The Obamessiah has rearranged the chairs again on the Titanic. It comes in the form of his new "hybrid" health care bill.

Is the president paying attention?

He claims to be sprinkling in a few Republican ideas but it is mere lip service ignoring the major policies that have been suggested. All the plan is is more of the same.

Obama wants to create a Health Insurance Rate Authority that would require insurance companies to submit rate increases and get approval. If the government feels it is unfair it would force companies to reduce rates and rebate money.

This is the same government who thinks Medicare reimbursement to physicians is fair. A system that is always teetering on disaster as the Sustained Growth Formula is overridden by Congress every year. What is next? Is he going to go after Starbucks for charging $6 for a cup of coffee?

The issue here is one of competition. Suggestions such as allowing insurances to compete across state lines have been ignored.

The plan is full of new regulatory ideas. There are plans for all kinds of organizations to search out fraud, waste, and abuse. On the surface this appears reasonable unless you work in the industry day after day. Some good can come of it but it mostly just becomes and excuse for the government to hire more workers and create red tape adding more expense to health care.

There is the obligatory pay off to special interests. The tax on high cost health care plans is delayed to 2018 and the limit raised a bit further to $27.5K for a family plan. This satisfies and extends the demands made by labor unions.

And what would an Obama plan be without a provision to punish the productive?

A 2.9% tax is placed on "income from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents, other than such income which is derived in the ordinary course of a trade or business which is not a passive activity" when it exceeds $200K for single or $250K for married taxpayers. This is directly aimed at small businesses.

Taxes on medical devices and insurance companies are left in place. The excuse is that by insuring people these companies will make more money. It completely ignores the fact that increasing the cost of business by taxes often leads to an increased cost for those services.

And what would a Obama plan be without a grenade being thrown down the hallway to explode when he is gone?

It comes in the form of a future unfunded mandate. Obama will provide 100% funding of new Medicaid patients eligible under his plan (133% of poverty level) to the states. However, that starts to go away in 2018 and drops to 90% by 2020.

The White House seems to believe they can pull one over on the public. This plan is nothing more than a regurgitation of the same special interest laden government growing expensive bill.

Obama claims the plan will cost $1T and reduce the deficit by $100B over the next 10 years. The CBO says there is not enough detail in the plan for them to calculate financial details.

Even if you believe in the tooth fairy and that any of the proposed plans would save money it ignores the obvious. Somebody is going to pay for it. It will be the taxpayers directly through new taxes or indirectly through the pass through of expenses to companies created by taxes.

The Republicans were a spending disaster in DC during the Bush administration. People forgot that things can be even worse.

The monstrosity known as Medicare Part D was the ultimate Republican spending example. Obama, not to be outdone, wants to spend even more on that program in his plan.

Democratic US Senate candidates are in trouble across the country. Health care has just become another pawn in the Obama game to increase the role of government and the public is rightfully suspicious.

The problem is the public will likely just elect Democrat-lites, in other words Republicans. The only difference these days is how fast we go down the road to financial ruin.

It is time to start over with health care. We need reform but not reform that grows government, pays off special interests, and adds costs to the private sector.