Senator Harry Reid's Compromise: A Complete Government-Run Single-Payer Health Care System

Senator Harry Reid’s "compromise" was crafted behind closed doors. The American people have no opportunity to examine the bill, and neither have a majority of Senators.

Obama, Reid and the media say this compromise version of means the death of the "public option.” Do not believe it. Harry Reid's latest health care “reform” scheme, instead of eliminating or weakening the so-called"public option," actually increases the government's stranglehold over our nation's health care system... and over my family’s health care decisions. Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), a major proponent of ObamaCare, calls Harry Reid's so-called compromise bill "an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me. It’s the mother of all public options. ... Never mind the camel’s nose; we’ve got his head and neck under the tent.” What more needs to be said? This latest compromise is nothing more than yet another brazen con job... yet another fraud designed to shove government-run health care down our throats.

Reid may call his latest plot a “compromise,” but in reality it paves the way towards a single-payer system by expanding the Medicare and Medicaid rolls, and by putting the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in charge of certain health insurance policies. Senator Reid’s new compromise is just more of what the American people have already rejected. There are no sensible reforms in Reid’s bill, nothing that would make health care better, more accessible, or more affordable. No medical liability reform. No portability of insurance policies. No sale of insurance across state lines. Under Reid’s compromise, we would still pay much more in order to get much less ... In fact, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued an independent analysis of Reid’s ObamaCare bill last week, and found that:

Health care costs would rise 235 billion dollars over the next decade; 17 million Americans would lose their current insurance coverage, regardless as to whether they like it or not; One in every 3 seniors on Medicare Advantage would lose their plans; 19 million Americans would be forced to pay new taxes and fines; 18 million Americans would be put on taxpayer-funded welfare; Up to 20 percent of Medicare providers would become unprofitable, leaving seniors with less access to and choices for care.

Having plunged Medicare and Medicaid into a financial black hole, liberals now want to do the same to the rest of health care. Within a decade, the Medicare system will be bankrupt. So what is the Obama-Pelosi-Reid solution? Add millions of people to the government health care rolls… decrease the number of health care providers and cut Medicare by 500 billion dollars.

Jeffrey Korsmo, the executive director of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center states: “Bringing more people into a system that doesn't work very well is not a good answer. The current Medicare program is not sustainable." Let's examine this absurdity in more detail.

Reid's so-called compromise does not eliminate the so-called "public option." The Heritage Foundation’s Nina Owcharenko: “[S]hifting this public plan option to OPM means the Director of OPM could end up as the ultimate health care czar, reporting directly to the President.” Just what we need: yet another czar... yet another blow to freedom... yet another dagger in the heart of private enterprise.

Owcharenko writes further: “There is plenty wrong with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - massive consolidation of regulatory authority over health care to the federal government; unintended consequences of the employer mandate; constitutional concerns over the individual mandate; inequities created through the subsidy structure; massive Medicaid expansion; Medicare ‘savings’ shifted out of Medicare; and a flood of new taxes that impact Americans regardless of income -- to name just a few.”

More specifically, Owcharenko notes the so-called compromise plan run by the Office of Personnel Management(OPM) is just a head-fake by Reid and others: “If OPM was given broad power to negotiate and determine services, benefits, premiums, etc., this federal plan would be no different than the older version of the ‘public plan’...; merely because the public plan is ‘private’ in name only doesn’t change a thing.” Politicians may try to call this monster that Reid is pushing a private plan, but it will ultimately be a government-run plan... overseen directly by the White House. Reid is calling a skunk a rose, but it still stinks to high heaven.

An Unconstitutional Health Care Scheme...

In addition to paving the way toward imposing a European-style single-payer health care system on the American people, ObamaCare, for the first time in our nation’s history, will force you to purchase something you may or may not want or need … in this case, government-approved or government-run health insurance.

Here's what Todd Gaziano of the Heritage Foundation writes about the “individual mandate”provision in ObamaCare: “The federal government has never required all Americans to buy any good or service. This is not surprising, because there is nothing in the Constitution that grants Congress that power. And if you poll Americans, they know there is no such power. … The mandate for individuals to buy health insurance is not a regulation of the health care or health insurance markets at all. ... It is a mandate that Americans must engage in commerce. If Congress can do this, they can do anything.” And that means anything. Think about that. What is to stop Barack Obama or Congress from forcing you to buy a new green Government Motors Chevy every year, or a lifetime membership in ACORN?

Gaziano outlines an historic truth: “Under our constitutional system of limited and enumerated federal powers, no theory of federal authority can be correct if it has no limits.” In response to that sentiment, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama are basically thumbing their noses at us and saying; So what? They've made it clear, by their own words, deeds and actions, that they are not interested in upholding the Constitution, but rather in seizing unlimited government power. For them, everything, including so-called health care reform, becomes a means to a political end... a socialist state. Are you willing to let the United States of America become the USSA … the United Socialist States of America?

You can stop that from happening... you can take a stand. Remember, Senate leaders are planning to hold a final vote any day now. The time to act is now. Help stop Harry Reid’s ill-named and poisonous health care “compromise.” Send faxes to the politicians in Washington! The American people are tired of being scammed! Let them know that Reid's compromise is not a compromise... it's an abomination!

My thanks and a hat tip to Jack Graff.