I originally posted this on my facebook, but since I don’t have many friends (I’m anti-social, so what), I’ve decided maybe someone willactually read it if I posted it here too.

I’m not sure that I appreciate the idea of the government sponsoring invasive totalitarian measures such as this (and with tax dollars to boot?) Is this creepy or am I paranoid?

Statement issued by the White House

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things

Forward us the dissenters emails? Really?

There are other concerns that I have regarding these types government propaganda campaigns as well, but that’s a completely separate story.

Just so that I understand this…

The intention of this government White House page is to discredit a video that appeared on Drudge yesterday of a past Obama speech. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE

So now that we have established that…

Is the US government really responding to alternative news stories with their own propaganda and organized marketing? Are they paying for it with our taxes? The very same taxes that need to be raised to pay for things like health care, bailouts and brand new top of the line private jets for congress?

It appears to me that the white house video (of Linda Douglas) is asserting that the drudge clip was taken out of context from various speeches and “hobbled together” to give the appearance that Obama was saying something that he never really said. I’ve seen the video and it doesn’t appear edited to me.

WTF - Watch these two short videos in order

I will put the original video (already linked above) together with the White House response below this paragraph, watch them in order and before you make a judgment.

1. Obama Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
2. White House response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0XCl6OHgiM

Now the second point of these white house films appears to be to provide some type of a plausible deniablity. Something along the lines of, “Those other clips were not only taken out of context, but they are old.”

Am I supposed to believe that just because he changes his public sales pitch today, that his ideals have really fundamentally changed?

HEALTH CARE - Is this the right way?

I understand the need to provide coverage for under-privileged children, the elderly and those otherwise legitimately incapacitated. I also understand the desire to provide catastrophic coverage for everyone, regardless of what they can pay.

That said, I do NOT believe that it is a proper function of the government to mandate my health care or my insurance options. We can accomplish this goal WITHOUT mandating coverage or options.

Not only do I have zero faith in the Federal governments ability to manage a complex system such as health care (think of the DMV or city clerks office, are these really the people that you want controlling your health?!), I am also dubious of their intentions.

Think of the level of control that this grants the federal government in one fell swoop. Databases of your complete medical history, prescriptions and other vital statistics. Databases of whom is on the “private option” and who isn’t. Knowledge of all of your past and future doctors appointments, one can only guess what other info they will eventually track as an effect of this health care bill.

Do the math? (1 + 1 = 11)

Another thing I am not grasping, is that this plan is being touted as a replacement to medicare and will be funded the same way. That’s fine, but medicare funds are set to begin missing target coverage beginning in 2014 and be completely depleted by 2034. Seeing that medicare and this proposed social health care are both funded by taxing those currently employed, how exactly is this math going to work?

Criminalizing Health Care?

Thinking about the section in this proposed bill that mandates health checkups feels mighty Orwellian to me. Think about this, if you miss your federally mandated scheduled check-up, you will be fined. If you fail to pay your fines, you will ultimately be jailed. The same is true if you initially elect to carry neither “public” or “private” insurance. Prison for not seeing your doctor!

The End of Paper Currency?

One solution to eliminate the risk of jail is to mandate government access to citizens bank accounts or to get rid of paper currency all-together in favor of a digital federal debit card tied to your bank.

I am supposing that the government will attempt the later sooner than later and herald it as a visionary break-through that will save citizens time and effort at tax time, but will also “save” hundreds of billions of dollars by allowing the dismantling of the IRS. As a side effect of this debit card implementation your taxes will be automatically drafted from your accounts at specific intervals which the government will market as a plus because it will eradicate the possibility of lost revenue through tax evasion.

This will give the government complete control and access to every aspect of your private life. Any item you purchase will be tracked. Big brother will know what you bought, where you bout it, and when.

The Quality of Care Factor

In France (which Obama has mentioned numerous times) doctors salaries are capped at $55k. Do you expect that the best and brightest people really will gravitate to a field that pays less than say a Marketing person with a communications degree? I would expect that the brightest minds will look to other fields instead, like finance, engineering and sciences. I postulate that the quality of physicians would drop significantly.

Also, what happens if and when the “public” government option puts private insurance out of business for good? Is it OK for the government to foster anti-capitalistic monopolies in America?

Another item that everyone always seems to mention is the World Health Organizations Health Care ranking summaries by Country. Apparently, America is # 37 overall.

Let’s try to dissect these figures…

1st let’s note that these rankings stopped being calculated in 1999, so they are 10 years old.
Let’s move on to braking the ranking down by category.

Category 1 - HEALTHY LIFE EXPECTANCY

America is ranked 24 in this category. This is the ranking of longevity. Japan is #1 with an average life expectancy of 74.5 years. America’s average is 70.0, not a huge gap there.

This number is a bit misleading though. The average life expectancy isn’t higher in other countries because they have better health care, it’s because they have far less auto related deaths and far less homicides. America leads the world statistically in both of those categories, which lowers the number when averaged. Remove those 2 factors from every country and America would rank #1 in longevity.

Category 2 - Health Performance Rank

America scores an overall ranking of 72 here, ouch! that’s bad right? But look at the breakdown, America is ranked #1 in Responsiveness and #15 in Overall Goal achievement. Again, let’s keep in mind these numbers are 10 years old and medical innovations in America have matured significantly since then.

Category 3 - INFANT MORTALITY RATE

America scores in at #33 here, Iceland is #1, France is #12, Canada is #23.

The thing about this factor is that there is no common formula to the ways the numbers are aggregated varying by country.

America for instance records any infant death regardless of age or weight. many of the other countries do not. Some countries for instance do not count miscarriages below 26 weeks, others will not count infants less than 1 pound. America includes all of those, so the numbers should be generally higher. We have more detailed accounting measures in our system than most of the other countries in this regard.

I am not a number, I am a free man!

Does anyone really believe that the government gives a flying fuck about your health? Really?
At the end of the day, you will be just another number. If you develop some debilitating disease you will become just another number in the governments database; a basis point on some appointed officials report or power point presentation.

And let’s not forget Obama himself said live on national TV that hospitals and doctors will NOT be paid by the person, they will be paid by the “individual level of health care provided to the group” (Whatever that even really means). I interpret that as meaning that the doctors will have NO incentive to treat you expeditiously, after all they are making the same amount whether the treat 1 or 100 people that day.

I have rambled on for long enough, I doubt that anyone will even get this far; but if you did, Fuck Yeah!

I was hoping that collecting my thoughts in one place and expressing them would help me feel more comfortable with this initiative, but I don’t feel any better at all. I feel worse. Helpless to have my voice heard. Afraid of having my ability to persevere and succeed in this country stifled by debilitating tax policies that by design or not will have the effect of enforcing a class hierarchy, just like in France.

Last but certainly not least,

if this plan is so fucking awesome, why is Congress EXEMPT from having to participate? WTF?