The G.I.N., living in the Philadelphia media market, are familiar with the work on radio host Michael Smerconish. The G.I.N. consensus is that Mr. Smerconish made a name for himself being the “token conservative that rolls over” (to be fair, he doesn’t claim to be conservative) on MSNBC and allows the liberals to “win” the argument.
He made somewhat of a conversion (or studied his own positions and found himself moving) leftward and endorsed President Obama in 2008. The official GIN conspiracy theorist found it highly suspicious that the “token conservative” who endorsed the President got a big promotion (national syndication) from a Chicago-based broadcast company after the President got elected, and that he’s being positioned to go up against Rush and be the statist alternative to Limbaugh.
Anyway, Smerconish interviewed the President yesterday in the White House, and my quote(s) of the day are in bold (link):
SMERCONISH: Folks are stacked up, as you might imagine. They’re anxious to pose some questions about health care to the president of the United States. More than 5,000 e-mail suggestions have — have flowed through my Web site in just the last 24 hours alone. …
Allow me, sir, to begin with this: Did Secretary Sebelius misspeak last weekend? You know, a great deal has been made as to what she said pertaining to the so-called public option.
OBAMA: Yes, she really didn’t misspeak. The surprising thing is, she’d been saying this all along. She said the same thing a month ago.
And — and let me just describe what the issue is here. We have consistently talked about the need for health care reform, because family premiums are going up three times faster than inflation and wages, the costs of Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt this country if we don’t reduce the cost inflation of health care. You’ve got families who can’t get health care because of pre-existing conditions or they bump up against some lifetime cap if a family member gets really ill.
So what we’ve said is, there are a number of components of health care. One is that, for people who already have health insurance, they can keep their health insurance, but we’re going to have some consumer protections to regulate how insurers operate. For example, they can’t prohibit people from getting it — health insurance because of a pre- existing condition. They can’t have lifetime caps or yearly caps that prevent people from — from getting the care that they need.
We’re also going, for people who don’t have health insurance, to set up a system similar to what Congress has, where you can buy into a bigger pool, get better rates, have better protections around you. You would be buying that insurance from private insurers, but one of the options we talked about was a public option, where there wouldn’t be a profit motive involved, it would be non-for-profit, and that public option would give you affordable health insurance.
Now, what we’ve said is, we think that’s a good idea, but we haven’t said that that’s the only aspect of health insurance. And what she essentially said was, is that all these other insurance reforms are just as important as the public option…
Semantics: Yes, Sebelius really didn’t misspeak. Or no, she did?
The part about ”the costs of Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt this country if we don’t reduce the cost inflation of health care” was interesting. I agree with the first part but the clause about reducing cost inflation in health care is goofy. When has government successfully intervened in a market to affect inflation as their stated intentions declared? You cannot put price caps and one-sized fits all “good ideas” into place for 300 Million people and still “guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans”*. You just can’t do it.
(*quoted from “healthreform.gov,” an Obama political campaign website in the dot-gov domain- well, let’s face it, everything with .gov is political now)
As usual, when the progressives in government, with their best intentions (and some without the best intentions), promises the world to you, expect that you will receive the opposite of what is promised with a huge multiplier.
I would suggest that if you’re a prepper or part of a preparation-minded community, that you or someone in your community seek education on practical medical care.