Obama and the Democrats are working feverishly to pass a nationalized health care plan before Edward Kennedy is reunited with JFK, RFK, and Mary Jo Kopechne. It may be worth spending a few minutes examining what it is they will be shoving down American throats under the pretense of curing them.

Do not be fooled. Socialized medicine is what Obama wants. As a state senator in Illinois, he introduced legislation to achieve just that in the welfare state that was once the proud Land of Lincoln. (In 2003 Obama told the AFL-CIO, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program… and that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”) Do not think that his moving from Chicago to the White House has reduced his appetite for power. A quick examination of what Obama has done over the last four months to destroy the U.S. Constitution and take illegal command over the American economy should make it obvious that there is no stopping the thug in chief. We can toss him out of office in November 2012, and we can vote out his Democrat comrades in November 2010, but until then we are stuck with his usurpations of power. Although the odds may be against us, we can stop “Obamacare” the same way we stopped “Hillarycare” in 1993—by exposing it for what it is: socialized medicine that will result in higher taxes, physician shortages, rationing of care, and denial of services to the elderly.

First, look at the number of uninsured Americans Obama and his apostles in the government and the media keep tossing around. They usually say there are 46 million uninsured Americans. (Sometimes the number used is 47 million, sometimes 50 million.) What they neglect to mention is that 10 to 20 million in that group of uninsured “Americans” are illegal immigrants. (Roughly 39 per cent of the uninsured reside in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and New Mexico.) Yes, they do not have traditional health insurance policies, but we all know they are not being left on the streets to die. They show up at hospital emergency rooms in labor and with their headaches and strep throats and gunshot wounds—and the taxpaying Americans are footing the bill for their care, either through state or federal programs or higher insurance premiums. Obama apparently believes Americans will be better off if we make it easier for the illegals to get even better care; (Heaven forbid that they should have to wait in line while a taxpayer is treated first.) Perhaps if they were not given free health care subsidized by the American taxpayers more than a few of those families would choose to stay on their side of the border.

While he was still a U.S. Senator, Obama sponsored the “Global AIDS Spending Bill.” The bill adds $50 billion to the $200 billion in tax dollars already spent on fighting HIV/AIDS around the world. The bill also lifts a ban on the entry of AIDS-infected aliens into the United States. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that U.S. taxpayers will end up spending $83 billion treating those aliens and their HIV-infected children. Perhaps if Obama had not introduced that bill there would be a few more tax dollars available to treat Americans in the emergency rooms. (If the United States has such lousy health care that it desperately has to be “fixed” before legislators have a chance to read the bill, let alone debate it, why do the AIDS patients have to be welcomed with open arms? Why not send them to Cuba, which has that great socialized medicine everyone in the media raves about?)

The “46 million uninsured Americans” also includes millions of people who earn more than $50,000 per year but who simply choose not to buy health insurance. (The Census Bureau estimates that there are about 17 million people in that category.) Obama believes it is a good idea to raise taxes and prices on everyone so that those people can be covered. (“Hope and change” includes forcing Americans who do not make $50,000 per year to help provide health insurance for those who do.)

The uninsured population does not consist solely of Americans who want insurance but can’t afford it. In the uninsured mix are also millions of young people who simply choose not to buy health insurance because, well, they’re young and healthy and believe they are invincible. (Individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 make up 40 per cent of the uninsured.) Of course, they are not all invincible, but enough of them are to make it logical for them to save their cash for a down payment on a condominium rather than spend money on insurance premiums. They’re young but they’re not that stupid. They may be playing the odds when they choose a new car over insurance against prostate cancer or uterine cancer—but the odds are most definitely in their favor. The youth of America are so convinced of their own infallibility that they have no difficulty choosing to pay $150 per month on a cell phone over $100 per month on health insurance. (Yes, catastrophic health insurance can be that inexpensive if you are a healthy, young, non-smoker willing to accept a high deductible.) Obama essentially promised those young people free health care (along with free college educations) if they voted for him—so they did. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us should be forced against our will to give it to them. (According to a study by Johns Hopkins University, families that earn less than $58,000 per year cannot afford to purchase health insurance, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those families spend, on average, $1,081 per year on cell phone service, $427 on alcoholic beverages, $364 on cigarettes, $481 on personal care products, $1,573 on clothing, $2,269 on restaurant meals. One would be hard-pressed, of course, to find a politicians suggesting to those families that they might want to take responsibility for their own insurance needs by cutting back somewhere else.)

