ObamaCare: Yes or No?

Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis
by Senator Tom Daschle

A review and commentary


The quote on the top of the front cover made the contents seem promising—at least at first:

“Sen. Daschle brings fresh thinking to this problem.”

So said then Senator Barack Obama regarding the author’s proposed solution to the so-called “healthcare crisis.”

When one thinks about it, this book published in 2007 is the very prescription for what would later be called ObamaCare. The format and structure of what Daschle put forth was essentially adopted by Senator Max Baucus and later formulated in the latter’s now infamous “Chairman’s Mark.”

In reading what is obviously a prescreening for ObamaCare, you will now see why a President Obama wanted to tap Daschle as his Health and Human Services Secretary. But since tax problems plagued the beleaguered former senate minority leader, Obama had to be satisfied with the plan instead of the man.

Daschle’s narrative takes us on a long journey from the very dawn of the Progressive Era and what it wished to accomplish: namely, to create programs not based on the Constitution as written or the citizen’s right of free choice, but based on government mandate.

This requirement for compulsory membership in some form of government-run healthcare had eluded Progressives since the inception of the era. To champion their cause, they’ve laid blame on every opponent and obstacle like the so-called special interests for the failures of their faulty or unconstitutional legislation. Moreover, Daschle tries to make excuses for both the Truman and Clinton administrations for their failures rather than address the true reason why “universal” healthcare habitually failed: That legislating the mandatory purchase of a good or service and punishing non-compliance through the tax code would not stand constitutional scrutiny.

But Daschle also contradicts the special interest blame game and demonstrates that as long as those special interests are on the side of government-run healthcare reform, it’s ok to have organized support!

“In February of 2007, the Center for American Progress helped form a coalition dedicated to achieving comprehensive health reform by 2012. Its leading members are Wal-Mart and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).”

“In June 2007, the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs whose companies employ more than 10 million people, partnered with AARP and SEIU to form Divided We Fail. It, too, embraces affordable coverage for all.”

The crux of the problem for actually getting ‘mandatory’ health care has always been constitutionality! You cannot force a private individual to purchase a private product or service. This had been the obstacle that President Truman later lamented when referring to his championing of healthcare reform.

“‘I have had some bitter disappointments as president, but the one that troubled me most, in a personal way, has been the failure to defeat the organized opposition to a national compulsory [emphasis added] health insurance plan.’ Truman wrote in his memoirs.”

Daschle describes the ultimate goal of universal health care; that everyone would be covered. To do so, would require reframing the argument and redefining healthcare as a right somehow granted by the Constitution.

In one of the rare instances a Democrat has echoed the voice of a founding father, Daschle tried—unsuccessfully—to attach a founders’ sympathy to the Liberal orthodoxy regarding government-run universal healthcare.

“Ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable, efficient, high-quality health care is absolutely essential to our country’s well-being. As Thomas Jefferson put it, ‘Without health, there is no happiness.’”

Sorry, Tom (Daschle), but Tom (Jefferson) was not referring to an excuse to nationalize healthcare but was making a straight-forward observation about health and happiness. If healthcare was deemed a right in the eyes of our framers, why didn’t the right to ‘affordable healthcare’ make it in the Bill of Rights?

The author states, “Some people warn that covering everybody will lead to waiting lists and health-care ‘rationing.’ But the United States has its own type of rationing—rationing based on income, insurance status, and illness.”

In last year’s town hall, I challenged Congressman Castle’s panel of experts on this very subject. The charge: that the insurance companies ‘ration’ what they choose to cover based on “income, insurance status, and illness.” So, I asked the panel, “What’s the difference between an insurance company middle-man and the government bureaucratic middle-man? The only thing that this bill changes is who the gate-keeper is going to be, right?” They sat there, agape… with no answer!

Another familiar approach used by Senator Daschle was to accentuate the exception and not the rule. Despite the fact over 80 percent of covered Americans are happy with their healthcare and coverage, he paraded the horror stories of no less than 10 real Americans with very individual issues regarding their problems with the healthcare industry from coverage to the delivery. We saw this very same shameful tactic exploited during the so-called “healthcare summit.” Nancy Pelosi’s speech at the summit dictated the tenor of these letters as requiring no more debate! In her words, “we don’t have time to start over.”

Both Daschle and the summit concluded that, “Individual Americans also will have new obligations in a reformed health-care system. The only way we can achieve universal coverage is to require everybody to either purchase private insurance or enroll in a public program.”

The fatal flaw admitted by Daschle was the theory of universal healthcare would bear little similarity to the reality that some people will most certainly “fall through the cracks.” If not all are covered, then how can they say they reformed healthcare?

“Even if we achieve ‘universal’ [emphasis added] coverage, there will be some percentage of people who still fall through the cracks.”

And what about those unfortunates whose stories were highlighted by Daschle and the summit? Let’s just say for the sake of argument that there were 1,000 such stories and letters from which politicians highlighted in the course of the healthcare debate… And exactly how many of those people highlighted had their healthcare issue miraculously transformed as a result of ObamaCare? Wouldn’t the number of stories equate to the number of those who actually “fall through the cracks?”

