Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Obama maintains—with the support of the AARP—that overall, his changes in health-care are helpful to seniors and will save them thousands of dollars. Not so. Seniors are the big losers under ObamaCare according to Betsy McCaughey , the expert who has studied all the congressional plans. To make the cost deficit-neutral, which Obama declares is the goal, $500-$550 billion must be taken away from Medicare spending: less to nursing homes, drugs, protocols, to minimize the handicaps of disability. As a starter, the use of specialists should shift to primary-care doctors, on the misconception that the elderly overuse specialists. Betsy McCaughey reports that studies have shown that for heart patients, a shift to primary care results in a higher death rate. Primary-care physicians frequently misdiagnose heart patients, who are more often readmitted to the hospital. They die sooner. Dr. Emanuel, the brother of Rahm Emanuel, has written extensively in favor of abandoning efforts to hel...

Not only will the new program become the default coverage for the uninsured, but Democrats intend to game the system to precipitate—or if need be, coerce—an exodus . . . of private insurance. Soon enough, that will be the only “option” left. -- The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2009 A new report from the President’s Council of Economic Advisers warns that the increasing cost of health care is not sustainable. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that individual and corporate income taxes would have to rise through 2050 by 90 percent even without “public option,” the new middle-class entitlement. The CEA Report, titled, The Economic Case for Health Care Reform, mentions among its solution: People should get used to less medical care. Betsy McCaughey, long-time critic, argues that a superior way is to reduce government’s share of the costs, which will not be done by ousting the private health-care insurers through the new radical public option. President Obama wants the hea...