Included in Obama’s figure of 46 million uninsured are people who are temporarily in between jobs. A union truck driver who is laid off, for example, loses his employer-paid health insurance. But he will get insurance again when he finds a new job. In the meantime, he has the option of continuing his (and his family’s) employer-paid group health insurance for several years—even though he no longer works for the company—by paying his own premium payments under COBRA legislation. In non-recessionary times, roughly one-half of those who lose their jobs find new ones—with health insurance—within four months. COBRA rules clearly remove those people from the uninsured count. The person who is healthy generally does not bother making those COBRA payments, because he knows he will again soon be covered. If he (or a family member) does happen to become ill or injured, he can retroactively pay for the coverage (within a certain time limit). The laid off employee is therefore generally wise not to continue his insurance, because he knows that if he should end up needing it after a month or two he can pay the required premiums retroactively. To argue that someone who is between jobs is part of a “health care crisis” is as ludicrous as classifying as “homeless” someone who bought a house and has not yet moved in.

There are also millions of low-income Americans whose children have coverage via the SCHIP program but who haven’t bothered to enroll them in the program, as well as millions eligible for services through Medicaid if they would only take the time to apply.

The “crisis” of 46 million uninsured is no crisis at all after you remove from the equation the illegal immigrants, the people who can afford insurance but who choose not to buy it, those who are young and healthy and who can likely risk being without insurance, and those who are in between jobs (but who have the protection of COBRA coverage if they need it). Granted, there are some unfortunate souls who become seriously ill or injured and who do not have health insurance, but there are most certainly not 46 million of them—and the nation already has adequate federal, state, and charity safety nets to take care of the truly disadvantaged (like SCHIP and Medicaid).

A Kaiser poll showed that only 64 per cent of uninsured adults would be willing to pay as little as $100 per month for health coverage. A mere 29 per cent were willing to spend $200 per month. But—surprise!—all of them are willing to have the taxpayers shell out $1.2 trillion to insure them. If health care is so critical that Obama has to get legislation rushed through immediately, you would think the least the alleged 46 million uninsured could do is offer more than $100 per month as their share of the burden. (Of course, all health insurance policies would be less expensive if the legislators in the 50 states did not require insurance companies to cover such things as in vitro fertilization and smoking cessation classes. There are more than one thousand such mandates across the country today, and the cost of including them increases insurance premiums.)

Obama and the media nevertheless beat the 46 million uninsured drum for all its worth, doing their best to get a national health care plan passed. Soon… not just during Obama’s four-year term as President, not even during his first two years. No, it has to be done in 2009, and preferably before the end of summer. What’s the hurry? Will Congress not be in session in 2010? It is not a coincidence that Congress is doing its best to make sure Edward Kennedy’s name goes on the legislation. Why? For the sympathy support. “We need to get this passed before Senator Kennedy’s brain tumor does him in.” (More than three hundred million Americans are expected to allow their health care system to be destroyed so that corrupt politicians can honor a lifelong drunk who left a women gasping for air in a submerged Oldsmobile. It would have been cheaper to save General Motors’ Oldsmobile nameplate as a fitting memorial.)

One would think that legislation affecting approximately 17 per cent of the nation’s economy would be carefully crafted, debated, and considered. This is not, after all, approval for a bridge or a day care center—it is a federal overhaul of the world’s best health care system. Americans spend, directly or indirectly, $2.4 trillion per year on health care. Why should we let Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi rush to concoct a massive bill that dramatically changes that system? They certainly haven’t done anything in the first few months of 2009 to warrant the trust of the people who will be stuck with whatever they come up with.

