As the anger directed towards Obama Care and the Democrats increases the message changes or morphs in an attempt to see what resonates with the American public.   We now hear less about "healthcare reform" and more about "health care cost savings", "insurance reform" and providing "competition".  Below are 2 presidential quotes, one from last month, and one from last week with counter points. 

President Obama: "I am pleased by the progress we're making on health care reform and still believe, as I've said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest,"

Cost: In fact it is private insurance that currently helps makes up the cost difference between the care provided to medicare/medicaide patients and what the government pays out. To remain in business private hospitals will have to either stop accepting medicare/medicaide or raise the costs for patients not subject to the "public option".  There is no cost savings there.

Competition: The private insurance market is already a healthy competitive market with about 1300 companies competing for health care dollars.  Their largest competitor in the market is already the currently available "public option" (medicare/medicaide). The government controls more than 1/2 of the total insurance health care dollars spent in this country today with insurance companies competing for whats left.  Creating a monopoly in a market has never promoted competition.

Honesty: The current "public option" (medicare/medicaide) is riddled with fraud and abuse. South Florida alone had 2.5 BILLION dollars in fraudulent claims over the last few years.  The administrators of the current "public option"have been unable to stem the rampant abuse of their own system, no one should expect them to do any better if the system doubles in size.

President Obama:  "People say, 'How can a private company compete against the government?'" the president said. "And my answer is that . . . if the public option has to be self-sustaining, meaning taxpayers aren't subsidizing it . . . then I think private insurers should be able to compete."

Here are but 3 examples of why any "public option" is an unfair competitor in the market place.

1. The public option is transportable across state lines by fiat.  Many people's health insurance can't be kept if they move from one state to another by statute.

2. The government has the ability to require providers to accept the public option by law.  Private insurers have no such ability.

3. The government has the baddest collection agency in the US - the IRS.  Public companies have no such ability.

The modified message isn't working any better than the old one. The counter points to the Presidential message ring true and are common sense while the message itself sounds like a false promise by a used care salesman.

The American people aren't buying what he's selling.