The first bullet point of President Obama's health-care proposal, unveiled yesterday, boasts that it "makes insurance more affordable." Underlines aside, the proposal later outlines several onerous taxes that the president seeks to impose on insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and health plans. That won't make health insurance more affordable. That will make it more expensive.

The president's problem is not poor salesmanship, but an inferior product. The American people are frustrated with medical costs spiraling out of control. The president taps into this legitimate concern to mask what is really a welfare bill. The president doesn't care about out-of-control costs. If he did, he wouldn't add to the burdens of consumers by taxing health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and the manufacturers of medical devices, who will pass the burden on to customers. What the president is interested in is socialism: giving free health care to 31 million Americans who don't have health care. He is using the universal concern over rising health-care costs as a Trojan Horse to sneak through a new welfare benefit for a small percentage of mostly low-income Americans who don't currently have health care.

The president could bring costs under control. He could expand coverage to those who don't have it. He can't do both.

President Obama's habit of highlighting through words and bullet points and underlines (I'm surprised he didn't go with ALLCAPS) how his plan contains cost is a tacit admission that he knows the American people want a plan that reins in costs. The fact that he seeks to impose new taxes on health care, provide insurance to more than 30 million people that don't currently have it, and mandate health insurance, which will artificially inflate demand and therefore price, demonstrates the dishonesty in the endeavor. He says one thing. He does the other.

"The President's Proposal increases the revenue from the assessment on this industry [pharmaceutical companies] which is $23 billion in the Senate bill by $10 billion over ten years," the 11-page document, certainly an improvement on the byzantine House and Senate bills, states. The president's proposal assesses health-insurance providers a $67 billion tax. There's a $20 billion excise tax on the manufacturers of medical devices. Quality health-insurance programs, derisively dubbed "Cadillac plans" by class warriors, get taxed, too.

How does all of this gibe with the president's underlined message that his program "makes insurance more affordable." It doesn't.

The president could bring costs under control. He could expand coverage to those who don't have it. He can't do both.

What data are you using to write these laughable sentences? Every other industrialized nation does both, and has significantly lower per capita costs than what your precious "free market" American Illness Treatment Industry provides.

Dan, if the One says it, it must be so.

PMA, I guess we should do lotteries like they do in some cities in Canada to get a personal doc. Or the wait times for things like MRI's and CT scans. Or we could have the multiple screw ups like in Britain. Sure, much better than the US. Government run health care. What a pip.

I agree, B.O is a very slooooow learner. lol hey momma have you seen B.os grades? we havent.

The only thing I can think accounts for it is widespread economic illiteracy.

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