There is only one reason for Obama’s demand for speed: get the legislation passed before anyone has a chance to see the devil that is hiding in the details—and before the tide of public opinion turns against the big-spending temporary resident of the Oval Office. Obama’s Senate henchman, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, is at the ready to get health care legislation passed via a sneaky maneuver known as “budget reconciliation”—which requires only a simple majority of Senate votes, rather than the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster.

Obama learned his lesson from the Clinton health care fiasco. Some may recall the convoluted charts showing the intricate (some would say idiotic) organizational chart of Hillarycare. The more the details of her proposal became known, the less people liked the plan. Hence, it failed. Obama will have none of that. He is paying close attention to Tom Daschle (who would have been his Secretary of Health and Human Services had he not considered himself above the tax laws the rest of us are expected to follow). Daschle is certainly still in the Obama loop, however, so it may be worth paying attention to his words. In Daschle’s revealing book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis, he argues that the failure of the Clinton health care plan in 1993 was the result of providing too much detailed information, which its critics then used against it. Daschle instead now recommends passing an intentionally vague bill, which would set up a “Federal Health Board… charged with establishing the system’s framework and filling in most of the details. This independent board would be insulated from political pressure.” In other words, Obama and Congress should intentionally deceive the American people in order to stage a national health care coup. That’s the scheme—in Daschle’s own words.

As part of the deception, Obama argues that no American will have to give up any health care coverage they have now, and says he will merely provide a “federal option” for the consumer. If you like your current policy, you can supposedly keep it, because the federal policy will be the “policy of last resort.” Obama’s Web site (www.barackobama.com/pdf/Obama08_HealthcareFAQ.pdf) states that his “…plan actually will increase the choices available to you… If you do not have insurance you can choose to enroll in the new public plan … or you can choose private plan options through the national health exchange.” Obama later changed the wording on his pledge of “if you like your policy you can keep it” at a news conference, when he responded to a question with, “What I’m saying is, the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform.” (ABC’s Jake Tapper points out that Obama wasn’t saying “no one” would take away anyone’s health insurance, only that he wouldn’t—“Which is not to say that the government wouldn’t create a situation where such a thing would happen.”

Do not believe Obama’s argument that he merely wants to introduce “competition” in the health insurance industry. (He makes that claim as if to suggest he is a believer in free markets, but his track record shows that he is virulently opposed to the capitalist system.) There are more than 1,300 companies in the United States currently providing health insurance. Obama expects you to believe that the introduction of company number 1,301—the government insurance company—will somehow magically transform everything? What is Obama’s scheme?

Consider how a government health insurance policy would be priced. If the federal policy is priced higher than private policies, there is no point in providing it. Why, for example, would anyone pay $750 per month for “Obamacare” if he or she can get the same or better coverage in the private insurance marketplace for $700? Similarly, there is no point in having a federal plan that is priced the same as private coverage. Why even bother setting up a federal plan that charges the exact same rate? The only reason anyone would have for buying federal health insurance coverage would be to save money. That is Obama’s intention—to price the federal coverage lower than similar private insurance.

Faced with the choice of private insurance that costs more and federal insurance that costs less, why then would anyone keep private insurance? Of course, they would not. Over time, therefore, everyone would move to the federal plan. Presto! The entire nation will be under Obamacare!

But how can Obama price a federal insurance plan lower than private industry? He cannot—unless the government takes a loss on the coverage. That is, the government policy will be priced lower than what it actually costs to insure the consumer, and the government will lose money on most of the people it covers. The difference will eventually be paid for by higher taxes, borrowing money (deficit spending and selling Treasury bonds to China), or printing money (causing inflation). In the short run, Obama will force private insurers out of business by under-pricing them. (When that happens, of course, he will blame their failure on “evil, cold capitalism”—and George W. Bush.) In the long run, Obama will end up creating a health care monster that devours even more of the nation’s gross domestic product than it does now.

