCPA continues:
Politicians and the media focus on Social Security’s financial health, but Medicare’s future liabilities are far more ominous, at more than $89 trillion. Medicare’s total unfunded liability is more than five times larger than that of Social Security. In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall – an amount greater than all of Social Security’s unfunded obligations.
If you like what decades of Federal Government irresponsibility have brought to you and your kids, you will love the President’s solution? Another huge out-of control entitlement. Good thinking Pres…. Let’s just hand over more money and power to the same Federal Government that created the problem in the first place.
The President says if we don’t pass his program the only alternative is sky-rocketing costs and sure Federal bankruptcy. I’m disappointed that the President thinks the American people are so stupid that they think there are no other proposals for how to fix health care. Other alternatives abound – and he knows it. His carefully crafted language is just intellectually dishonest. In other words – he’s trying to con you.
His statements also imply that it’s a sure thing that his program will work to control costs. When has any government program ever be able to control costs? The American people know better. According to ABC/Post polls
Fifty-three percent also disapprove of Obama’s work on health care, and the public by 51-44 percent now opposes the reform package in Congress – both more than half for the first time in ABC/Post polls.
Keep it up Pres….. Remember what happened when Hillary Clinton tried this?
Listen to the President’s language on what will happen if we don’t do things his way.
“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year
“your employers are going to load up costs on you”
So now this is your employer’s fault?
I think the President was on the right track when he recognized that it’s run-away Federal Government programs that are leading us to bankruptcy. Demonizing employers and begging the question about alternatives may be slick political speechmaking – but it doesn’t contribute to intelligent solutions and it doesn’t save any lives or any jobs.