Obama spins fairy tale

I listened to President Obama’s speech to the joint session of congress last night and felt like I was being told a fairy tale about how the fairy godmother government was going to provide everyone with fantastic low cost heath insurance, and the president personally was going to protect us all from the evil insurance companies and make sure no one would ever be denied coverage, never have their insurance cancelled and never have to pay out-of-pocket expenses! With no increase to the budget deficit at all! Why, who wouldn’t want such wonderful benefits?

If it sounds too good to be true…it is. Put aside all the emotional issues like "death panels" and rationing and look just at the financial reality. There is NO WAY he can deliver everything he’s promising and have it be “budget neutral.” He also says the government will run the health care system more efficiently and at lower cost than the insurance companies! When has the government ever run anything more efficiently and at lower cost than the private sector can? But he’s the president, he wouldn’t lie to us!

Obama says no one else has come up with a solution, so there’s no other choice than to adopt his plan. Others have suggested an easy option that the government does not want to do: Allow open competition for insurance companies across state lines so that people can shop all over the US for health insurance like they do now for auto insurance. Nothing lowers prices like competition. Forbes.com has an excellent article on the subject Making Health Care Simple.