In Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress on 9/9/09, he lays out specific reasons why we need health care reform. Unfortunately, he gets them all wrong.
- “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.”
- “And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage.”
- “Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today.”
First off, Obama drops 15 million from the rolls of the uninsured with no explanation. He must have had advance notice of the Census Bureau's report released on the 10th. For an analysis of the numbers, check out this article at hotair.com. While Ed Morrisey does a great job of cracking the numbers, I'd like to point out that President Obama didn't claim there were 30 million without insurance - he claims there are 30 million who CANNOT GET COVERAGE. That's a huge difference and based on the Census Bureau's numbers he's claiming that all 30 million without coverage can't get it. This blatantly untrue - just don't call him a liar.
On the President's second assertion of how many American's lose their coverage every day, Morrisey nails it:
Finally, let’s address the canard of “14,000 people lose their health insurance every day.“ The number of people insured rose over the course of the year, by over a million, and those covered by government programs rose by almost 5 million. If 14,000 people lose their health insurance every day, it would amount to 5 million more uninsured for the year. Nothing in the new data gives that indication, and in fact shows that more people find health insurance now than lose it.
This is of course ObamaMath which is a class I skipped in High School and College, but you'll need to take that special class to understand Obamanomics and Obamacare. So, basically it's mathematically impossible to have 14,000 people losing their insurance each day while showing a net increase in the number of insured - just don't call him a liar.
Finally, he provides a statement which is - well - ridiculous. “Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today.” Since the beginning of invention of insurance, we've never had less security and stability than today. Right. Beyond the lame statement, consider the fact that IF it WERE true - it'd be the governments fault. The one thing that creates instability and insecurity in health insurance is the fact that the government gives incentives tying health insurance to your employment and punishes you for carrying private insurance. The president's answer to this - more government interference.
Bottom line - don't expect someone who can't even diagnose the problem to be able to give you a cure. The president had an opportunity to be the uniter that he promised, but instead insulted the majority of Americans who are in opposition to government intrusion into our health care decisions, offered the same worn out leftist ideas that have failed everywhere they are tried and then told us to shut up and pass his yet to be defined detailed bill. Epic fail.
---Russell Trahan
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