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From The Mailbag

In treaties dating back to 1787, the US government assumed the
responsibility of providing "government" healthcare for the
American Indian. it has only been for about the last 100 years
that it actually endeavored to provide healthcare through the
Public Health Administration. That healthcare, according to
Obama Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been a "historic
failure." But now, she said, they want to fix it.

Since the Obama Administration is telling us we can't compare Obamacare with the failed healthcare systems of the 28 nations in the world that adopted the public option and banned private healthcare for everyone except the politicians and the elitist rich who travel with physicians in tow, sooner or later, you're going to find yourself asking the question: "What would government healthcare be like in the United States?"

Don't expect a politician to give you an honest answer to that question. Ask a Native American. After all, they're the only Americans who've been living within generational socialized medicine for the last century. That's probably why Native Americans have the poorest health statistics in the nation.

That fact has not been lost on DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who appears to be the only Obama official smart enough to realize that it wouldn't be long before someone in the media would start asking Native Americans what they think of socialized medicine.

On June 9, Sebelius told Mary Clare Jalonick of the Associated Press that she intended to challenge Congress to launch a new multiyear effort to improve healthcare for American Indians, telling the AP that government healthcare for Indians has been a "historic failure." No one seemed to notice the article, or its ramifications, until the rationing of healthcare benefits to the elderly under Obamacare reared its ugly head and, suddenly, everyone was paying attention to Obamacare. On June 16, the news media woke up to Sebelius' remarks of the 9th. The Associated Press pulled their story from the Internet. But not before it gained perpetual life in cyberspace.

In Sept., 2004 the US Commission on Civil Rights filed a 155-page report entitled Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System (Public Law 103-109), (document found at http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/naheath/nabroken.pdf) that "...[i]t has long been recognized that Native Americans are dying of diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, and other health conditions at a shocking rate. Beyond disturbingly high mortality rates, Native Americans are suffer a significantly lower health status and disproportionate rates of disease compared to other Americans...This report evaluates the National American Health Care System.

"Based on a Commission briefing, interviews, research and a review of relevant literature, the report concludes...the failure of Congress to provide the resources necessary to create and maintain an effective health care system for Native Americans...Accordingly, the Commission makes numerous recommendations...[to] reduce patient wait times and ensure that services are available when needed..."

As the communist left in our Congress lies to the American people about Obama's "public option," and that it will save the people of the United States trillions of dollars while providing the best healthcare in the world to the American people, the bureaucrats have made no serious attempt since the Broken Promises Report in 2004, to fix the Native American healthcare system which, if Obama and the communist left in Congress get their way, will become the healthcare system for every American except the politicians and the ultra rich elites who buy and sell politicians like penny candy.

Here's the long and the short of it. Under Medicare, the government budgets $6,000 per Medicare recipient per year. (Fortunately for me Obamacare didn't exist a decade ago when I had my triple bypass. The hospital bill alone was $81,000. Fat chance that Obama's death board would have sanctioned that operation.) But, we're assuming that Obamacare would be as good as Medicare, which leaves a lot to be desired. The Veteran's Administration budgets no more than $5,200.00 per year per veteran. Federal prisoners are budgeted at $3,725.00 per year for all medical care. And, of course, the government's grand experiment in socialized medicine—Native Americans—are budgeted at $1,600.00 per person.

I want you to think about this for a minute. The Department of the US Census estimates the total 2009 population of the United States as 305 million. If Congress funded Obamacare no better than they fund Medicare, the first year cost to the taxpayers will be $1,830,000,000,000.00—that's one trillion, eight hundred-thirty billion dollars. If Obamacare is no better than the Veteran's Administration, which as any vet will tell you, literally sucks like rotten eggs, the annual cost would be about $200 billion less. Treated like a federal convict, your healthcare would only cost one trillion, one hundred thirty-seven billion per year. But since it's more likely Obamacare will be funded from the the model they've had for a hundred years, they will lowball it at the Native American rate—about $498 billion for the first year, and a ten year total of about $5 trillion dollars. Oh, wait a minute. The Obama-ites claim it will only cost $1.5 trillion for the first decade, which means it will be funded at a level of about $300.00 per year person. That's about the cost of two office visit to a rural GP or one office visit to a metropolitan primary care physician. If the far left succeeds in ramming Obamacare through Congress, all of us will be scrambling to join an Indian tribe so we will qualify for Native American Healthcare.