Stop Government Takeover

How Congress Is Cooking the Books
By MICHAEL TANNER
Last Updated: 5:16 AM, September 30, 2009
Posted: 5:03 AM, September 30, 2009

LAST week, the Senate Finance Committee voted 12-11 not to wait for the Congressional Budget Office to "score" its health-care bill before the committee votes on it. Imagine that: Some senators actually wanted to know how much the bill costs before voting on it.

Let them get away with something like that,and before you know it they'll be demanding honest accounting practices -- sending the whole legislative process to hell in a hand basket.

When it comes to the health-care-reform debate, you see, honest budgeting is nowhere to be seen.

Start with the simple matter of how much health-care reform will cost. The House bill, HR 3200, will cost roughly $1.3 trillion over 10 years -- or so we're told. By the same token, the Senate Finance Committee bill is supposed to cost just under $900 billion. Sure, that's a lot of money -- but it still badly understates the true cost.

The CBO provides 10- year projections of a bill's cost. But most provisions of the health bill don't take effect until 2014. So the "10-year" cost projection only includes six years of the bill.

Plus, the costs ramp up slowly. In its first year, the House bill would only cost about $6 billion; in its first three, less than $100 billion. The big costs are in the final years of the 10-year budget window -- and beyond. In fact, over the first 10 years that the House bill would be in existence (2014 to 2024), its costs would be closer to $2.4 trillion. Similarly, the real cost of the Senate bill over 10 years of operation is estimated at $1.5 trillion.

Worse, the trajectory of the costs after10 years rises dramatically -- meaning "reform" would cost even more in its second 10 years and beyond.

Such gimmicks also infest the projections of how much reform will add to the deficit. CBO says the House bill adds $235 billion to the deficit. But that, again, cuts off arbitrarily in 2019. Beyond that date, the bill adds enormously to the deficit, about $1.5 trillion in the second 10 years. In fact, if the health-reform bill were treated like other entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, which are required to have a 75-year actuarial forecast, its unfunded liabilities would exceed $9.2 trillion.

Of course, the Senate Finance Bill is supposed to be deficit-neutral. But that claim relies on other forms of budgetary flim-flam.

For example, the Senate bill relies on Medicare "savings" that Congress keeps refusing to make. Specifically, Medicare has long been ordered to cut 21 percent from what it pays health-care providers -- yet, each year since 2003, for reasons both good and bad, Congress has voted to defer the cuts.

Does anyone else really think that Congress is simply going to slash payments to doctors and hospitals by 21 percent across the board?

Of course, President Obama has long said we can cut Medicare by $500 billion simply by eliminating fraud, waste and abuse. That would be the same "fraud, waste and abuse" that the government has been cutting since Ronald Reagan first used the term.

The truth is that health-care reform is going to cost us a lot. And we're going to pay for it in higher taxes and more debt.

No wonder they don't want us to know.

Michael Tanner, a Cato Institute senior fellow, is author of "Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It."

'Reform' Horrors: O's Total Disconnect--- NY POST

2009-09-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

'Reform' horrors: O's Total Disconnect
By SALLY PIPES
Last Updated: 4:05 AM, September 30, 2009
Posted: 2:07 AM, September 30, 2009

THE disconnect is just about perfect: President Obama's utopian promises for what his health-care agenda would bring are the oppositeof what the plans on the table would produce.

In his Sept. 9 speech before Congress, he laid out three principles. "It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses and our government." He's also been crystal-clear that any reform cannot add to our massive deficit.

Yet his marketing just doesn't describe the product.

Stability and security: Every Democratic plan would break this promise -- and in multiple ways.

For starters, every bill would make everyone buy a plan that offers a government-designed benefits package. So, while they wouldn't directly force people to shift plans, they'd force most employers to change what they offer their workers -- and employer-provided coverage is the top way Americans get insurance.

Worse, the mandates would price many employers out of the insurance market -- dumping their employees onto the government-provided backup, whether that's the "public option" that liberals prefer or the "co-ops" being offered as a compromise. The Lewin Group has estimated that "reform" will push 119 million people out of their current coverage.

Second, the Democratic plans largely come up with some cash by looting GOP-created programs. Democrats want to cut over $100 billion from Medicare Advantage, for example -- a "reform" that will force millions of seniors back into traditional Medicare, a state-of-the-art plan for 1965.

Obama's answer to this problem? Pure denial: Pressed by ABC's George Stephanopoulos on the issue, he replied, "No, these folks are going to be able to get Medicare that is just as good."

Other Democratic plans would restrict Health Savings Accounts -- which, when coupled with a high-deductible plan, now meet the health-care needs of millions of Americans. Same for Flexible Spending Accounts, which are also on Congress' chopping block. In both cases, "reform" is a two-fer -- a tax increase and reduction in coverage.

Insurance for those who don't have it. Well, not if you're an illegal alien -- after hemming and hawing, the bills now are on track not to cover illegals. Yet these people make up some 20 percent of the uninsured.

And the bills don't so much "cover" the rest of today's uninsured as simply force them to buy a policy: Middle-class Americans would have to spend up to 12 percent of their income on insurance alone or face fines -- that is, taxes -- on penalty of jail.

"Reform" will bring some subsidies for lower-income people's insurance -- at the cost of making everyone else's premiums more expensive. We'll see an ever-larger share of middle-class income devoted to insurance premiums -- but not to their actual health care.

Plus, when things don't work out as expected, Congress will likely do what Massachusetts did under similar circumstances -- exempt many uninsured from the mandate and put many more on Medicaid, forcing costs on taxpayers.

