The Worst Bill Ever »
Posted By Tasine 1 month, 2 weeks ago in Political OpinionThe Wall Street Journal writes that Nancy Pelosi's new health-care bill will impose new taxes, create new mandates, expand Medicaid, and cut Medicare.
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Tasine
Have lived a long and great life and expect many more years of the same! Life is good.
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Tasine1 month, 2 weeks ago
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FTA: 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.
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And Pelosi proudly announces she is prepared to lose seats in the next election if that's what it takes. I'd sure hate to be a congressman of her party!-
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Beau78901 month, 2 weeks ago
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Overall, WSJ objects to any shift of the burden of paying for healthcare and insurance from individuals to the government. I don't know why--if government deficits are lower, people will pay more out of their own pockets. That does nothing to help the situation of rising costs and uninsured people. WSJ also dislikes additional regulations on insurers that would serve to protect their coverage from exploitative industry practices and would give more people access to medical care. Again--these are the primary goals of reform; it appears WSJ doesn't believe there's any problem whatsoever with the way healthcare is paid for and delivered in the U.S.
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Regarding WSJ's specific arguments:
"The spending surge"
The program would cost "$1.065 trillion over a decade"? Healthcare costs $2.5 trillion a year. So this program would add about 4% of the total cost of healthcare to what the government pays. Meanwhile, no figures here are given as to how much would be cut from the total cost of American healthcare, meaning savings would be realized either by reducing waste and fraud in Medicare or by individuals consumers paying less for insurance. (Yes, there are limits as to how much insurers can charge in the bill.)
WSJ also complains that the maximum for a family of four to receive subsidies for insurance can reach $96,000. That seems like a lot. But after paying taxes, that family is left with about $65,000 in take-home pay. Insurance plans for families currently cost $12,000 on average--according to this article, WellPoint estimates its premiums would triple. So that family would need to pay $36,000 annually on insurance of that $65,000 it has to live on--over 50% of what these people take home. If the insurer is allowed to charge that much, the government should subsidize at least a part of it. -
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Beau78901 month, 2 weeks ago
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(continued from above)
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"Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare."
Yup, Medicaid eligibility will be expanded to 150% of the poverty level. That will include those making about $21,000 a year. Right now, if you're single and aren't a dependent, aren't a veteran and aren't eligible for Medicare, you can be out of work and have no income at all and still not qualify for Medicaid. Medicaid is intended to provide healthcare for the poor--the House bill will address that.
Medicare Advantage (and Medicare Part D, which were both created at the same time in order to bankrupt Medicare) are a huge drain on Medicare's resources. Reworking them to save $170 billion is going to cut 15% from the $1.065 trillion cost of the plan WSJ objects to. And many of the problems with Medicare Advantage, including less availability in rural areas and the coverage gap for initial applicants, would be rectified. The infamous "donut hole" for prescription drug coverage under Medicare Part D would be closed (but with co-pays required), and insurers would not be allowed to change which drugs they cover and which they don't in the middle of a plan year, when enrollees in their plans can't change plans. Savings to pay for these benefits would be realized through elimination of fraud, waste, and duplication of services and enhanced negotiating powers of the government with medical services providers and drug companies.
"European levels of taxation."
From the article:
"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."
I'm sorry...is a 5.4% charge on those making more than half a million a year (or joint filers making over a million) in order to give 18 million more people in this country access to healthcare they wouldn't otherwise have a problem? I've heard some out here say that they prefer to donate to their own charities rather than have the government redistribute wealth for them. Does anybody know of a charity that provides health insurance to poor people? -
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Beau78901 month, 2 weeks ago
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(continued again)
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"The insurance takeover."
From the article:
"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."
I have no sympathy for insurance companies who are perfectly happy to pretend they're doing people a favor and "holding costs down" by revoking coverage of paying customers, excluding those who need them most and denying claims of people who've been paying their premiums for years. Insurers have doubled their premiums over the past 10 years while failing to provide insurance for 17% of the country--twice as large a portion as a decade ago. If it takes government intervention in their business to make them responsible, so be it. If they don't like it or don't believe they can make a profit, they can shut their doors. That would hurt no one but themselves. (But they'd never cut off their own livelihood by doing that anyway--they'll simply find new revenue streams, as all business people do when faced with new obstacles. It's the American way.) The government would then be free to do what it should already be doing--providing access to healthcare as a service that is essential to survival and should never have been a for-profit concern.
