There are many things to consider when comparing a government agency to a private company. The example that Obama used in the 8/11/09 town hall meeting interesting to say the least. See for yourself...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/08/obama-healthcare-transcript-new-hampshire.html

Now, I recognize, though, you make a legitimate -- you raise a legitimate concern. People say, well, how can a private company compete against the government? And my answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining -- meaning taxpayers aren't subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do -- then I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. (Applause.)

I mean, if you think about -- if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems. (Laughter.)

So right now you've got private insurers who are out there competing effectively, even though a lot of people get their care through Medicare or Medicaid or VA. So there's nothing inevitable about this somehow destroying the private marketplace, as long as -- and this is a legitimate point that you're raising -- that it's not set up where the government is basically being subsidized by the taxpayers, so that even if they're not providing a good deal, we keep on having to pony out more and more money. And I've already said that can't be the way the public option is set up. It has to be self-sustaining. Does that answer your question? OK, thank you. (Applause.) All right, right there. Go ahead.

If UPS, or FedEx is poorly managed there is the possibility that it might have to scale back, or perhaps even go out of business. The USPS is not in any way like the private sector, because decisions within the USPS are NOT based on market demand. The USPS has lost more than 7 billion dollars this year. The U.S. taxpayers are going to subsidize the U.S. Postal service again this year. Why should we believe that the health care option is going to be any different. Obama says at the town hall meeting, "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems." Obama at that point is trying to soften the effect that the government health care option will have on the private market. At the same time he is inadvertently pointing out the government's inability to operate the postal service.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124948194775607851.html

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Postal Service Wednesday posted a net loss of $2.4 billion for its third quarter and said it expects to lose more than $7 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

The rising tide of red ink could leave the Postal Service with a potential cash shortfall of as much as $700 million by its fiscal-year end on Sept. 30, when it must pay as much as $5.8 billion to prefund retiree health benefits. Postal Service officials hope Congress will pass legislation that would provide temporary relief, including an increased ability to borrow from the U.S. Treasury Department and changes in retiree-health-benefit payments before the bill comes due.

I wonder how long it will be before the government health care option would be the subject of stories like these. The postal service does not price its services based on market demand, so it can not accurately adjust and accommodate for changes in the economy. And because the USPS is a government entity, it can't fail, Congress will prop it up, so it can do it all again the same way. Remember the CARS program and "Cash For Clunkers", estimated to cost only 1 billion, then it requires another 2 billion.

This is one interesting fact. The USPS has been involved in anti-trust law suits. Companies have attempted to file suit against the USPS for unfair trading practices.

When the government health insurance option competes with private companies it will do so on a level playing field right?

Supporting the status of the USPS as a government corporation, in 2004 the U.S. Supreme Court held that the U.S. Postal Service cannot be sued under antitrust laws, because US anti-trust law (the Sherman Antitrust Act, for example), does not allow the federal government - of which the USPS is part - to be sued.

Obviously this will be true of the public health care option.

In the proposed health care bill, the government will require all private insurance providers to offer plans which meet a specific government standard, yet to be determined. Remember the USPS, UPS, and FedEx? The U.S. Postal Service does not directly regulate its competitors. Not a good comparison if you ask me.

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2003...

2008...

2009...

The answer is NONE OF THE ABOVE!

There is one thing in common about all of these videos. Obama does not speak and create law. People have forgotten that Obama has gone back on most of what he has promised. The important thing to remember is that Obama didn't write the bill that is in congress right now.

Obama can say whatever he wants; THE TEXT OF THE BILL IS WHAT MATTERS. The bill advocates the transition to a completely government run single payer system.

Here is link to the bill: http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3200:

To see the PDF version, with page numbers, just click, "GPO's PDF Display" on the Thomas.gov website. Just follow the link above.

Tell me what you think...

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124969539333116231.html

Democrats have accused Republicans of manufacturing the opposition by organizing groups to attend the events and encouraging disruptive behavior. Republican organizers say the unrest reflects genuine anger about the proposed health-care changes.

"Democrats may think that attacking or ignoring this growing chorus of Americans is a smart strategy, but they are obviously forgetting that these concerned citizens are voters as well," said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP's campaign arm.

Rick Scott, who leads Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a group that has helped publicize the local meetings, said: "The polls reveal the real picture of what is happening across the country -- people are genuinely concerned, some are genuinely angry, and they are expressing themselves."

The truth is that democrats never had control of the health care debate to begin with. They only had a glimmer of control, so long as the general public remained uninformed.

Take a look at how the supporters of Health Care Reform are acting against those in opposition to the bill. When SEIU members show up at town hall meetings and ruff people up, you know that something is wrong.

Just take a look at the splash screen from the SEIU website...

http://www.seiu.org/splash/

Of course this group has nothing to do with the democrat party, they just borrow their slogans...

http://www.seiu.org/2009/08/change-that-works-spreads-the-message-for-urgent-healthcare-reform.php

SEIU members and activists continue to stand tall to ensure healthcare reform happens this year. As members of the U.S. House and Senate turn their sights from committee hearings and floor votes to barbecues and luncheons back home, SEIU's Change That Works team is planning hundreds of events to ensure elected leaders don't forget the promises they made on the campaign trail. From Iowa to Indianapolis, from an ambulance tour across Montana, to bake sales in North Dakota--our elected leaders will hear from working families that need affordable, quality healthcare this year and the Employee Free Choice Act.

What is the obsession with health care reform "this year". I think that the left has realized that their time is limited. If they don't get something passed this year it might not get passed at all.

Anyone should question legislation that "must" be passed this year. If it were actually good for the American people wouldn't it be easy to pass at any time? The tactics used to push this awful bill are starting to unravel.