To speed up the process of taking over the system, Obama will place incredible burdens on private insurers. As an example, he will require that consumers applying for health insurance cannot be turned down even if they have pre-existing medical conditions. To anyone with a functioning brain that requirement is ludicrous. (Imagine forcing car insurance companies to sell a policy to a teenager after he cracks up his car.) The lunacy of Obama’s requirement will not stop Obama from imposing it—he even emphasized the point during a debate with Senator John McCain. If a person knows that private insurers cannot turn down his request for a policy no matter what, why would he bother buying health insurance while he is healthy? He would simply have no insurance and save the money he would have paid for monthly premiums. If he (or his spouse or child) gets sick, he will simply trot down to the neighborhood insurance office and say, “Here I am! I want your best policy—and Obama says you can’t turn me down!” That change alone could signal the end of all private insurers. Insurance “after the fact” is not insurance; it is theft at the point of a federal gun.

Obama will not stop there. He will force insurers to pay for many procedures they do not now cover. He will increase mental health requirements. He will pile on so many rules, regulations, and mandates that private insurers will have no choice but to raise premium rates. They will not have the “print money or raise taxes” options available to Obama.

While he is doing his best to destroy the private health insurance industry, Obama will also force every employer in the United States to provide health insurance for all their employees—whether they can afford it or not. Health insurance is not inexpensive, so those employers will suddenly be faced with tens of billions of dollars in additional employee costs. Those businesses cannot print money any more than the insurance companies, so they will have to raise prices. As a result, Americans will see astronomical price increases. Employers that cannot or will not provide health insurance for their employees will be forced to pay a fine. No doubt many employers will simply drop their plans, as the fine will most certainly have to be less than the cost of insurance premiums. (Obama’s promise that no American who likes his existing plan will have to give it up is not much of a pledge if that coverage ceases to be provided. Obama can just as easily promise that no one will have to give up Skippy Peanut Butter if they prefer that to the Peter Pan brand, but he certainly cannot guarantee that Skippy and Peter Pan will forever remain in business—especially if his policies threaten their profits.)

Those employers who do not want to be burdened with setting up group insurance for their employees will be allowed to “opt out”—by paying a health care tax to Obama, which will be used to cover the employees with his “federal plan.” That option will also result in the employer passing on those costs to consumers. Prices on almost all goods and services will go up. Many companies will not bother providing group health insurance or paying into the “federal insurance pool”—they will simply close their doors and go out of business. (Everyone has a threshold, and owners of businesses are not immune to “throwing in the towel.”)

Never mentioned by Obama or the supporters of a national health plan are the number of Americans who are working solely for their health insurance. There are a substantial number of workers in their late 50s who are too young for Social Security benefits but who would like to retire. Perhaps they have earned a small pension from their employment or have enough savings, IRA, or 401(k) benefits to tide them over until they start collecting Social Security benefits. They are working not because they want to, but because they need the health insurance. They may be smokers, are likely overweight, and are perhaps diabetics. They do not want to be without health insurance, but do not want to wait for Medicare at age 65. Enter “Obamacare.” Suddenly those people no longer have to go to work for their health insurance, because their compassionate president pulled that “right” to health care out of his magician’s hat. (There is no such thing as a “right” if it comes at someone else’s expense. That is why the Declaration of Independence stopped at “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”) How many “working for the insurance” people like that are in the United States? No one knows—but we will certainly find out within a few months after Obama’s health care plan passes. Whatever their numbers, they will quit their jobs and get in line for the care Obama promised them—and which everyone else will be paying for.

And get in line they will, for there will most certainly be lines. You can’t very well promise something for 46 million people and not expect them to demand it once the benefits door has been opened. Even more problems will then start to appear.

Having forced private insurers out of business, Obama will have more than 300 million people clamoring for the health care he promised. His plan will quickly run out of money, because he cannot afford to continually subsidize the premium costs. Although he temporarily plans to keep the costs low in order to force private insurers out of business, he cannot play that game forever. Obama has estimated that his plan will cost $65 billion per year. That is an absurdly low number if one believes his uninsured Americans estimate, because it represents less than $1,400 per year for each of those 46 million people. He will need smoke and mirrors to insure the uninsured for about $120 per month per person. (Or he will add another trillion or two to the national debt.)