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The article includes this toward the end:
Obama's own Medicare actuaries estimate that the federal share of U.S. health dollars will quickly climb beyond 60% from 46% today.
That may be true (though WSJ doesn't give the figures from the actuaries to back that up). But individual taxpayers' share would decrease. The overall cost of healthcare--again, $2.5 trillion a year--would rise at a lower rate than without this plan. And WSJ gives no other solutions; it only criticizes the plan. If the government picks up the slack, that only makes healthcare less expensive for the citizens. -
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pc251 month, 2 weeks ago
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FTA
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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. -
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mesodude1 month, 2 weeks ago
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"Once people start paying for this massive Gov ran 'entitlement program', via taxes and etc, then things will probably change for the worse for the Marx-0-Crats."
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--But if memory serves me, you cons supported those who *borrowed* and spent trillions for war and tax cuts for people who didn't need them (and who also didn't use them to create jobs the way cons love to blather on about). Remind us how blindly supporting the President who created the largest government in history turned out for you people. Not too good, huh?
Also,cons were perfectly content to have the GOP Congress rubberstamp Bush's every request and whim. You said nothing about oversight. You didn't bleat and bitch about even *one* of the DOZENS of trips burned up oils flying to Crawford Ranch to bike with Lance Armstrong or to go home to visit mommy and daddy, did you? No. Ya didn't. When Bushco told you we would be borrowing trillions to stay in Iraq for decades into the future and his thug Cheney told you "deficits don't matter" did you start showing up at their events packing heat? LMAO Nope. I don't think you people did.
So, in closing, cons are basically greedy,deceitful, opportunistic and poorly educated hypocritical sheep who will lie through their teeth because they think no one knows how to use the Google except for George Bush. ;-P
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avoth1 month, 2 weeks ago
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My friends, what did you really expect? And they're not done yet.
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A little story: At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin a question: "Well Doctor", she said, "What have we got a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic", replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it."
We will persevere. -
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Bkumm1 month, 2 weeks ago
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AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! The Democrats are coming to take your money, limit your choices and kill your grandmothers!!!!
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Bull.
1.033 TRILLION is a LOT of cash. However, that's the cost over ten years. For those of you keeping track at home that's just a skosh over 100 billion a year.
In sharp contrast to this number in the last fiscal year (2008) we spent just a hair over 20% of 2.9 trillion on Defense. For the number minded that's $580 billion. That's in ONE YEAR. Not ten years, not five years, ONE YEAR. So, in the next ten years, all things being equal, we'll spend $5.8 trillion trying to kill people and $1 trillion or so trying to keep them healthy. Hmmmm, I wonder which is better?
Oh, and the $5.8 trillion DOESN'T count the possibility of trillions more spent on "off the books" spending like for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.-
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pc251 month, 2 weeks ago
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http://spectator.org/blog/2009/07/14/10-year-time-...
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It's important to keep in mind that the most costly aspects of the legislation involve providing subsidies to individuals to purchase health care ($773 billion) and to expand Medicaid ($438 billion), but it takes several years for those provisions to kick in. As you can see from the chart below, that means that the costs start out relatively modest but ramp up over time. In the first three years of the plan the cost of the subsidies and Medicaid expansion is just $8 billion; in the first five years, it's $202 billion; but in the last five years, it's $979 billion. Put another way, 17 percent of the spending comes in the first five years, while 83 percent comes in the second five years. What this means is that the American people see $1 trillion over 10 years and they think that means the bill would cost about $100 billion a year -- but the reality is more than double that. In the final year of the CBO estimates, 2019, the spending hits $230 billion. -
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beavith11 month, 2 weeks ago
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its the lying nature of pushing costs into the outyears to make the early years look affordable.
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if this thing can fly, it won't take 2000 pages and mystical magical accounting. it'd fly on its own.
it not bull, bkumm, if it has to come with lying and misdirection.
bring me back universal health care that can actually be affordable. not something that looks like a camel sticking its nose under the tent. -
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vor1 month, 2 weeks ago
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Essentially the cost of the still very questionable Star Wars defense system that can probably stop a single ICBM but also likely cannot handle a handful of such launches. And they never mention the fleecing of the SSI surplus for those off-budget defense items before they simply ran deficits to handle them (another Reagan innovation). Otherwise Social Security is a quite viable and logical program to ensure retirement funds for the masses. Of course that was in the days when Republicans mocked the terms "debt" and "deficit." Laughed them right off.