If the press would just follow up on ANY of the individuals whose story Daschle highlighted; Donna and Larry Smith, Vicki H. Readling, Gordon and Sherry Louise Pinkly, Paul Shipman, Quinton and Jeanette White, Dee Dee Dodd, Roxianna McCutcheon, or Trent MacNamara, they might find that each one of them are still waiting for relief ObamaCare promised! But once the details of ObamaCare are implemented, and they find the new law cost-prohibitive, they may wish to be excluded from ObamaCare entirely!

Ah, but didn’t 222 small businesses, UNIONS (like the AFL-CIO and SEIU who helped ram ObamaCare Down our throats), and others just receive a get-out-of-ObamaCare free card?

And how about AARP, who just told their members they will have to pay an 8 to 13 percent increase on their premiums as a result of ObamaCare! Wait a minute: Wasn’t the idea of healthcare reform to LOWER costs? Hmmm… So much for the universal nature of that government mandate for compulsory membership in ObamaCare!

Here’s your chance to do some genuine investigative reporting, you so-called members of the Fourth Estate: Track down these people and ask them if ObamaCare has corrected their perceived wrongs regarding their healthcare situation. Especially since the title of the new law is, “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” If you bothered to do your job, you’d realize this law doesn’t protect the patient nor will it provide affordable care. Please remind me again why this was passed?

There is a simple reason why they haven’t been helped by this law: The law never addressed the delivery system itself outside the creation of “panels” of government-sponsored bureaucracy. It failed to consistently address “how” affordability shall be maintained when 100 percent of Americans (and illegals, since the number of uninsured Daschle put forth was 47 million—now corrected to 30 million) must have coverage. However, he does say that doctors and patients alike are, themselves, responsible for the high cost of healthcare, thus:

“Doctors, bound by the Hippocratic Oath, had no reason to know or care about the cost of what they ordered. Hospitals were happy to earn as much money as possible by performing every test and procedure imaginable. Patients with insurance didn’t pay much attention either, since they weren’t paying the bills, and their main concern was getting well. State taxes on insurance premiums and state rules mandating that all policies include certain services also affected the cost of coverage.”

And Daschle’s so-called fix? The creation of another Governmental department: the Federal Health Board.

As Daschle explains, “The Federal Health Board would be a quasi-governmental organization. It would have a board of governors consisting of clinicians, health benefit managers, economists, researchers, and other respected experts. Governors would be chosen based on their stature, knowledge, and experience, ensuring that the decisions they make have credibility across the health-care spectrum. The president would appoint them to Senate-confirmed, ten-year terms.”

“The Federal Health Board also would have regional boards that would have a say in national decisions, but would focus primarily on promoting best practices and quality of care locally. While the national board would be comprised of experts, the regional boards would include community and business representatives with no conflicts of interest. They would concentrate on fulfilling national priorities, and identifying the best local practices and propagating them.”

“The [Federal Health] Board and its staff would have unparalleled resources, and would produce work that would become part of the public domain.”

“Congress will have the final say on the Board’s powers, but I envision it performing several crucial functions….it would set the rules for the expanded FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan), placing conditions on the private insurers wanting to participate.”

“…the Federal Health Board would promote ‘high-value’ medical care by recommending coverage of those drugs and procedures backed by solid evidence. It would exert influence by ranking services and therapies by their health can cost impacts.”

“We won’t be able to make a significant dent in health-care spending without getting into the nitty-gritty of which treatments are the most clinically valuable and cost effective. That means taking a harder look at the real costs and benefits of new drugs and procedures.”

“The Federal Health Board wouldn’t be a regulatory agency, but its recommendations would have teeth because all federal health programs would have to abide by them…Congress could opt to go further with the Board’s recommendations. It could for example, link the tax exclusion for health insurance to insurance that complies with the Board’s recommendations.”

Whoa, stop the presses! The Board’s recommendations? (Can you say Death Panels?) “Link to tax exclusion?” (Can you say Gestapo spank via the IRS?)

If anyone dares do a word-search on ObamaCare, you’ll notice how many times “affordable care” is mentioned outside the restatement of the title of the act: JUST 2 times!

And if you word search the Internal Revenue Code, you’ll notice it’s mentioned a whopping 197 times! The word tax, 582 times! Penalty is mentioned 132 times! Now please tell me where the emphasis is placed in this law, the doctor/patient relationship or the tax code?

To counter those against government intrusion into our life’s decisions, Daschle concludes, “Like the Federal Reserve, (the Federal Health Board) could evolve into an institution worthy of trust, a body of experts judged to be immune from political machination…I’m sure the same question was posed when President Roosevelt and Congress created the Federal Reserve nearly a century ago. Today, it’s absurd to imagine Congress debating interest rates. Creating a new entity to fulfill that function made sense in 1913; doing the same thing for health care makes sense now.”

This reader’s final diagnosis is this: Full-blown ObamaCare has proven to be nothing shy of Daschle’s proposal on steroids. And the last time I checked, the use of steroids outside their prescribed dosing instructions is ILLEGAL!


Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 188-9.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 189.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. xii.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 41.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 24.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 166.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 164.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 68.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 170.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 170.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 171.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 171.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 171-2.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 172.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 179.
Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger & Jeanne M. Lambrew, Critical, (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 201-2.