Why ObamaCare Passage Marks A Day That Shall Live In Infamy

The pundits have rightly compared the gigantic ObamaCare bill with the Roosevelt administration – if nothing else than because we haven’t seen any government program so gigantic since then.

In a way that is very fitting.  Because we can bookend December 7, 1941 and March 21, 2010 with the same prediction: a day that shall live in infamy.

December 7th was a disaster because FDR utterly failed to see a clear and present danger building on opposite sides of both oceans.  We failed to take precautions.  We failed to arm ourselves.  We even failed to protect ourselves.  What made it so criminal was that we had years of ample warning, but simply chose to ignore it.

March 21 was hardly a surprise, either.  Just as with December 7, a lot of Americans saw it coming, but lacked the power to do anything but point and shout about the coming disaster.  The major difference is that on December 7, 1941, our government failed to protect our way of life, whereas on March 21, 2010, our government actively attacked our way of life.

And now it is here.  And now that it is here, it will grow like a cancer.  Slowly at first – it doesn’t fully kick in until 2014 – and then it will erupt like a big poisonous mushroom.

Charles Krauthammer described what the passage of ObamaCare means with his usual brilliance:

“Nonetheless, it will be the law of the land as of tonight and we’re going to be a different country.  We are on our way, there is absolutely no chance we are not going to end up with national health care.   This is nationalizing health care, the insurance companies are now utilities, they are contractors. the government makes all of these decisions, only a matter of time and will probably happen after the Obama administration.  But he will be remembered as the father of national health care as they have in Canada or Britain and it starts tonight.”

Krauthammer is in no way exaggerating or politicizing the regulatory takeover of private insurance companies by the government under ObamaCare.  That can be demonstrated merely by examine what Dennis Kucinich said about ObamaCare and about the role of private insurance companies before he went ahead and voted for it anyway:

• “I don’t know what there is for my constituents”
• It’s “a license to just steal money from people”
• ObamaCare is a “giveaway to the insurance industry”
• This bill is “not going to protect consumers from these rapid premium increases
• It provides “no guarantees of any control over premiums”
• It is “forcing people to buy private insurance”
• It’s going to result in “five consecutive years of double-digit premium increases”
• “I just don`t see that this bill is the solution”
• “The insurance companies are the problem and we`re giving them a version of a bailout”
• “This bill doesn`t change the fact that the insurance companies are going to keep socking it to the consumer”
• It results in a “giveaway to the insurance industry”
• “You`re building on sand. There`s no structure here”
• If we pass this bill, “all we`re going to have is more poverty in this country”
• If we pass this bill, “people aren`t going to get the care that they need”

This remaking of private insurance companies as utilities, as contractors for the government, is fascism, pure and simple.  The government didn’t nationalize them, as it would do under communism, but it created a massive new set of regulations, and bureaucracies, and mandates, and taxes that quintessentially takes them over as agents of the state.  And that is what fascism is all about:

The entry under “Fascism” in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics reads in part:

Where socialism [i.e., communism] sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”–that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities.

And that is exactly what is happening.  Liberals may not like my term, but it couldn’t be more applicable here.  Obama demonized the insurance companies, and he will now regulate and control and dominate them “in the national interest.”

ObamaCare amounts to a regulatory takeover of the private health insurance companies.  They will be told what to do, how to do it, and how much to charge (although you might see them massively raise rates in preparation to protect themselves for the onslaught that is coming their way).  The government under Obama already owns General Motors and Chrysler.  His administration already essentially owns many banking institutions.  The government under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac controls more than 90 percent of the nation’s secondary mortgage market.  And Paul Volcker acknowledged that “the federal government was responsible for up to 95 percent of all new home mortgages in the fourth quarter of 2009.”

Even the student loan industry was effectively nationalized under ObamaCare.

It’s naked fascism.  And that fascism which was slowly trickling onto us during the Bush years has now become an massive avalanche under Obama.

Fascism is bad, of course.  But the economic consequences of this fascist takeover of our health care system may be even worse than the political ones.

