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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