Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has an impressive record and is well-experienced in the area of health care. At the young age of 24, he ran the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Erasing a $400 million deficit and turning it into a multi-year surplus won him national recognition and a job as executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare in 1998. President George W. Bush appointed Jindal to serve as Assistant Secretary to Tommy Thompson in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2001.
America would have been better off if President Obama had appointed Jindal to head HHS, instead of the “abortion queen” former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Of course, that would never happen as Obama and Jindal are as different as night and day politically.
With the his strong credentials on the issue of health care, read what Jindal had to say about Obama Care, via Politico:
'A trillion here, a trillion there'
.....
“I know a little something about health care policy, and I can tell you exactly the game that is currently afoot. If the House Democrats’ plan were to become law, the president’s statement that ‘if you like your health care now, you can keep it’ will not be true. This is not an opinion, this is a fact.
Businesses will, in effect, be forced to send employees into the Democrats’ government-run health care. It’s really not something to argue about, it is a fact. A private health insurance system, otherwise known as what we have today, will not be able to compete with a taxpayer-subsidized government plan, and businesses faced with growing health care costs will opt to either lay off more workers or send employees into the government plan. One independent study already suggested that up to 119 million Americans will end up leaving their private plans for the public plan. To think otherwise requires one to suspend disbelief.
The plan the House Democrats are developing is a radical restructuring of health care in America. You may like it, you may not, but it is just that; there is no denying or sugarcoating it.
Let me be clear about something: I have no problem conceding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with whom I served in Congress, means well, even though I realize some Republicans get mad when I say that. But the simple fact is that House Democrats are determined to try to tax and spend our way back to prosperity. The past six months have made that clear.
Our federal government is currently just flinging stuff against the wall, in trillion-dollar chunks, to see what sticks. Congress’s own budget office has said the current ‘federal budget is on an unsustainable path’ and that the Democrats’ health plan does not reduce ‘long-term health costs facing the government.’
The House Democrats’ plan would have the following consequences:
• Most Americans would end up, over time, with government-run health care.
• The only folks who would be able to stave this off are the wealthy.
• The quality of our health care would diminish.
• Someone other than patients and doctors would make decisions on the treatments and medicines we can have.
• The taxes on the rich, otherwise known as employers, would further damage the economy and potentially drive up unemployment at a time we can least afford it.
If you like those outcomes, then by all means, support the House Democrats’ health care plan.
The shame of it all is that there really is an emerging consensus among the populace that we need reform that reduces costs, improves outcomes and puts patients in control.
Imagine if the president proposed a reform package that made health insurance portable, ended frivolous lawsuits, allowed for pooling, required insurance companies to cover the sick, paid based on outcomes and not activity, used refundable tax credits to increase affordability and incentivized rather than penalized small businesses to provide coverage.
Republicans would support those reforms, and the policy would benefit the entire country. True, it wouldn’t be the radical and exciting restructuring that Pelosi is pushing, but it would begin to move us toward common-sense, bottom-up solutions. Solutions! There’s an idea.
But wait, as the late Billy Mays would say, there’s more. Social Security and Medicare, our two biggest entitlement programs in this country, are perpetually underfunded and are always in danger of going bankrupt. Is it even remotely possible that we as a country are now considering adding an entire new entitlement program to our repertoire?
Would the last sane person in Washington please turn out the lights when you leave?”
If what Jindal had to say does not alarm you, read about how Obama Care will cover 12 million illegal aliens, via Newsmax:
Obama Health Plan to Cover 12 Million Illegals
“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."
Read it all.
Read what the Mayo Clinic has to say about Obama Care.
4 comments:
Health care reform is going to happen, and it's just killing you, isn't it? Knowing that Obama will carry through on one of his major commitments, upsetting all the elitism generated by eight years of Georgie W.
