Monday, March 02, 2009

The Real Effect of Talks of Nationalizing Health Care

Am I the only one to scream the king is naked?

While Obama is giving speeches that health care will be a "universal right", or whatever nonsense - he's action is to build some mysterious fund with no action specifics and to "stimulate the economy" by spending money the tax payer does not have to build national electronic health records. Big brother will record your latest cough. We all know what "universal health care" is. It's not that. It's generally the situation where the government runs all hospitals and all doctors are federal employees. Perhaps I missed on the part where the administration said out loud that it is what it intends.

The real and immediate effect of the talks about national health care - are painfully visible in the following two stocks graphs:




These are graphs for MDT - Medtronics, BSX - Boston Sceintific and IHI - Medical devices ETF. BSX and MDT are pace makers and equipment manufacturers.

Since Obama's speech to the congress - all have tanked, while these were the only bright spot in the market since December, the loud talk of socialism in the Health system have caused investors to flee. No longer do they believe the government will treat successful capitalist driven companies fairly.

The real effect is visible. No one is getting free healthcare. We will all pay higher taxes to get less service, and the companies we rely on to extend and improve our lives are being demolished by an irresponsible administration.

Some how, LA-Times managed to create a Q&A for everyone to understand what Obama's plan is - LA-Times must be reading in a crystal ball - because Obama himself knows not what will be done (except for increasing taxes and deepening the deficit).

A national healthcare reform primer
The many issues confronting President Obama as he tries to achieve insurance coverage for all Americans.

Most people with health insurance say they like what they have. They trust their doctors, and they are fearful of any change in their policy.

Many of the 47 million uninsured people in this country don't go to the doctor even if they need to because they figure they can't afford it. They skimp on medications or skip them entirely.

President Obama has said that he and Congress will make both groups happy by cutting costs for those who have coverage and by bringing quality care to those who currently have no insurance.

It's a tremendous challenge. And the goal, if accomplished, will affect every American.

On Thursday, Obama's push to expand healthcare coverage began in earnest, with the announcement of his plan to create a $634-billion fund to do just that. The amount was described as a down payment over 10 years; the final price tag would be even larger, perhaps $2 trillion or more.

The president's strategy is starkly different from the approach by the Clinton administration in 1993, when it corralled hundreds of experts and staff people to produce a detailed plan more than 1,000 pages long. The Clinton effort failed, despite Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. Obama's approach is this: Give me a bunch of money, and we'll figure out the details later how we are going to manage this thing.

Now the wrangling truly begins -- with the administration trying to push its vision through Congress, with Democrats and Republicans trying to shape the effort to their liking and with special interests trying to affect the final outcome, whatever it may be.

The cost of covering the uninsured ultimately will depend on the number of people included, the specific benefits they receive, and the amount of financial help the taxpayers would provide. The only agreement among economists who study the issue is that the tab would be a big one:

* $200 billion to $250 billion a year, says Joe Antos of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

* $150 billion to $175 billion a year, says Len M. Nichols of the liberal New America Foundation.

The debate over this first proposal and related, still-to-come proposals will boil down to a discussion about the powers and size of the federal government. Do we want the government to have the power to make us buy health insurance, as individuals or businesses? How much power should the government have to control costs? How much do we want to spend to provide health insurance to our fellow citizens who don't have it?

Here is a primer on the big issues to watch as the healthcare debate unfolds:
Regardless of what happens, will I be able to keep the insurance I have now?

Continue >>>


Am I the only one who feels like all these moves by the administration are not intended to provide coverage, but to create "social justice"... by demolishing personal wealth in the markets? Surely he and his people knew what these kind of talks would cause to share holders of medical equipment companies? Are top democrats shorting the markets before they speak about health and capitalism?

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