Slow the growth of spending. Obama's basic promise is that, through some magic of government administration, we can expand coverage to everyone who doesn't have it, make sure that no one pays any costs when they go to the doctor -- and yet somehow keep prices and spending from rising.

That is: Supply will stagnate, demand will skyrocket -- yet prices and total spending won't increase. Without question, these plans will explode spending -- just as happened in the late 1960s in the wake of Medicare's passage.

There are ways to bend the cost curve, but Congress won't hear of them. Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt, a longtime advocate of universal heath care, recently told a reporter for Kaiser Health Care News, "All of the bills that have emerged from Congress have had only very weak gestures toward cost control."

The only arrow for slowing spending in the government's quiver is price controls -- a fact made clear by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is open and adamant about imposing Medicare's low, money-losing prices on providers via a "public option." Yet price controls always reduce supply and produce lines and rationing. Easing that rationing will require the government to spend more money than projected, adding more to the deficit.

During the campaign, Obama pledged not to force everyone to buy insurance, and promised $2,500 per family in savings from reform. Now he offers generalized support for a bill that is set to include a global mandate, fines on the middle class of up to $1,900 and huge tax hikes.

"Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing," he said in the speech before. "Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true."

In fact, this list of horrors is exactly what will happen if America is saddled with the plan Obama is pushing Congress to pass.

Sally Pipes is president & CEO of the Pacific Research Institute and author of "The Top 10 Myths of American Health Care."

An Obama Speech in 13 Easy Steps by Rich Lowry on National Review Online

2009-09-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

An Obama Speech in 13 Easy Steps by Rich Lowry on National Review Online

Rip up this awful plan & rewrite it in English

2009-09-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

Rip up this awful plan & rewrite it in English

Do Health Care Reformers Fear A Reading Public? - Forbes.com

2009-09-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

Do Health Care Reformers Fear A Reading Public? - Forbes.com

Facebook | Sarah Palin: Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care by Sarah Palin

2009-09-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

Facebook Sarah Palin: Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care by Sarah Palin

FrontPage Magazine - How to Defeat the Left

2009-09-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

FrontPage Magazine - How to Defeat the Left

YouTube - Town Hall Meeting with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird

2009-08-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

YouTube - Town Hall Meeting with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird: "David William Hedrick, a member of the silent majority, decided that he was not going to be silent anymore. So, this brave young Marine veteran let Democrat U.S. Congressman Brian Baird have it... with deadly accuracy! He was but one questioner out of 38 that was called at random from an audience that started at 3,000 earlier in the evening. Not expecting to be called on, he quickly scratched notes about what he wanted to say on a borrowed piece of paper with a pen borrowed from someone else in the audience mere minutes before he spoke. So much for the planned talking points of the right-wing conspiracy."

Sempre Fi, David!

ObamaScare and the Politics of Fear-Mongering

2009-08-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

ObamaScare and the Politics of Fear-Mongering

Sarah and the Death Panels - HUMAN EVENTS

2009-08-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

Sarah and the Death Panels - HUMAN EVENTS

Despite Liberal rantings to the contrary, the former Alaska Governor was right. And, actually, the entirety of a governmant-run healthcare industry will become one large death panel. Read on....

Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics

2009-08-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics

Health care debate confirms this is not the Barack Obama we elected

2009-08-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

Health care debate confirms this is not the Barack Obama we elected

BAM'S BLAME GAME - New York Post

2009-08-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

BAM'S BLAME GAME - New York Post

Defend Your Health Care

2009-08-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

Defend Your Health Care

CORRECTING THE UN-TRUTHS ABOUT OBAMA'S HEALTH PLAN!

6 Reasons Obama-Care Is Bad Medicine - HUMAN EVENTS

2009-08-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

6 Reasons Obama-Care Is Bad Medicine - HUMAN EVENTS

Dirty Secret No. 2 in Obamacare - HUMAN EVENTS

2009-08-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

Dirty Secret No. 2 in Obamacare - HUMAN EVENTS

Dirty Secret No. 1 in Obamacare - HUMAN EVENTS

2009-08-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

Dirty Secret No. 1 in Obamacare - HUMAN EVENTS

IT'S ALL A DEATH PANEL - New York Post

2009-08-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

IT'S ALL A DEATH PANEL - New York Post

STOP SOCIALISM - OBAMA JOKER POSTERS at JokerPoster.com

2009-08-14T22:10:00.000-07:00

STOP SOCIALISM - OBAMA JOKER POSTERS at JokerPoster.com

Fix Health Care Policy

2009-08-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

Fix Health Care Policy

Senate HELP Amendment Highlights - Nina Owcharenko - Critical Condition on National Review Online

2009-08-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

Senate HELP Amendment Highlights - Nina Owcharenko - Critical Condition on National Review Online

Dissecting the Kennedy Health Bill - WSJ.com

2009-08-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

Dissecting the Kennedy Health Bill - WSJ.com

GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors. - WSJ.com

2009-08-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors. - WSJ.com

YouTube - Barack Obama Capitol Hill Card

2009-08-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

YouTube - Barack Obama Capitol Hill Card
A MUST SEE!

Congressman John Fleming : Home

2009-08-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

Congressman John Fleming : Home

Sign Rep. Flemming's petition of support if you feel that any Congressman
or Senator who supports the current Obama-care Government Takeover
healthcare bill should be mandated to participate in that plan themselves
(they are exempt from participation according to the bill).