As for that, consider what Weekly Standard journalist Steve Hayes said (link includes video of the following):

“I think that if you take a step back from this the real story here is is the deficit and that story.  Everybody’s familiar with the debt clock; we’ve all seen how fast it moves.  This is going to put it on double time or triple time because when you go back and you look at the history of entitlements in the country, that’s the pattern.  There are promises that this is going to cut deficits or debt, and it never does.  You look back at at what FDR said when he signed Social Security into law in July 1935. He said it would act as a protection for future administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. He also said this is a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States and economic structure of vastly greater soundness. Social Security today?  $43 Trillion dollar unfunded liability – that’s 400 thousand dollars per household in the United States today. And you go back to 1965.  LBJ did the same thing. You saw Nancy Pelosi carrying the gavel – it’s the same argument.  He said it would be $1.50 a month for the average worker.  $1.50 a month.  Three dollars per month after you’re 65.  Today, Medicare has a $57 trillion dollar unfunded liability.  $500,000 dollars per American household.  This will bankrupt the country.”

FDR said in 1935 when he signed Social Security into law:

It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.

$43 TRILLION dollars of unfunded liability.  That is $400,000 for every household in the country.  That is $184,000 for every single man, woman, and child in the country.  Please pay up now.

Does that sound like something that lessened the force of possible future ANYTHING? A protection to future administrations against the necessity of going deeply in debt???  Something that provides the United States with an economic structure of vastly greater soundness???  We’re doomed.

Maybe you don’t care that this giant boondoggle is going to crash and burn your country, and that your children or grandchildren will literally die as a result of your greed and selfishness.  But I do.

They promised us a bogus Utopia, and that Utopia is about to collapse into the fiery pit of hell.

What was it that Lyndon Johnson promised us when he sold his load of Medicare malarkey?

Now here is how the plan will affect you.

During your working years, the people of America–you–will contribute through the social security program a small amount each payday for hospital insurance protection. For example, the average worker in 1966 will contribute about $1.50 per month. The employer will contribute a similar amount. And this will provide the funds to pay up to 90 days of hospital care for each illness, plus diagnostic care, and up to 100 home health visits after you are 65. And beginning in 1967, you will also be covered for up to 100 days of care in a skilled nursing home after a period of hospital care.

And under a separate plan, when you are 65–that the Congress originated itself, in its own good judgment–you may be covered for medical and surgical fees whether you are in or out of the hospital. You will pay $3 per month after you are 65 and your Government will contribute an equal amount.

Let me tell you how Medicare affects me: It affects me with a $57 trillion unfunded liability.  It affects me with a bill of $500,000 for every single household in America.  It affects me with an individual bill (that every single man, woman, and child in this country owes) of $230,000.

The forerunner of the CBO underestimated the actual cost of Medicare by a whopping factor of 10.  If they repeat their little boo-boo, ObamaCare will cost $10 trillion dollars over ten years, and the United States will completely collapse as an independent nation-state.

And that’s $230,ooo on top of the $184,000 I owe for Medicare.  I owe $414,000.  And my household owns $900,000.  And great googly moogly, we don’t got it.  We’re on a speeding train that is going to keep hurtling along until it flies off a cliff and crashes.

Hey, I got an idea: let’s double that.  Hell, let’s triple it.

If you believe that the government is going to create a trillion dollar entitlement that ensures 47 million more people – (John Larson, chairman of the Democratic caucus, used the “47 million” figure on ABCs “This Week” just yesterday; he used it again on CNNs “State of the Union”) and spends less money than is spent now, you are an abject fool.

And that “47 million” clearly includes 17 million illegal immigrants.  The Democrats’ incredibly cynical plan is to take health resources from you and from your children and grandchildren and give those resources to illegal immigrants so they can capture the Hispanic vote.

The metaphor is a dozen people rushing into your house to eat your food and consume your resources while your own kids go hungry.  No one would do this.  But your government is doing it under Democrat Party tyranny.

The real cost of this bill is over $6 TRILLION.  The Democrats filled their legislation with gimmicks, such as assuming they would cut doctors’ Medicare reimbursements by 21% when they know they won’t, then putting that “Doctor fix” in another bill.  That will add $208 billion to the real cost of their plan.  Then they falsely start the bill’s ten-year score in 2010, when the benefits don’t start getting paid out until 2014.  That accounting deceit masks the fact that the REAL cost of the bill is $2.3 trillion.

The $6 trillion (PLUS!!!) figure comes from the biggest and most despicable shenanigan of all: all the money from American citizens who will be unconstitutionally forced to purchase health insurance isn’t counted in the CBO score.  At all.  Not one penny.

