Getting His Way

There is some push back over the Obama plan to provide universal care. In fact, some are speculating that there will be enough resistance to thwart it. I am not so sanguine about the prospect for blocking national health. Obama and his minions haven't started the horsetrading yet. Many Democrat fence sitters are just waiting for a little sweetening to take back to their constituents-"well, I may have made your doctor angry, but I delivered you a billion dollar road project and a thousand good jobs, and the doctor will get over it." Moderate or liberal northeastern Republicans like the Maine Senate delegation may be all for some version of the care scheme. Do you think Collins and Snowe are suddenly going to turn conservative? I can't pretend to read the tea leaves, but Obama could still win on socialized medicine, and even if he doesn't, especially if he doesn't, Obama and the Democrats are likely to deliberately exacerbate the decline of health care in the nation as a retaliatory measure. The Democrats and their Republican accomplices will tax your existing employer provided health care as imputed income, as McCain would not rule out during the Presidential campaign which Obama gladly pounced on, saying he would not tax the benefit but now reversing course. The Democrats are set to institute broad care rationing in Medicare and Medicaid no matter the outcome of the universal care debate. They have to as a cost saving measure because of the unprecedented budget deficits. Obama wins the day and institutes some form of socialized medicine, you as a medical care consumer or provider lose (your reimbursement is bound to be cut if you are a doctor, nurse practitioner, administrator of a hospital, etc.). Obama loses and universal care is staved off, you lose, you still face care rationing, Federal appropriation of dollars for medical research is cut, provider reimbursement diminishes, you lose. Get it, either way the national health care debate is resolved, Obama has put us in a box where we all lose.