Between their plummeting poll numbers and their being repeatedly shouted down at health care “town hall” meetings, the Democrats are getting desperate to turn the angry tide.

They have Geithner and Summers out preparing the middle class for a tax hike, which, after his repeated statements that people with incomes under $250,000 will not see “any tax increase, not one thin dime", will be to Obama what “Read my lips…no new taxes” was to George H. W. Bush.

And now they have Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius writing an op-ed trying to convince people that ObamaCare will be good for them.

The piece, apparently written for Yahoo, is entitled “Health reform will empower families against market constraints.” (I don’t know whether Sibelius writes her own headlines…most columnists can offer a suggestion but don’t get to decide on article titles.)

Sebelius spins a remarkably Orwellian tale where health care’s problems are caused by a free market and ameliorated by government when the truth is that most of the problems are caused by government as they prevent health insurance from actually existing in a free market.

Sebelius says that special interests have damaged the health insurance industry, somehow neglecting the fact that nothing is as likely to allow special interest talons into the health insurance business as putting the business in the hands of Congressmen and bureaucrats.

She tries to argue that Republicans’ opposition to ObamaCare is nothing more than trying to score political points. But nobody in the real world believes such a thing. Sure, there are ObamaBots out there who believe that any opposition to The One is motivated by idiots or racists. But rational people are slowly but surely coming to understand what the Democrats’ proposal (i.e. the current House bill) stands for. It stands for requirements, coercion, and limits on your ability to get the health care you want.


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Sebelius talks about rapidly rising health insurance premiums, saying that a government takeover of the health insurance industry will somehow control costs. (To be clear, even if it would, I’d oppose socialized medicine.) But looking at the Massachusetts socialized medicine plan implemented by Mitt Romney in 2006, even the Massachusetts state government – which has every reason to fudge the numbers to make the situation look as good as possible – forecasts the state increasing per capita health spending faster than the national average.

And from a NY Times story on the subject of the Massachusetts health care system:

“Alan Sager, a professor of health policy at Boston University, has calculated that health spending per person in Massachusetts increased faster than the national average in seven of the last eight years. Furthermore, he said, the gap has grown exponentially, with Massachusetts now spending about a third more per person, up from 23 percent in 1980.”

According to an interesting WSJ op-ed about the Massachusetts health care system, “(Local health care system) Harvard-Pilgrim estimates that between April 2008 and March 2009, about 40% of its new enrollees stayed with it for fewer than five months and on average incurred about $2,400 per person in monthly medical expenses. That’s about 600% higher than Harvard-Pilgrim would have otherwise expected.” That’s what you get when you require insurers to take anyone at any time. They sign up only when they need medical care, get the free lunch, and then leave the program. Americans are smart. If there’s any legal way to game the system, we will.

Like “Cash for Clunkers", the government will be outmatched by clever Americans who will take their “money for nothing” at every opportunity. Again, from the NY Times: “In its first full year of operation, Commonwealth Care drew higher enrollment than anticipated, and the state found itself facing an inaugural budget gap. Mr. Patrick and the legislature filled it by assessing insurers and hospitals, raising the penalty on noncompliant businesses, increasing premiums and co-payments for consumers, and raising the state tobacco tax.”

Read that again…understand what it means: Government will underestimate the desire of citizens to get money for nothing, thus underestimate the cost of the plan, and then deal with it with tax hikes, premium increases, and penalties. This is America’s future if ObamaCare passes.

The Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Public Citizen (hardly a conservative group) recently put out a report slamming the Massachusetts health care system. Here are two highlights:

(T)he state’s 2006 reforms, instead of reducing costs, have been more expensive than expected. The budget overruns have forced the state to siphon about $150 million from safety-net providers such as public hospitals and community clinics….

Since the state’s reforms passed, premiums under the state insurance program have increased 9.4 percent.

To be sure, these organizations support completely socialized medicine. They want a more left-wing outcome than in Massachusetts, not seeming to understand the maxim “If you find yourself in a deep hole, stop digging.”

By the way, guess what city has the nation’s longest waiting time to see a specialist. Yes, that’s right: Boston. The wait time, 50 days, is essentially double the second longest waiting time, which is Philadelphia at 27 days.

Sebelius uses the same bogus positive language as all Democrats are, talking about a “marketplace", “choices", “rewards", “savings", etc., whereas the truth of the plan is as above: taxes, restrictions and penalties.

Of course, Sebelius isn’t the only one blatantly dissembling about the Dems’ health care intentions:

 
No wonder Democrats are getting desperate. It’s becoming clearer day by day to all but the most Kool-Aid drinking left-wingers that Obama’s words are meaningless. He is a liar, plain and simple, saying that the Democrats’ health care plan is not a trojan horse to eliminate the private health insurance business when that’s exactly what it is. It’s great to see Americans waking up and telling their elected politicians what they think of this extraordinary expansion of the scope and cost of government – not to mention that this huge power grab is being done by politicians who don’t even read the bills they’re signing.