In other words, your ObamaCare – which really isn’t even deficit neutral at all – was sold as “deficit neutral” because it doesn’t count the trillions and trillions of dollars that American citizens will be compelled by their government to pay for health insurance.

ObamaCare amounted to the slitting of the national wrists.  And we’re going to start bleeding out until we either abandon it or die.

The Republicans have a few more tactics to fight this bill, but they amount to starting backfires to try to temporarily contain a massive hungry forest fire.  It won’t be enough, and it probably won’t ultimately succeed.

Thirty-eight states and counting are now working to preempt the ObamaCare disaster by protecting their citizens from this disgraceful and unconstitutional boondoggle.

Having this monster 2,700-page government takeover of health care may be the only chance this nation has of avoiding a very-near term financial implosion.

If this bill isn’t stopped, one day Americans will look back at the late great former United States of America and realize that that was the anvil that broke the camel’s back.

The Truth About Health Care For Illegal Immigrants

Ask Obama about health care for illegal immigrants and he says this:

When a caller asked about illegal immigrants under health care reform, Obama said the topic is one of many where misinformation has taken root. “This has been an example of just pure misinformation out there. None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress, and none of the proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants — none of them,” he said. “That has never been on the table; nobody has discussed it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants, that is simply not true and has never been the case.”

Okay.  Then what about this:

Roughly half of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. don’t have health insurance, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group. Like others who can’t afford medical care, illegal immigrants tend to flock to hospital emergency rooms, which, under a 1986 law, can’t turn people away, even if they can’t pay. Emergency-room visits, where treatment costs are much higher than in clinics, jumped 32% nationally between 1996 and 2006, the latest data available.

Does the Democrats’ health care bill overturn this 1986 law?  Does the Democrat’s health care bill specifically rule out illegal immigrants from qualifying for health care?

No.  In fact Obama tacitly acknowledges that, at the very least, nothing will change and illegal immigrants will continue to be able to flock to emergency rooms for their health care.  And since the basic law now says illegal immigrants are basically entitled to health care, they have to be specifically ruled out in order to be ineligible for benefits under a future health care bill.

But the Democrats aren’t allowing any exception preventing illegal immigrants from receiving health care under the Democrats’ plan, as this Newsmax article, entitled, “Obama Health Plan to Cover 12 Million Illegals,” proves:

On Friday, Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama.

The House Ways and Means Committee nixed the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill early Friday morning by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan.

The Democratic plan will embrace Obama’s vision of bringing free government medical care to more than 45 million uninsured people in America – a significant portion of whom are illegal aliens.

If the Democrats have no intention of covering illegal immigrants in their health plan, why did every single Democrat vote against an amendment that would have prevented illegal immigrants from receiving government subsidized health care? I mean, if I had no intention of doing something, I wouldn’t have a problem voting for an amendment that makes sure the thing I don’t want anyway doesn’t happen.  Is that just me?

These Democrats are worse than the worst caricatures of used car salesmen.  They will promise you whatever the heck you want to hear; they just won’t put it in writing or stand behind it.  They are the worse kind of liars.  Don’t trust what they say when what they do directly contradicts what they say.

If Democrats want to claim that their bill won’t provide coverage to illegal immigrants, then demand they put it in writing, and codify it into law.  Don’t just blithely trust these weasels, or the propagandist mainstream media that is out to justify liberalism and vilify conservatism.

Obama has repeatedly promised that he will help “the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance.”  But the claim itself demonstrates that Obama is lying now when he says none of the bills give coverage to illegal immigrants.  Because the “47 million” figure includes millions of illegal immigrants.

This Census [Bureau] report says that within the borders of the United States as of 2007 there were 45.65 people without health insurance. But this number, according to the Census Bureau, included 9.73 million foreigners, leaving only 35.92 Americans who were uninsured.

Another article:

President Barack Obama claimed during his Wednesday night press conference that there are 47 million Americans without health insurance.

A simple check with the U.S. Census Bureau would have told him otherwise.

Obama said: “This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance.”

That assertion conflicts with data in the Census Bureau report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007.” The report was issued in August 2008 and contains the most up-to-date official data on the number of uninsured in the U.S.

The report discloses that there were 45.65 million people in the U.S. who did not have health insurance in 2007.

However, it also reveals that there were 9.73 million foreigners — foreign-born non-citizens who were in the country in 2007 — included in that number. So the number of uninsured Americans was actually 35.92 million.

