Good bye, NHS-style Health Care? Not so fast...

From the Times of London, "Barack Obama admits health Bill might not include NHS-style system"

Buckling under the weight of popular fury, the Obama Administration seemed ready yesterday to ditch one of the central planks of its controversial health reforms — the creation of an insurance scheme funded by taxpayers.

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Whoa! How did the writer jump from "the creation of an insurance scheme funded by taxpayers" to the idea of a NHS-style system?

Probably the same way we Americans did. It's a logical outgrowth of Nationalized Health Insurance. First the Obamites will offer to insure all Americans with our tax dollars until they drive out all private insurers. Then, as insurers, they will insist that the insured join HMOs or PPOs because those schemes cost less. (Which is pretty much why Kaiser Permanente is a major backer of Obamacare.) With the usual inefficiency and fraud that all government programs entail, soon the government will employ the doctors and nurses as well. (To save tax dollars, of course.)

A National HMO or PPO will be indistinguishable from the British NHS. With one great advantage -- for politicians:

All those healthcare workers will be unionized. And they'll vote in every national election to save their jobs.

The British journalist notes that 80% of Americans are privately insured and another 46 million receive Medicare. So why doesn't the government insure just those who can't pay for or won't pay for insurance?

One reason is that a national health insurance scheme would allow Democrats to shift health care costs for millions of illegal aliens to the U.S. taxpayer to provide the same coverage that states like California provides to illegals in that state. Only since they have been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy have some California counties decided to cut non-emergency health care for illegals.

A nearly-bankrupt California is desperately trying to get out from under that burden. Which is why in 2007, the governor proposed his Broken Health Care System Reform.

The reason?

"Every single person living in California has access to care—the 6.5 million uninsured simply get theirs in our emergency rooms, the single most expensive place to see a doctor. Last year, 27 hospitals in San Diego County reported losing $620 million in uncompensated care. At Scripps Mercy, the uncompensated care total was almost $50 million."

Who pays for it? Not only the California taxpayer, but every person who is already insured.

California’s broken health care system hurts the 20 million Californians who buy insurance or get coverage through their jobs. Billions of dollars in unpaid medical bills are passed on to insured Californians. Higher deductibles, higher premiums and higher co-pays are the result. When health care providers shift costs, those with insurance pay. Why? Providers set prices for the insured that are higher than their costs. In short, the insured pick up the difference.

Of course we do.

And we would continue to do so under The Broken Health Care proposals in California as one group after another was exempt from the requirement to have insurance or else they would have insurance subsidized. Or their benefits expanded. That is the model for Nationalized Health Insurance.

With Nationalized Health Insurance, American taxpayers will also pick up the cost of insuring college students because they will be exempt from paying for health insurance in the Nationalized Health Insurance plan. Why? They're a key Democrat party constituent they cannot afford to antagonize.

California is the LAST, the very LAST, model for reform of any kind. But that's the kind of "reform" Obamacare would be.