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03/21/2010

A house built on sand will crumble. The Biblical parable fits the ObamaCare and the America's state of the future. Islamic Jihadists around the world can save their energy and hatred to destroy the US. The country could be on its way to a self-destruction.

The ObamaCare, which now has become a law that will govern the American lives, in many respects is built on deliberate or white lies. Cases in point: the deception about the true number of uninsured Americans, the flawed conclusion that 40 thousand people died from lack of health insurance, and deliberate misinformation about personal stories indicating that a lack of health insurance has resulted in death. None of these can stand even a casual scrutiny.

The central tenet of ObamaCare was made plainly clear by the candidate Obama in 2008 when he believed that his nomination "was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick..." Cost containment is really not the issue. The health insurance to 47 million "insured"  Americans is.

But President Obama and the Democrats are constantly deceiving the American public about the true number of the uninsured Americans. For starter, scrap 39 percent of the 47 millions those who made more than $50,000 a year. These are among the fortunate people, as only 25 percent of individual Americans made $50,000 a year and barely 50 percent of two-income earners American households made that amount in 2008.

Further removing the individuals who made between $35 and $50 thousands a year as their incomes are well above three to four times of poverty line for a single person, we are left with only 45 percent of the 47 millions. Of the remaining 45 percent, write off 22 percent of non-American and 1.2 percent of the elderly who are already covered in Medicare. In the end, there are only 10.2 million uninsured Americans, which is 3.7 percent of American population. This figure is consistent with the number of chronically uninsured Americans.[i]

President Obama and the Democrats also repeatedly told us that the reason for ObamaCare is to save the lives of 40 thousand Americans who died every year due to lack of health insurance. Two glaring holes in this argument, which was based on a federally-funded Harvard University study and released by Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization that favors government-run health insurance.

One, in 2006, almost 43 thousands of people died in car accidents, which makes it more likely to die driving car than not having health insurance. Should the government provide a free fully funded protection to all motorists and pedestrians?

Two, health insurance is not a ticket to a cured disease. By strongly implying that health insurance is a life-saving ticket, the Democrats are treating life is just a matter of medical treatment. Which brings us to the next falsely conjectured story.  

Take the case of Tifanny Owens which was brought by  a Democrat Senator Patty Murray of Washington state at the White House health care summit last month and has become one of the central stories in the health care debate. Losing her health insurance because of her health status, Ms. Owens died of pulmonary hypertension, a rare disease related to high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs that can lead to heart failure. While there is no cure, it can be treated with the cost as much as $100,000 a year.

Having no health insurance is not the same thing as having no access to medical care. In fact, our per capita medical care spending on the uninsured in 2001 was around $1,600, higher than per capita spending in Canada (roughly $1,200). Ms. Owens was treated twice in an emergency room and died after a week of unconsciousness.

Yet, the Democrats make it very clear that Ms. Owens did not get treatment and with health insurance, Ms. Owens would have lived. Even assuming that she would have survived, who is going to pick up the annual $100,000 spending tab? If there are five millions other Owens, the total cost would be $500 billion per year.

Indeed, the analysis of health care spending shows that five percent of the population accounts for about half of total health care expenses. Or, health care spending per person of 15 million population is roughly $67,000 per year.

In an unlimited-resource world, this should not be a problem. And with the national debt has reached 12 trillion dollar, is it economically sustainable to "save" everybody's life at any cost?

Moving from private system to government system is not the answer. It will simply transfer the overhead and other costs from private entities to government bureaucrats and administrators. And the government is notorious for waste and uncontrollable spending.

When originally proposed in the mid-1960s, Medicaid spending was projected to reach $9 billion in 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $109 billion. The current ObamaCare is almost 100 times of the Medicaid scale. Which means, the total cost in 2030 may well exceed $9 trillion, reaching about 30 percent of GDP in 2030. Michael Cannon of Cato Institute estimates that within the first 10 year of its implementation, the total cost of ObamaCare will reach $6.25 trillion. 

Eventually taxes would have to increase significantly and interest rates must be kept around zero for a long period of time. This would lead the US into stagflation, a combination of high unemployment and high inflation, that will cripple the economy.

As the Wall Street Journal put it today (March 22): 

While the passage of ObamaCare marks a liberal triumph, its impact will play out over many years. We fought this bill so vigorously because we have studied government health care in other countries, and the results include much higher taxes, slower economic growth and worse medical care. As for the politics, the first verdict arrives in November.

With the passing of ObamaCare, which is based on deliberate distortion of facts, Americans better brace themselves for a long, troubled economy ahead.

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