And of those, “there were also 9.1 million people making more than $75,000 per year who did not choose to purchase health insurance,” CNSNews stated in a report based on the Census Bureau data.

That brings the number of Americans who lack health insurance presumably for financial reasons down less than 27 million.

The Census Bureau report also shows that the number of people without insurance actually went down in 2007 compared to the previous year — from 47 million to 45.65 million — while the number with insurance rose from 249.8 million to 253.4 million.

So I say tomato, you say tomahto.  I say Obama is going to cover illegal immigrants, and Obama says he’s going to cover all Americans – and the fact that he considers illegal immigrants as “Americans” is completely beside the point.  That’s the fine print, and who needs to waste time consider the fine print?

The point is that there is a massive disinformation campaign going on.  Democrats and their mainline media propagandists baldly assert up one side and down the other that the bill doesn’t “give coverage to illegal immigrants.”  And in the most rote, literalistic, never-mind-the-fine-print-just-sign-here mindset, it’s true: there isn’t a page that says, “We hereby grant illegal immigrants health care coverage because that’s just the kind of globalist-Marxist anti-American rat-bastards we are.”

But please don’t be so absolutely stupid that you don’t read the fine print.

During the presidential campaign Tom Brokaw asked Barack Obama and John McCain a fundamental question: “Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?”  John McCain answered that it was a responsibility; Barack Obama said – and I quote – “Well, I think it should be a right for every American” (as in all 47 million Americans).

If health care is a basic right, how do you restrict it?  How do you deny it?  How do you say something is a “right,” and then keep people from having it?

Based on Obama’s own moral logic, he MUST provide health care for illegal immigrants.  All you have to do is listen to Barack Obama between lies to know what he’s going to do.

The 2010 census under Barack Obama will count everyone present as “Americans” and will not separate out illegal immigrants.  You can take that infamous Newsweek Cover that proclaims, “We Are ALL Socialists Now” and change it to say, “We are ALL Americans Now.”  As far as Obama is concerned, if you happen to be in America now, you are an American.  And it doesn’t matter where you were born, or how you got here.

And neither will his health care plan.  They have intended to cover “47 million Americans” all along – and they WILL cover illegal immigrants unless they are defeated.

Obama News Conference: We Need A Government Program To Save Us From Government Programs

President Obama’s July 22nd presidential news conference amounted to largely incomprehensible answers from softball press questions.

Obama began by congratulating himself for pulling “our economy out of the brink” with his massive stimulus legislation.  He conveniently omitted the fact that the Obama administration – after Obama himself repeatedly fearmongering the economy by repeatedly comparing it to the Great Depression – claimed that unemployment would not rise above 8% if his stimulus passed.  He was so incredibly wrong it is absolutely unreal: it is now around 10%, and respected Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney is on the record predicting 13% or higher unemployment.

Obama also conveniently omitted the fact that he has delayed releasing his midsummer budget update because the figures are so bleak it would kill his trillion-five health care bill he’s so desperate to pitch:

WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday it was delaying the release of the annual midsummer US budget update, but refuted charges it was trying to put distance between its own optimistic predictions and the sour state of today’s economy. […]

The delayed midsummer update is expected to reveal the executive branch’s financial outlook for the United States clouded by rising unemployment and growth figures less favorable than earlier in the year. […]

An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity said the figures had rattled the government…

Maybe it’s just me, but I would say it’s WAAAAAAAYY too soon for your self-administered back-patting session, Mr. Obama.  It’s a shame you don’t give a fig about church (although at least you’re not still going to that “God damn America” church), because you seriously should be in one every single morning on your knees praying about your economy.

Several other things leaped out of a few key paragraphs from Obama’s opening statement that need to be pointed out and laughed at:

“And health-insurance reform is central to that effort.

This is not just about the 47 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance at all. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage, if they become too sick or lose their job or change their job.

It’s about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage, because it became too expensive. It’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

So let me be clear. If we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket.”

Let’s start with Obama’s “47 million Americans” claim.  It’s false.  Unless you agree with the statement, “Illegal immigrants are as American as you and me.”  The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama is expecting the American taxpayer to shoulder the costs for at least 12 million illegal immigrants as part of that “47 million Americans.” The Census Bureau lists 10.2 million of the 47 million Obama demands we insure under the description, “NOT A CITIZEN.” And realize that 10 million is the lowest estimate of our illegals; the figure could actually be as high as 22 million.  And Barack Obama wants you to pay to cover every single one of them.

