ObamaCare, a cruel hoax

To the Editor:

Late in the evening of Sunday, March 21, in a narrow and partisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a monumental and outrageous piece of sausage making that is both diabolical and disingenuous. The health care bill is a cruel hoax on the public who supports and an affront to the majority of Americans who oppose.

Aside from the deliberate lies about no changes to your favorite health care provider and coverage, any plan that claims to be financially neutral with 10 years of taxes and six years of benefits is unethical and repugnant.

And what about these shenanigans? To keep the COB estimates below $1 trillion, the health care bill cuts Medicare by $500 billion, a cut that would be folly for legislators to make. Then there is the Dr. Fix of $250 billion that is not even on the balance sheet.

Consider also the 17,000 new IRS agents to enforce the mandates that individuals either buy insurance or pay a fine. The added cost is a mere $21 billion, but who's counting?

Notably absent in the health care bill are real cost containment reforms. The serious alternatives offered by Republicans for genuine health care reform were rejected out of hand.

The American public witnessed on March 21 the first step to a public option followed by the governments of Canada and the UK through mandated programs.

Scary is that even if the 2010 Congressional elections prove to be carnage for Democrats, there is still a far leftist in the White House. Nothing can change until Obama breaks his veto pen or is voted out of office in 2012. Even then entitlements are nearly impossible to remove.

Americans should care that their Constitutional Republic is being destroyed, to be replaced by greatly expanded government power and control that will fundamentally change this nation and result in crippling and unsustainable debt for future generations of Americans.

Nancy Thorner
Lake Bluff, Ill.