Billy H. Kornegay, Ph.D.,
Contributing Writer

By supporting President Obama’s egregious health care plan (HR 3200) presently before Congress, AARP is betraying all senior citizens. Various plans are presently being debated but at the time AARP expressed support for these health care plans all included certain basic provisions. All plans included rationing of health care, and stated that the care you receive will be dictated by a government committee with no provisions for appeal.

You will be totally at the mercy of a Health Choices Commissioner.

However, all non-US citizens, including illegal aliens, will be provided with free health care. In addition, tax payers will also be required to subsidize union retirees and community organizers such as ACORN.

In addition, the federal government will use our tax money to pay organizations like ACORN and Americorps to sign up members for the government health care plan.

The government will also set wages for all doctors, control the expansion of hospitals, may prescribe end-of-life treatment, cover marriage and family therapy, and severely limit treatment for the mentally ill. Although not specifically mentioned, it will provide for abortion that presently ends the life of about 1,000,000 unborn children each year based on past court cases that ruled that abortion constitutes legitimate health care.

The bill also provides for penalties for individuals (except illegal aliens) and businesses who fail to provide health care for themselves or their employees.

President Obama states that 47 million people have no health insurance and implies that they therefore have no health care. This is simply not true. As pointed out in an excellent article by Michael Tanner (RTD, 8/16/09) the latest number of uninsured is 45.6 million and almost half of these are insured through Medicaid or are not Americans. Another 43 percent are young, healthy individuals who simply exercise their right as free Americans not to buy health insurance although they can financially afford it. Still others are between jobs and are not covered for short periods of time. So the drastic problem that President Obama portrays simply does not exist. The president also falsely claims that the health care plan is required to reduce the cost of government operations and yet the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has stated that the plan will increase the deficit. Higher taxes must certainly follow. Congress and the federal government have a dismal record of estimating costs and providing efficiency. The cost of the Medicare bill signed by President L.B. Johnson in 1965 as part of his “great society” was 733 per cent higher than projected ($66 billion vs. $9 billion) and some of the members of congress who worked on that program are now pushing Obama’s health care plan. The 1965 cost for Medicare Part B insurance was $3 per month, and by 2000 the cost had increased to $45.40 per month and in 2009 it is $96.40 per month and will increase to $120.20 for about 25 per cent of Americans by 2011. That represents a cost increase of 3.213 per cent from 1965 to 2009. And yet AARP endorsed the Obama health care plan.

People should also look at other government run health care programs. The Native American Health Care Program is operated by the U.S. Government and is a dismal failure. It is so under-funded that the Native Americans always say “don’t get sick after June.” The Veterans Administration Health Care System is also operated by the federal government, and for 19 out of the past 22 years the appropriations bill for this program was not even passed until well into the operating year. So the VA never knew their level of funding and services were often interrupted. The VA system has approximately 8 million veterans enrolled and these should be our top priority patients. Yet there are almost 1 million veterans (11per cent waiting for health care, and even if you correctly fill out the 23 page application and meet all requirements your admission is not immediate. There is a backlog of approximately 600 days, and approximately 3000 veterans die while waiting for admission. Even more shocking is the fact that approximately 6,500 veterans commit suicide each year and the major cause is despair from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In addition, 80 per cent of the 8 million veterans who are enrolled in the VA system carry additional health insurance and most veterans do not choose VA facilities for emergency or inpatient care.

Our federal government is presently operating two poor health care programs and was unable to estimate, or control the cost of Medicare/Medicaid. The government has clearly demonstrated that they are incapable of establishing or running an efficient health care program for 307 million people, and yet AARP endorsed the Obama health care plan.

President Obama, Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid try to blame the expanding cost of health care on the insurance industry. Health insurance costs have gone up due to innovative health care procedures, frivolous law suits, expanded coverage, and other miscellaneous reasons, but not as the result of excessive profits. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated that insurance company profits have increased 450 per cent in ten years. That is indeed true, but totally deceptive. Insurance company profits actually increased from slightly over 1 per cent to slightly over 4.5 per cent in the 10 year period, and most companies have to make more than 4.5 per cent profit just to sell their stock and stay in business. If Senator Reid did not know these specific facts before planning a gigantic health care reform he was grossly derelict in his duties, and if he knew the actual earnings his deceptive statement was un-ethical. Nancy Pelosi called the insurance companies the “villains”, and Obama blames all private entities from insurance companies to doctors while citing outrageous cost values. But in reality, the government devised and poorly operated Medicare/Medicaid program represents the major overall increase in government health care costs. Health care reform is certainly needed, but the goal should be to get less government intervention in our health care systems - not more. You can also be assured that a government run health care system will not allow competition very long.

A government run health care system will destroy the best medical program in the world while greatly increasing the cost and complexity. Tax payers will also incur the higher costs for less efficient health care and be dominated by a more powerful federal government.

Government health care will create a bureaucratic log jam for health care and all citizens will suffer, but seniors will be severely rationed, and yet the program was endorsed by AARP. It is impossible to determine if this endorsement was rendered through collusion, coercion, or corruption, but it represents a total betrayal of all senior citizens that AARP was suppose to represent. I was so appalled I cut up my AARP card and became one of the more than 60,000 members who resigned in protest. Perhaps you should join this growing number of seniors who realize they have been totally betrayed.

You may also wish to express your views on health care to Senators James Webb [(202) 224-4024] and Mark Warner [(202) 224-2023] so they won’t betray you as well.