If you think that Obama can cover all these people AND lower your cost, please contact me: because I’ve got all kinds of land and bridges to sell you, and I promise to give you a great deal.

Obama then says “Its about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage.” Which is truly amazing, considering the fact that small businesses are screaming bloody murder that it will be Barack Obama’s OWN health care plan that will force them to lay off employees or cut back on their health coverage.

The Obamacare agenda will – and this is an easily documentable fact as the Wall Street Journal has already exposed – kick employees out of their health care plans and stick them in government plans.

It’s like I slap you and your family repeatedly across the face, and then proclaim, “It’s about families being slapped in the face.”

Then Obama provides us with my favorite line: “It’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.”

This one is HI-Larious.  Because Medicare and Medicaid are both government programs.  And Obama in effect is saying, “We need government health care to save us from the massive crisis created by government health care.”  Or, “If we don’t have another government health plan, the cost of our other government health plans will bankrupt us.”

Medicare has a total unfunded liability of $61.6 TRILLION.  And Obama thinks we need another government health care plan to save us from the first one?  It’s like learning that the Italian mob has put a contract out on your life, and then figuring the best way out of your crisis is to get the Mexican mafia to put a contract out on your life, too.  What will happen, of course, is that you’ll end up dead twice as fast.

Obama has repeatedly assured us that we desperately need his health care agenda in order to lower the cost of our health care.  He is in fact completely wrong.  The Congressional Budget Office has gone on the record to tell us that the exact opposite is true:

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf: No, Mr. Chairman. In the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.

Obama repeatedly bloviated about “waste” and his government plan lowering cost due to the increased efficiencies of large-scale government planning.   Obama talked about the need “to eliminate waste and inefficiency in Medicare.” Note to the sane:  AGAIN , MEDICARE IS A FREAKING GOVERNMENT PROGRAM!!!  IT’S THE GOVERNMENT WASTING THE MONEY!!!

Wise man say, “If man rape you, do not let him back in your house.”

If Obama believes that government can become a paradigm of efficiency, he has his challenge before him: rather than socialize 1/5th of the economy under a government program, perhaps instead he could focus on actually making the government programs we already have more efficient.  Just sayin’.

It makes sense as a hypothetical matter to argue that the government in the abstract, with its vast size and enormous purchasing power, can save money by lowering unit costs.  But in actuality, it just doesn’t happen – EVER – because the government is inherently inefficient.  Governments are NEVER as efficient as private businesses.

We’ve got a marvelous example that just came out the other day, with the government spending money on pork – literally.

When it was discovered that the federal government was spending millions on pork, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak said:

The references to “2 pound frozen ham sliced” are to the sizes of the packaging. Press reports suggesting that the Recovery Act spent $1.191 million to buy “2 pounds of ham” are wrong. In fact, the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191m, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound. In terms of the dairy purchase referenced, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) purchased 837,936 pounds of mozzarella cheese and 4,039,200 pounds of processed cheese.

But sliced ham costs $.79 per pound at Food Lion.  And that isn’t even taking advantage of bulk sales, much less the kind of huge discount you’d expect with a federal government-sized “bulk sale.”

So your hard-at-work tax dollars spent easily twice as much as they needed to.

President Obama tells us that we need to control health care costs.  And, well duh, who would possibly argue with that?  And yet he sets up a rhetorical straw man in which anyone who wants to control costs has to support his cost-increasing socialized agenda.  Wrong.  If we would just do something that Barack Obama – who is owned body and soul by the trial lawyers – fundamentally opposes, we could massively lower the cost of health care immediately.  Two words: tort reform.

Another measure that would immediately lower our health care burden: stop covering illegal immigrants.  Just stop.  We clearly don’t have enough resources for our own citizens, so why should we cover everyone else’s citizens?  We need to systematically remove the incentives that lure illegals across our borders, and let them consume their own nations’ social support resources.  St. Paul said, “The man who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an infidel.”  Let’s stop being infidels and start providing for our own.

And, yes, reform our system to cut out waste and fraud.  And start with the government programs that are CREATING most of that waste and fraud.

If we do just these three things, the rest of the problem will be a WHOLE lot smaller, and a WHOLE lot easier to solve.