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Endoscopy1 month, 2 weeks ago
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Keep in mind that the first Medicare was under estimated by a factor of 4. If this is the same it will be $400 billion a year. This will give us a horrendous bureaucracy to micromanage all of health care, underfund Medicare, start killing insurance companies, drive doctors and hospitals out of business because they will not pay what it costs, hit everybody with much higher taxes, kill investment into new drugs or treatments, etc.
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And the liberals on this site think these things are wonderful. Medicare denies more that any insurance company but all they look at are the evil insurance companies.-
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Bkumm1 month, 2 weeks ago
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I keep hearing how, "it can't work, it's never worked before and there's no way we can control the government". Most, if not all, of that whining is coming from conservatives who don't trust the government with anything. Well, I guess that's not exactly true, now is it? They depend (demand) that the government protect us all from any enemy. Which, if you think about it, is probably the most important job the government could possibly do. And if you don't think the military is a giant pile of steaming corruption and inefficiency then I have several pieces of property that I'd like to show you that are for sale.
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The point is, Endo, that it doesn't have to be that way. It's that way because we think it can't be any other way. It can be. And we should demand that it is.
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EKB_1 month, 2 weeks ago
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If you are going to write your own subject section when posting an article, please make an attempt to not lie or misrepresent the nature of the article. It only took you five words to misrepresent the article.
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"The Wall Street Journal writes..."
While the wall street journal is very conservative, this was an opinion piece and like almost all opinion sections, the views and opinions expressed blah blah...are not necessarily the views of The Wall Street Journal....
Thanks for your help. -
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djn3nunez31 month, 2 weeks ago
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FTA-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.
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they'll claim the deficits that they created made them do it.
"Conservative" Bush Spends More than "Liberal" Presidents Clinton, Carter
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3184
"..national defense is far from being responsible for all of the spending increases. According to the new numbers, defense spending will have risen by about 34 percent since Bush came into office. But, at the same time, non-defense discretionary spending will have skyrocketed by almost 28 percent. Government agencies that Republicans were calling to be abolished less than 10 years ago, such as education and labor, have enjoyed jaw-dropping spending increases under Bush of 70 percent and 65 percent respectively."
"That the nation's budgetary situation continues to deteriorate is because the administration's fiscal policy has been decidedly more about politics than policy."
"Clinton had overseen a total spending increase of only 3.5 percent at the same point in his administration. More importantly, after his first three years in office, non-defense discretionary spending actually went down by 0.7 percent. This is contrasted by Bush's three-year total spending increase of 15.6 percent and a 20.8 percent explosion in non-defense discretionary spending." -
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Om1 month, 2 weeks ago
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Let's see, and the Republican plan is...? Oh that's right. they only react to the Democratic proposals. After 8 years of doing nothing except bury America, their position is that saying no is a viable politcal platform. The real barrier to reform is the neocons sitting on their collective rear ends, collecting fat paychecks and gladly receiving all the medical help they need. Welcome to the new do-nothing-but-bitch Republican Party. Anyone can be a Republican if you are happy with your cushy job, hate America, and have no ideas for the future...a sure prescription for ultimate failure.
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jordan111 month, 2 weeks ago
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Let's see, and the Republican plan is...? Oh that's right. they only react to the Democratic proposals. After 8 years of doing nothing except bury America, their position is that saying no is a viable politcal platform.>>>>
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Yep. All bought and paid for, the CONS are. Taking care of their buds, the CONS are. And with constituents who're dumber than dirt, they pretty much do what they damn well please, against the interests of those dumb constituents. -
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gwhiddon1 month, 2 weeks ago
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http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/17/news/economy/repub...
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/be...
Just for a couple. -
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gwhiddon1 month, 2 weeks ago
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Of course you wouldn't know the truth if it hit you in the face:
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http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/17/news/economy/repub...
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/be...
Just for a couple.
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canadianrancher571 month, 2 weeks ago
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By labeling this the worst bill ever I have to ask the question. Are you sure of that? When I look at the size of government and also the debt in your country and the ever increasing tax load on the public it makes me wonder if in the past there were not other bills that relative to the time were not as equally the worst bill ever. There have been many times when the government of your country has undertaken ventures that have been extremely expensive and the return for the country has been little to none.
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This insurance crisis has existed for a while now and I have seen comments by conservative people that show that they realize there is a problem, and some of the solutions offered by them make sense. The problem now is that since things have been left till the situation has become critical the solution will be costly regards which route is taken. -
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