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| Politics Forum Index » Democrats (House) Politics Forum » Nancy Pelosi's New Health Bill - The Worst Bill Ever.... |
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| Leroy N. Soetoro... |
 Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 12:12 pm |
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Guest
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The worthless cunt cobbled together the worst possible mess, so when it
does not pass, she will point a finger at the opposition and attempt to
lay the blame on them for her failures.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505423751140690.
html
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she's
prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that's what it takes to pass ObamaCare,
and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which
President Obama hailed as a "critical milestone," may well be the worst
piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.
In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have
been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record
peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-
class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to
rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government
control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via
politics.
Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine
bipartisan "reform" and moved into the realm of pure power politics as
they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram
through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be
"universal coverage." The result will be destructive on every level—for
the health-care system, for the country's fiscal condition, and ultimately
for American freedom and prosperity.
•The spending surge. The Congressional Budget Office figures the House
program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, which while far above the
$829 billion net cost that Mrs. Pelosi fed to credulous reporters is still
a low-ball estimate. Most of the money goes into government-run
"exchanges" where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty
level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy
coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income. The government would
pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for
another making $78,000, and so forth.
At least at first, these benefits would be offered only to those whose
employers don't provide insurance or work for small businesses with 100 or
fewer workers. The taxpayer costs would be far higher if not for this
"firewall"—which is sure to cave in when people see the deal their
neighbors are getting on "free" health care. Mrs. Pelosi knows this, like
everyone else in Washington.
Even so, the House disguises hundreds of billions of dollars in additional
costs with budget gimmicks. It "pays for" about six years of program with
a decade of revenue, with the heaviest costs concentrated in the second
five years. The House also pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be
cut by 21.5% next year and deeper after that, "saving" about $250 billion.
ObamaCare will be lucky to cost under $2 trillion over 10 years; it will
grow more after that.
• Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare. All this is particularly
reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37
trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from
future Medicare spending to "pay for" universal coverage. While Medicare's
price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the
only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to
the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives
one of out five seniors private insurance options.
As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150%
of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be
added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425
billion. A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be
on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the
disabled.
Even though the House will assume 91% of the "matching rate" for this
joint state-federal program—up from today's 57%—governors would still be
forced to take on $34 billion in new burdens when budgets from Albany to
Sacramento are in fiscal collapse. Washington's budget will collapse too,
if anything like the House bill passes.
• European levels of taxation. All told, the House favors $572 billion in
new taxes, mostly by imposing a 5.4-percentage-point "surcharge" on joint
filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles. This tax will raise
the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts
expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain
deductions and exemptions. The burden will mostly fall on the small
businesses that have organized as Subchapter S or limited liability
corporations, since the truly wealthy won't have any difficulty sheltering
their incomes.
This surtax could hit ever more earners because, like the alternative
minimum tax, it isn't indexed for inflation. Yet it still won't be nearly
enough. Even if Congress had confiscated 100% of the taxable income of
people earning over $500,000 in the boom year of 2006, it would have only
raised $1.3 trillion. When Democrats end up soaking the middle class,
perhaps via the European-style value-added tax that Mrs. Pelosi has
endorsed, they'll claim the deficits that they created made them do it.
Under another new tax, businesses would have to surrender 8% of their
payroll to government if they don't offer insurance or pay at least 72.5%
of their workers' premiums, which eat into wages. Such "play or pay" taxes
always become "pay or pay" and will rise over time, with severe
consequences for hiring, job creation and ultimately growth. While the
U.S. already has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the
world, Democrats are on the way to creating a high structural unemployment
rate, much as Europe has done by expanding its welfare states.
Meanwhile, a tax equal to 2.5% of adjusted gross income will also be
imposed on some 18 million people who CBO expects still won't buy
insurance in 2019. Democrats could make this penalty even higher, but that
is politically unacceptable, or they could make the subsidies even higher,
but that would expose the (already ludicrous) illusion that ObamaCare will
reduce the deficit.
• The insurance takeover. A new "health choices commissioner" will decide
what counts as "essential benefits," which all insurers will have to offer
as first-dollar coverage. Private insurers will also be told how much they
are allowed to charge even as they will have to offer coverage at
virtually the same price to anyone who applies, regardless of health
status or medical history.
The cost of insurance, naturally, will skyrocket. The insurer WellPoint
estimates based on its own market data that some premiums in the
individual market will triple under these new burdens. The same is likely
to prove true for the employer-sponsored plans that provide private
coverage to about 177 million people today. Over time, the new mandates
will apply to all contracts, including for the large businesses currently
given a safe harbor from bureaucratic tampering under a 1974 law called
Erisa.
The political incentive will always be for government to expand benefits
and reduce cost-sharing, trampling any chance of giving individuals
financial incentives to economize on care. Essentially, all insurers will
become government contractors, in the business of fulfilling political
demands: There will be no such thing as "private" health insurance.
***
All of this is intentional, even if it isn't explicitly acknowledged. The
overriding liberal ambition is to finish the work began decades ago as the
Great Society of converting health care into a government responsibility.
Mr. Obama's own Medicare actuaries estimate that the federal share of U.S.
health dollars will quickly climb beyond 60% from 46% today. One reason
Mrs. Pelosi has fought so ferociously against her own Blue Dog colleagues
to include at least a scaled-back "public option" entitlement program is
so that the architecture is in place for future Congresses to expand this
share even further.
As Congress's balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new
obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making
cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to
receive. Democrats can't regulate their way out of the reality that we
live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care
is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is
inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs
that are the future of medicine.
Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of "change," but we doubt most voters
realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even
more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are
exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi's
handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR's National Industrial
Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously
contemplated.
--
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
Rangel's tax evasion. |
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