Deja Vu All Over Again With Health Care Reform

Two admittedly left-leaning columnists, a married couple (he a pollster, she a lawyer), have produced a comparison of polling results then and now. "Then" refers to the Hillarycare hubbub in 1993-1994, and "now" refers to the Obamacare hubbub in 2009-?. Results are a bit different than you would expect if you listen to or read what our left-leaning media have to say about health care reform. Surprise, surprise, there was more public support then than now! You can read through the nitty-gritty polling numbers in "A New Day or Groundhog Day," but let me focus on just one of the results to show you why Obama and the Democrats are going to stuff health care reform down our throats whether we like it or not. A poll in 1993 when Hillarycare filled the air found 66 percent agreeing with the statement, "I would be willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone can have health insurance." Just 30 percent were opposed. A poll released March 1 of this year found just 49 percent agreeing and 45 percent disagreeing. But wait--here's where it gets interesting. When those who agreed with the statement in 1993 were asked how much they'd be willing to spend a month so that everyone could have health insurance, just 25 percent said $50, 40 percent said $30, and 61 percent said just $10. The same breakdown isn't available for 2009, but I bet you'd find few people willing to pay $50 more a month in this economy. I'm not even sure you could get a majority to commit to $10 (unless they thought that they would then get health care for free, an extraordinarily popular delusion in this day and age). That in a nutshell is why the Dems are rushing to pass "reform" before anyone can sort through the details (which in any case won't be fully available until the thing is published as law). They know the nation can't afford it and taxes will be flying at everyone (and not just the rich) right and left to try to fund so-called reform (to say nothing of the long lines to see doctors, waiting lists to get hospital treatment, and medicines and procedures banned to save money). Medicare is already on the fast track to go bankrupt in 10 years or less, and somehow our sleight-of-hand artists in D.C. are trying to get us to believe that spending more money actually saves money (in the long run, they add as a disingenuous qualification). Welcome to life in our Brave New World, where deficits result in savings and less health care is better health care.