Democrats are assuring us that a massive transfer of liberty and property inherent in government medicine will increase our care and simultaneously reduce our cost.  But what will certainly happen – based on the history of virtually every single government program we have ever had – is reduce our care and increase our cost.

Obama is trying to tell the American people that they desperately need a government program to save them from a runaway government program.  But what we truly need right now is for someone to save us from Obama.

Obama Covers Millions Of Illegal Immigrants Under His Health Plan

In Barack Obama’s own words:

TOP PRIORITIES:
My top priority as president will be ending this war in Iraq, a war that should have never been authorized and never been waged. In doing so, I will work to keep our country safe from terrorists and to restore American credibility around the world. Providing universal health care to the 47 million Americans who currently do not have it will be another top priority of my administration, as will combating global warming and putting our country on the path toward energy independence.

47 million “Americans”…? It turns out that…

… many Democrats have used “Americans” to mean various things, from U.S. citizens to U.S. citizens plus immigrants to U.S. citizens plus immigrants and illegal aliens to everyone in North and South America. In the mind of many Democratic Party leaders, the word “American” is a bit fluid.Further, the numbers don’t add up: The 45 to 47 million people that BHO touts as covered by his plan include millions of people who aren’t U.S. citizens.

For instance, BHO’s page (barackobama.com/issues/healthcare) includes this quote from his May 29, 2007 Iowa City, IA speech:

If you are one of the 45 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, you will have it after this plan becomes law.

In the text of the page, it says this:

47 million Americans — including nearly 9 million children — lack health insurance with no signs of this trend slowing down.

Now, let’s turn to the Census Bureau chart in this PDF file (link). On Page 21, the number of those without health insurance in 2006 is indeed 47 million (rounded up). However, only 35.7 million of those are native born or naturalized.

10.2 million of the 47 million are listed as “not a citizen”. The Census Bureau doesn’t say what status those 10.2 million have, but some will be visitors, some will be those working towards citizenship, and some will be illegal aliens. Most likely a good percentage or a majority will in fact be illegal aliens.

I checked the census data included in (Table 6. People With or Without Health Insurance Coverage by Selected Characteristics: 2005 and 2006) found on page 21 of “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006.” And we do indeed find that of the 46,995,000 people listed as uninsured, 10,231,000 are identified as “Not a citizen.”

When Barack Obama claims his plan wouldn’t cover illegal immigrants, he is lying by the very numbers that he himself provides.

You can’t trust him. Factcheck.org says of his health care advertising:

The Obama campaign released a new ad Feb. 14 in Wisconsin called “Debate,” quoting Bill Clinton’s first secretary of labor, Robert Reich, as saying Obama’s plan covers “more people” than Clinton’s. We find the ad misleading and, in one respect, false.

And Barack Obama’s claim that he won’t cover illegal immigrants is also misleading and false.

Barack Obama and the Democrats claim that the government can use economy of scale to reduce health care prices if the government gets involved. This claim makes sense in theory, but in actual practice is laughably false 100% of the time. The simple reality is that government is inherently inefficient, incompetent, wasteful, and corrupted by special interests and greedy self-interests.

Take something that just occurred as an object lesson. An article titled, “High Medicare Costs, Courtesy of Congress,” describes how Congress discarded a measure that would have required Medicare suppliers to submit bids in favor of a bill that will keep artificially high costs and profits a mainstay of the Medicare system. So Medicare will keep spending $110 on a walker that WalMart sells for $60, as one example. That’s just the kind of “commonsense plan” that Democrats will give you when they’re in charge of things.

It’s not out of cruelty that conservatives oppose big government health care; it’s because government is inherently wasteful (everyone else has to live under a budget or go broke, you know?), and because its simply stupid, risky, and just plain wrong to put a quarter of the American economy under direct government control.

When you add 47 million people to the health care system, you will invariably end up with the rationing of care, just as they have so much of in Europe. And as the government gets more and more of its hands in the health care pie, you can guarantee that both costs and mismanagement will increase more and more.

And when you provide medical coverage to illegal immigrants – as Barack Obama’s plan clearly provides in spite of his disingenuous comments to the contrary – you will continue to encourage millions and millions of uneducated “undocumented” immigrants to continue to flood into this country and further swamp our social services budgets.

This country simply cannot afford Barack Obama’s socialist welfare-state agenda.