Say Hello to IMAC, Kiss Your Healthcare Freedom Goodbye!

Obama has a brilliant new idea: IMAC.

Not the computer — this is another kind of IMAC. What, pray tell, is Obama's IMAC? We'll get to that in just a bit. First, let's set the stage.

ObamaCare 1.0 is on life support. The "public option" is probably dead. Health care reform has given way to health insurance reform. So the immediate goal is more modest. Instead of a plan to kill private healthcare with one fell swoop, Dems might have to settle for a strategy to kill the industry in stages, a death by a thousand paper cuts.

Regulation. Bureaucracy. Mandates.

Libs would like nothing more than to bring about the death of the private health insurance industry, the very heart and soul of private health care. Princess Pelosi informs us that health insurers are immoral and villainous. The democrat propaganda machines tell us that private insurance companies are populated by heartless bureaucrats who are eager to take your money, but who ration care ruthlessly and spend countless hours looking for cruel reasons to deny benefits. Grassroots Dems are irate: "The industry cares about numbers, profits, not people!" Supposedly free to do whatever they please, insurance providers "take our money and run."

"We can't trust the private sector to provide our healthcare needs, so we must put the government to work for us," say libs. One ObamaCare supporter put it like this: "We elect our government, not our insurance providers. Which do we control?"

Very good question. Why don't we answer that question with another question: "There are 1,300 health insurance providers in the US, but only one Federal Government. Who has more power, more potential to make your life miserable?"

Enter stage left — IMAC.

Here's a good introduction to IMAC, straight from Obama's very own propaganda machine: "[O]ne of the most potent reforms is a change in the process of health care policymaking: empowering an independent, non-partisan body of doctors and other health experts to make recommendation about Medicare payment rates and other reforms."

[snip]

"The Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC) would be an independent, non-partisan body of doctors and other health experts, appointed by the President..."

[emphasis mine]

Did they mention the fact that it was independent?

Actually, this hideous idea is not new. It's essentially a mirror image of Tom Daschle's anti-democratic idea for a Federal Health Board. Tony Blankley explains:

Daschle recommends passing a vague bill and then "a Federal Health Board should be charged with establishing the system's framework and filling in most of the details. This independent board would be insulated from political pressure."

By "political pressure," he means the democratic process of electing fellow citizens to Congress who then pass legislation about which the public is informed before final passage — and about which they may wish to petition their government for redress of grievances. Apparently, we can end petty bickering and partisanship by not letting anyone know what the new laws will contain.

[emphasis mine]

New rallying cry: "Power FROM the people!"

Unfortunately, many Liberals sincerely believe that the Federal Government actually intends empower them. They are oblivious to the power grab.

Admittedly, the health care system needs some serious reforms. Health care should be portable. We need a national market for health insurance. Health care savings should be incentivized. And healthy living should be rewarded with lower insurance premiums. But Obama and his democrat friends have voted against these reforms in favor of the politics of 'delay and defeat.' Rather than giving you health care freedom, the kleptocrats would prefer to give you IMAC.

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We Are Winning

Jim DeMint is leading the fight against ObamaCare, and he is doing quite a good job. As he noted on Twitter, "Reid and Pelosi have delayed a vote on a government takeover of health care until September; your voices are being heard." He goes on: "[The] American people are winning the healthcare debate, let's use August to fight for true reform, not a takeover."

On his website, DeMint continues. "Americans can win this debate but they are going to have to continue speaking out. They know the promises the President has made do not match up with the policies he is pushing. Over the August break, [voters] need to connect with their Congressmen and Senators and let know that Washington shouldn’t make their families’ health care decisions."

Along those lines, Alex Castellanos provides some excellent talking points for August:

Us vs. Them

• They want a Washington-centered plan.
• We support patient-centered reforms.

• They want a big Washington Experiment with our health.
• We want common-sense fixes that will yield real results.

• They want to start building a closed health care system in which government tells you which doctors you can see and limits the treatments and cures your doctor can order.
• The patient-centered health care movement supports an open health-care system in which patients and doctors make those decisions.

• They want a top-down system where distant and uncaring bureaucrats end up deciding who gets what.
• We want a bottom-up, patient-centered system where control remains with you and your doc.

• They want politically driven cost control from Washington.
• We want to get politics out of health care, not to put more politics in. We want common sense fixes, not politically driven experiments.

• They want to empower a big Washington-run monopoly to control your health care.
• We say big monopolies are bad no matter who runs them, whether it is big government or big businesses.

What ObamaCare will bring:

• ObamaCare plan will put government in charge.
• Obama's plan will cut hundreds of millions of dollars from seniors on Medicare.
• Obama will further bankrupt the country with trillions more in deficit spending.
• Obama's plan will raise a lot of taxes on middle class families and businesses. Taxing insurance, taxing sodas, even taxing health care benefits.
• Obama's plan will tempt your employer to dump you into a cheaper, government-run health care program.

In a nutshell, getting government more involved is not going to reduce costs. It will extend wait times, limit what you can get, cost you coverage; raise your taxes and the deficit.

This risky experiment is not something leaders on either side should rush through Congress in a few days or weeks. Even voters who support a "public plan" think Obama and Congress are moving too fast, with reckless speed, risking a huge part of our economy and our health care, when they don't know what the "reform" would really bring.

Slow Down, Obama, and read the bill!

Real Reform

• We want to change the law so you can take your health insurance with you if you have to change jobs.

• We want to cut out the "Washington health care middle-man," reducing expensive bureaucracy to produce big health care savings.

• Every American should have equal opportunity to get the best value and buy the cheapest insurance no matter where he lives or who he works for. We want to change the law so any American can buy the lowest cost insurance available nationwide, not just in their home states — whether from insurance companies, businesses, church groups, college alumni associations, or groups like the AARP, who often provide it less expensively.

• We believe doctors should be protected from frivolous, expensive lawsuits so they can work together with other doctors and patients in their communities to reduce unnecessary and expensive tests and procedures.

• We believe in bottom-up health care savings: every American should get a tax deduction for their health insurance premiums.

• Where possible we should duplicate Safeway's plan, which gives employees a stake in holding down health care costs. Instead of cutting care or shifting costs to employees, Safeway has held health care costs flat, while it's up 40% for the rest of corporate America.

• Congress should be required to play by the same rules as everyone else, and we should eliminate lifetime health care benefits and insurance for Congressmen who leave their jobs.

More

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Take Two Aspirin And Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4.

Virgo: You will suffer from a sinus infection, but your doc will insist on removing your tonsils.

Finally...

Congratulations to just a conservative girl on the success of her e-mail tsunami as noted by Politico!