You will notice that in the coming days supports of the Health Care Bill are going to refer to the measure as "Health Insurance Reform". Polls have shown that most Americans are happy with their Health Care, so they are going to try and change the name of the plan! Now supporters of the bill are going to attack health insurance companies.

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Video from Youtube...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/07/health-care-town-hall-turns-violent-tampa/

Town hall meetings called to discuss proposed health care legislation turned violent Thursday, with a meeting in Tampa, Fla., descending into shouting and one in St. Louis ending in arrests.

A freelance videographer was roughed up in an altercation, which damaged his camera equipment and glasses, and at least one man was treated for minor injuries after a scuffle left his shirt partially torn from his body.

"That's the most violent anyone has been towards me," Mark Bishop told WTSP-TV. "It was surprising, to say the least."

These people do not seem violent to me. One of the protesters is knocking on the door with a cane!

This is what you get when supporters of the health care bill are confronted with the truth. At town hall meetings all across the country protesters are meeting and asking questions BASED ON THE TEXT OF THE BILL ITSELF. The speakers at these meeting do not know what to do. When confronted with the truth, they cower and typically leave the stage. In this instance they closed the doors to the meeting hall, hurting some people in the process. People were shoved out, or in so that they could close the doors.

It is clear by anyone who examines the bill that what is being said at these town hall meetings is NOT congruent with the text of the bill. People are tired of being lied to, and want these people to answer for what they are saying. There can only be two possible scenarios, either the speakers at these meetings have no idea what is actually in the bill, or they are lying and have no conviction about it.

It is clear that the democrats have determined who they are really scared of. The democrat party is scared of common citizens armed with the truth. It is true that the more people know about this bill, the less they like it, and the more the polls reflect disapproval of the bill.

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The Fatal Flaw of Obamacare, Democrats claim their plans will save money, but they have too many conflicting goals

I had a link to this article, but the link was removed, however I found that if you still have the original link path, you can get to it by searching the article identifier at the end. "0,9171,1914973,00"

I decided to quote the entire article, as it might not be available on Time Magazine's website much longer.

There are two basic points about health care reform that President Obama wants to convey. The first is that, as he put it in an ABC special in June, "the status quo is untenable." Our health care system is rife with "skewed incentives." It gives us "a whole bunch of care" that "may not be making us healthier." It generates too many specialists and not enough primary-care physicians. It is "bankrupting families," "bankrupting businesses" and "bankrupting our government at the state and federal level. So we know things are going to have to change."

Obama's second major point is that — to quote from the same broadcast — "if you are happy with your plan and you are happy with your doctor, then we don't want you to have to change ... So what we're saying is, If you are happy with your plan and your doctor, you stick with it."

So the system is an unsustainable disaster, but you can keep your piece of it if you want. And the Democrats wonder why selling health care reform to the public has been so hard?

Again and again, their effort has brought us into a land of paradoxes. Public skepticism is warranted when the President promises to cut costs while simultaneously providing coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured people. It is even more warranted when his congressional allies seek to raise taxes to pay for all the new spending that this cost-cutting entails. We aren't talking about short-term spending either; this isn't a trillion-dollar investment in a new system that will ultimately save money. The Congressional Budget Office says the leading health care reform proposals will increase health care spending and make the budget harder to balance in the long run. Yet saving money is the President's principal stated rationale for reform.

Health care reformers send out mixed messages on the uninsured as well. The moral imperative of improving their health care is what drives the passion of most liberal activists for reform. But when you read the liberal policy analysts, it quickly becomes clear that getting young and healthy people to pay more in premiums than they will spend on medical expenses is the point of forcing them to buy insurance. Which is it? In aggregate, are we trying to rescue the uninsured or bilk them? Is reform something we are doing for them or to them?

The reformers' speed belies their words as well. If health care reform is so critically important, as they keep insisting, why not take the time to get it right? Hard as it is to believe, at one point Obama was urging the House and Senate to pass legislation by three weeks after they began debating it.

One final contradiction may lie beneath all the others. Democrats, particularly those involved in health policy, were scarred by President Clinton's failure to achieve reform in 1994. They are determined to avoid a similar debacle. So on every procedural question, they have done the reverse of what he did.

Everything is different this time — everything, that is, except the plan. The Democrats are seeking mostly the same policies they sought 15 years ago: mandates, regulations on insurance companies, new government-managed markets. The major difference is that this time they also want a "public option," an insurance program open to everyone and run by the government. Obamacare is Clintoncare with a little more liberalism.

The Democrats have apparently concluded that it was tactical blunders that sank Clinton. It wasn't. It was his plan. Like today's plans, it had too many conflicting goals.

Stanley Greenberg, who was polling for Clinton back then, recently reminded Democrats that the insured public in the early '90s just could not be persuaded that the President was going to cut its costs by expanding coverage for others. No amount of clever strategizing is going to make the sales job easier this time. Instead, the President is in a series of double binds. The more he emphasizes how much has to change, for example, the more people are going to doubt his pledge that they can keep their doctor.

Congress may yet pass the health legislation Obama wants. If it does, that success will reflect the Democrats' numbers in Congress and their determination, not public enthusiasm. This time there is no barrage of Harry and Louise ads to blame. It is health care reform's own contradictions that are causing it to sink.

I contend that the mere fact that Obamacare needs to be "sold to the American people" is proof that it's unneeded. Remember, Obama keeps going on about a public outcry for healthcare reform. If there is a public outcry for healthcare reform, there would be little need to "sell" their plan to the American people.

What "sell" means in this context is -- convince the American public to believe a lie. They can't do the things they are claiming to do, and the more they try to convince people that they can, the more irrational they seem.

It's simple. Healthcare is not the goal of Obamacare, government control of the healthcare system is the goal of Obamacare. And every argument they make otherwise only serves to illustrate this point.

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