What I don't like about the Obama plan

I listened carefully last night to President Obama's speech on health care reform. What I had hoped to hear, I didn't, and instead, I found myself deeply disappointed in his health care overhaul proposal. If you ask me, it seems as if it's too much of a giveaway to the insurance companies and doesn't do enough or go far enough to help people who are already insured to cope with high deductibles and co-pays. It doesn't do enough to rein in the high cost of health care. It doesn't do enough, period. Instead, Obama seemed to timid to really attack the real causes of the rising cost of health care, and that is insurance companies out to make profits for their shareholders at the expense of the health of the American people. It doesn't seem right that you need insurance just to go to an ordinary garden variety doctor office visit, which, without insurance, can cost up to $200. I remember when you didn't need insurance to visit a doctor or to have a routine test, but now, if you don't have insurance, it can nearly bankrupt you to see a doctor, and even if you have insurance, it can also bankrupt you because insurance pays for less and less these days. So giving insurance companies more customers to prey on instead of fixing the real problems, Obama failed, in my book, to really offer any real tangible solutions to the health care crisis. He's trying so hard to make nice with Republicans who are doing their level best to destroy him and I just want to yell at him and say, "Forget the Republicans! They won't make nice with you now and never will, so forget 'em! Be bold and forge ahead with the Democratic agenda, already!" But alas, he's determined to brook with obstructionist and naysaying Angry White Men who want nothing more than to return to power by doing everything in their power to destroy Obama.

So here is my list of what I don't like about the Obama plan:
1. It makes health insurance mandatory, a la the Massachusetts plan, which hasn't done anything to bring down health care costs, and if anything, has caused them to go up.
2. Obama offered the public option during his speech, then snatched it back in the face of Republican "boo's" by saying that he could live with and sign a bill without it. And anyway, he indicated that the public option would not be available to anyone currently insured, and that only about 4% of the population would actually be eligible for it under his plan, so it sounds like a very watered down plan to me. So what good would it do to even offer a public plan if only a handful of people are eligible for it? Sounds to me like Obama would much prefer to push people into private insurance plans, a nice hefty big early Christmas present for insurance companies and their shareholders.
3. A tax would be levied on employer health insurance plans, which will motivate more businesses to drop their health insurance for their employees, thus adding to the uninsured instead of lowering their number.
4. Small businesses would be exempt from having to offer health insurance, so if health benefits are taxable, small businesses that have insurance would drop it and those that don't, won't, adding still more to the uninsured. And let's face it, the majority of jobs created in this country are by small businesses, so you're talking a lot of people likely to be left uninsured by this plan.

So I ask you, how is any of this going to help overhaul our broken health care system? As far as I can tell, it won't, and if anything, it's going to add to our already burgeoning problems. There's got to be a better way to fix things, but what Obama had to say last night is not the answer. He's promoting ideas he opposed during his campaign, giving Republicans ample ammunition to once again paint Democrats as "flip-floppers" like they did with Kerry. I'm afraid that Obama has already sealed his doom as a one term President, as right wingers are gaining more power by inflaming the health care debate with wild rumors and screeching and braying screeds filling the airwaves with all kinds of anti-Obama, anti-health care reform rhetoric. The trouble is that people listen to them and believe them because they are the loudest voices in the room and get the most media coverage. So I see this entire health care reform attempt going down in flames, just as it has year after year, decade after decade, President after President. Sadly, it's just gotten too out of hand and too big to reform without rendering serious damage to our already fragile economy. It's going to take a miracle to fix what has been broken for far too long now.