When health care really isn't about health

Want to know what ObamaCare is going to look like? Look no further than its predecessor, RomneyCare in Massachusetts which only 4 years after being signed into law is unraveling at the seams.

Back in April, the Massachusetts insurance commissioner rejected 235 of 274 premium increases that state insurers had submitted for approval as the carriers said these increases were needed to cover unexpected claims, as underlying Mass. health care costs continued to rise annually at an 8% clip (but, didn't they tell us government-managed health care would bend the cost curve downward?)

Now we learn that the state's 5 major insurers have, so far, collectively lost $116 million due to a rate cap imposed upon them by fiat. And no amount of demagoguing the evil insurance industry is going to prevent rates from continuing to climb as long as the imposition of an ever-increasing regulatory regime is calling the shots in the health care industry.

But, they told us that government-managed health care would contain costs?

They may have said that and they may have even believed it but that's not what they are really pursuing. Though ardent ObamaCare supporters will swear up and down that rationing is simply not a component of ObamaCare, the very people who will be administering ObamaCare keep slipping up by exposing their true intentions.

"If you're going to do health-care cost containment, it has to be stealth," said Jon Kingsdale, speaking at a conference sponsored by the New Republic magazine last October. "It has to be unsuspected by any of the key players to actually have an effect." Mr. Kingsdale is the former director of the Massachusetts "connector," the beta version of ObamaCare's insurance "exchanges," and is now widely expected to serve as an ObamaCare regulator.

He went on to explain that universal coverage was "fundamentally a political strategy question"—a way of finding a "significant systematic way of pushing back on the health-care system and saying, 'No, you have to do with less.' And that's the challenge, how to do it. It's like we're waiting for a chain reaction but there's no catalyst, there's nothing to start it."

(italics, ours)

We don't know what Kingsdale would call that but we sure do.

And check out this short video clip (H/T: Left Coast Rebel) on Obama's freshly-minted recess appointment to head up Medicare and Medicaid, Dr. Donald Berwick:



Again, once you declare a particular goods and service a "right" you will be paying through the nose for it.

And how about "holding politicians accountable"? We currently have Congressmen refusing to meet with their constituents at town halls and other public meetings because of the hell they know they are going to catch because of ObamaCare. Is Berwick referring to that kind of accountability?

And then the money quote: "Health care is by definition redistributional". We're thankful for two things right now: These egg-head seminars and Youtube without either of which would we be able to hear people like Berwick lettin'er rip and exposing their true intentions.

By their own words, Berwick and Kingsdale, the very people who will be running ObamaCare, admit that the quality of individual care is not a priority but rather the degree of equality of care. If the degree of individual quality of care suffers and suffers greatly under ObamaCare as a result of rationing or price controls (rationing by proxy), as long as everyone has equal access to the same crappy health care then health care can be declared a success.

Don't believe us. Just take it from Berwick and Kingsdale.