Obama will have no choice but to raise taxes and slash expenses. He will raise revenue by imposing new taxes on businesses (costs which will be passed on to all Americans in the form of higher prices for all goods and services). He will also impose taxes on soft drinks and other beverages that have added sugar. He will likely raise cigarette taxes (again). He will probably also eliminate tax deductions for Health Savings Accounts. (We should be encouraging HSAs, not eliminating them.) Don’t be surprised if he makes employer-paid group health insurance subject to income taxes—which would certainly be a telling admission of his hidden goal to socialize all health care. (Obama has been on the stump for two years moaning about how expensive health care is, so his brilliant is to tax it. Should the White House catch fire, expect him to pour gasoline on the flames.)

As far as all those people aged 54-64 who are working only for insurance and who will quit their jobs as soon as they get their laminated Obamacare I.D. card for their wallets, have no fear. The proposed Kennedy bill covers their expenses with this explanation: “There is established in the Treasury of the United States a trust fund to be known as the Retiree Reserve Trust Fund that shall consist of such amounts as may be appropriated or credited to the Trust Fund as provided for in this subsection to enable the Secretary to carry out the program under this section.” In other words, the federal government will set up an account and put money in it. How much money will the government need? Not surprisingly, the “experts” who wrote the bill weren’t quite certain, so they simply referred to it as, “Such amounts” as may be needed. (Doesn’t that make you feel better?) And where will the government get that money? No problem… it will be “appropriated.”

On the assumption that it will be impossible to “appropriate” enough taxes to fund all these goodies, Obamacare will have to do something about rising costs. How will Obama cut expenses? First in line will be a reduction of fees for physicians. He will follow the Medicare practice of simply saying the government will pay X dollars for a particular service (a physician visit, appendix removal, hip replacement, etc.). The Democrats are already poised to cut Medicare fees even more. As things stand today, many physicians already do their best not to take Medicare patients because those fees are too low. But once all patients are in the federal plan, the physicians will have no choice but to accept the amounts in Obama’s fee schedules. Take it or leave it.

Many will leave it. You can bet that a substantial number of physicians will choose to retire or switch to other careers, where their income is not restricted by federal fee schedules. Granted, physicians could better afford reduced fees if they could cut down on expenses through reduced malpractice insurance premiums, but that would require federal legislation curtailing some of the outrageous awards granted by sympathetic juries who are easily persuaded by slick lawyers. (The name John Edwards comes to mind.) Do not expect Obama or his fellow Democrats to lift a finger to reduce the outrageous settlement amounts paid in malpractice cases, because that will anger the trial lawyers—who donate heavily to Democrat campaign coffers. Obama won’t slash attorney’s fees, but he will slash physician’s fees. Fees for malpractice insurance for physicians have increased by over one thousand per cent over the last 30–40 years. Does anyone think that doctors and hospitals don’t pass those costs on to their patients?

Consider an obstetrician who is charged $80,000 or more per year for malpractice insurance. That works out to $1,538 per week, or a little more than $300 per day. If that doctor sees 10 patients per day, he has to charge $30 per patient just to cover his malpractice insurance! That is before he pays the rent, utility bills, medicines, supplies, and the salaries, taxes, and insurance for his staff—let alone his own salary. When a jury awards $20 million in a lawsuit against a doctor or a hospital, do not think that cost doesn’t get passed on to the patients. Obama will do little or nothing about that aspect of rising health care costs.

Word of this will trickle down to the college campuses, of course, and a fair number of brilliant young minds that had planned on entering the medical profession will instead enter more lucrative fields. After a few years of Obamacare, expect to see a lot more lawyers and a lot fewer doctors. (A person once destined to become a doctor and find a cure for cancer may instead become a plumber.) There will be shortages of nurses and hospitals will close. The more Obama cuts fees, the more there will be shortages. People will simply enter other professions, and investors will put their money in places other than hospitals.

There are about 800,000 physicians and 5,700 hospitals in the