Obama's health care announcement frightening in its fascism

Obama's press conference with the 6 health care lobbying groups, announcing that they'll "work together" to bring health care costs down was downright frightening in its fascism.

First of all, there were no specifics, just vague generalizations. Yet the media was in full propaganda mode, making it seem like the savings of 1.5% per year are a done deal.

That the media is such a bunch of lap dogs for Obama is what is so frightening.

How exactly are we going to achieve these savings? No one knows, and the ideas that Obama throws around (standardizing forms, digitizing medical records, more preventive care, etc.) have been shown to RAISE costs, not lower them. In particular, preventive medicine does not save money. You spend so much money giving everyone routine tests, it simply swamps any savings from finding disease early.

What is more frightening than the media propaganda is that Obama got the lobbying organizations for doctors, insurance companies, drug companies, and medical device makers to sign on. That these companies want to "compromise" rather than fight is a blow to those against socialized medicine.

One element of fascism was that the governments created industry cartels in order to control the economy. It's hard not to see the parallels between that and what happened yesterday.

The biggest beef that I have with any of this is that, if we're worried about health care costs, Medicare and Medicaid are where the money is. Not coincidentally, they're also totally controlled by the government. Obama should start there with cost controls. If he is successful there, maybe I'd be inclined to let him mess with private sector health insurance. Otherwise, hands off.