Jindal is a doofus. He had frontrunner status in the GOP until he offered that totally incomprehensible "response" to Obama's State of the Union address.
again with the damn health care.... ok, i've got it. everyone gets the same health care for the same price no matter how rich or broke you are, and no matter what tax bracket you fall under. if that health care isn't good enough, you can pay to have better health care. and that will be the new plan. fair enough? i think so. because i work with a fair number of democratic blue collar people, and thus far each one is not happy for universal health care. or even a reform for that matter. and the more i sit by, catch wallstreet, msnbc, cnn.. etc, the more i go... "ya know what? this is causing too much of a problem, the government is just really putting its hand in too many places." and i know previously i had been a little more understanding of the other side, but i just cant bring myself to support anything that caters to one specific tax bracket. even if i was loaded with dollars and the new president was going to give all rich people another 200000000 dollars for whatever reason, i'd have to be opposed. if everyone's putting into the pot, you can only spend that money on what benefits everyone. i would rather have the funds they're allocating for this health care reform, spent on cancer research. or diabetes research. or ALS. or AIDS. or any of those diseases. those diseases dont care what tax bracket you're in. people are capable of handling themselves better. you hear the success story all the time of rags to riches. if you were born into rags, you'll have to work harder to make it, facts of life, its hard isn't it? but if a majority can do it, a minority can to. no health care reform.
If we had 40 million people starving to death, would you say "We can't cater (no pun intended) to one tax bracket. Sorry, poor folks, but we can't just feed you, you know? You gotta want it bad enough to work for it."
40 million Americans have no access to health coverage. We all pay for that now, in the most inefficient manner possible. You're absolutely right when you say "diseases don't care what tax bracket you're in". Diseases don't care whether or not you have health insurance available to you, either -- but it DOES matter as to whether or not you'll get the treatment you need.
And income, or lack of it, isn't necessarily the biggest problem with ability to access insurance. You have diabetes, you probably won't be able to get coverage, ESPECIALLY if you had group coverage and lost it when you lost your job. Your kid has a chronic disease? You probably won't be able to get coverage for your whole family.
Insurers are not idiots, and they're in the business of making a profit. You don't make a profit by covering somebody who's going to cost you a lot more in benefits than they pay in in premiums. So you don't cover high risks, because your competitors won't. But if EVERYBODY has to cover EVERYBODY, regardless of pre-existing conditions, the risks begin to even out; now all insurers are in the same boat, so nobody has a competitive advantage/disadvantage in covering chronic illness.
It's basic fairness. We are a wealthy country, an we owe this to our fellow citizens.
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.... For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.... He will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
No, I don't suggest the U.S. government "do the right thing" because it's in the Bible. I suggest that we, the people of the U.S., do the right thing because it is the right thing.
if no extra money leaves my pocket... because we're "already paying for it", where does the gov't plan to remove funds from, to make health care affordable?
we are wealthy... and for a lot of reasons. but i dont see how i benefit from giving the entrepreneur, who's wife has diabetes and his business is going down with 3 kids and one in college, say 15% of my federal taxes. i understand the whole "everyone brings up everyone", but i dont see that as a majority of situations, i think that's the poster-story if you will, for why universal health care is "needed" or a reform or whatever its called tomorrow.
say of 40 million americans, we have 15 million in poverty, given they're in poverty, chances are, limited to no health coverage. and poverty will always be there as long as the people in poverty areas choose a lifestyle they do (drop out of high school, prison, gangs, drugs, etc...) (and i don't account for them, because of the whole "help yourself before i'll help you" philosophy) leaving 25 million mid-lower to mid-upper class citizens, with limited/no health coverage. of the 300 million in america, that's about 9% of this country that has health care "concerns" and that's not saying they have NO health coverage either it just isn't suitable for their lives. so 91% of america (and i'm rounding of course, i'd give it as low as 85%) is covering itself through the current health care system. i would say that is pretty damn amazing. for a country our size? and to be run that efficiently? its incredible. to the point where i'm not so sure, it REALLY needs to be addressed. i mean you hear "40 million americans!!!" but, just break down, what makes up that 40 million americans... is it the 12 million illegal aliens? is it the 2 million in-and-out-of-jail criminals unable to find work? is it people on welfare? are they collecting SSI checks? if the basis of this debate is to cover the "poster-story" situation, thats too small of a percentage of americans, to cater to.
come on now, starving? if we had 40 million americans starving, there's a worse situation on our hands than "give us food", like, where did the food go? probably destroyed in fall-out from iran and n. korea's nuclear-opoly in 2014.
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