Here we go again! Harry Reid is waiting for the CBO score on the new, new, new healthcare bill so he can force this matter to the floor before the Christmas break. I know, Congress calls it the Holiday break but here on the Vigilance Project, Christmas is still Christmas. Mr. Reid’s fear is that not proceeding with the bill now would allow the Senators to face their constituents in a repeat of the summer town hall meetings and that is something he cannot allow.
If this healthcare bill is so damaging to the nation, why then would Reid and Pelosi want it to pass so badly that they would risk what little of their political capital that have left to move it forward? It is still a matter of power. As it stands now, 47% of Americans pay no taxes and some of that 47% actually receive tax money in the form of earned income credits and other public assistance programs. We are dangerously close to tipping that balance and once a minor majority of Americans move from the taxpayer column to the recipient column, there will never be another fair election in this country.
Outspoken Congressional progressives have already admitted that they intend to use the public option to move healthcare from the private sector into a universal government run system much like we see in Canada and England. A victory for the healthcare bill would be a devastating blow to personal freedoms and to the health of the Republic. Universal care will, for the first time in our history, make a majority of Americans dependents of the State and insure the electability of those candidates that promise to keep public money flowing into the Federal entitlement machine.
Medicare was suppose to provide basic health services for those senior citizens that found themselves without care and without the means to pay for care after retirement. Who could argue with that? It was a reasonable plan supported by a compassionate nation. Over the years it became an entitlement program available to anyone over the age of 65, whether you actually needed it or not. Estimates at the time of passage were that Medicare would cost the taxpayers $9 billion dollars a year by 1990 when the actual figure would swell to $65 billion dollars, a 700% miscalculation. Now Medicare has become a sacred cow and any discussion of cuts or means testing the recipients is met with angry mobs of seniors and their advocacy groups.
Social Security was enacted during FDR’s early years in office and promised to offer a safety net to seniors that never had the opportunity to provide for their own retirement. When Social Security was enacted, it was a trust fund. People would contribute to the fund and be able to withdraw an annuity upon retirement. A great idea right? Well, after only three years, Medicare and Medicaid were in serous trouble and the Federal government raided that trust fund to offset the shortages in those programs. Social Security was added as a new line to the Federal budget as another liability for the American taxpayer. In the biggest “double dip” in history, we now have the privilege of continuing our mandatory “contributions” to the Social Security system as well as paying ever-increasing taxes to cover the government’s budget problems wrought by exploding entitlement disbursements.
Social Security has changed too. 40% of recipients are not of retirement age and recent disclosures have shown that even illegal immigrants are drawing from this fund through one abuse or another. The entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are rife with fraud and abuse, so much so that even organized crime has found it much easier to defraud the federal government than it is to defraud banks and credit card companies. In fact, the President claims that he can pay for a large part of the healthcare bill by eliminating fraud and abuse. Unfortunately, President Clinton said the same thing back in 1993 during his push for universal healthcare.
In the sixteen years since President Clinton made his healthcare speech identifying the fraud and abuse in the healthcare system, not one bill has passed through Congress to attempt to eliminate the billions of taxpayer dollars lost to Medicare and Medicaid fraud. That leaves two possibilities. Either the Federal government is incapable of combating the fraud in which case, the cost of this legislation is going to balloon the federal deficit and explode the National Debt or the proponents of universal care needed that fraud as a tool to pass a healthcare bill when the power in congress had shifted in which case, those that willingly turned a blind eye to allow the fraud to continue for political purposes should be charged as co-conspirators. No matter what the truth is…are these the people you want to trust with your healthcare?
Curiously enough, members of Congress have no skin in the game. They have the best healthcare plan in history of man. It is free to them and they get to keep it for as long as they live no matter how long they have served in Congress. They will not add language to any of the bills going through Congress that would force them to participate in the same plan that they will force you to take and since their care is provided for them at no charge, they will not be subject to that nasty little 40% tax on “Cadillac” plans proposed in the Baucus bill. If that doesn’t insult you, I don’t know what will.
The bill that is currently under consideration does not lower your healthcare costs. In fact, independent estimates say that premiums for private healthcare insurance will triple under this bill. The same studies say that more than five million jobs will be lost as small business attempts to cope with the new taxes and mandates. Medicare will be cut by five-hundred billion dollars and even though the CBO scored the bill at $1.2 trillion dollars, their past cost evaluations of other spending bills has been historically wrong and has cost taxpayers seven to ten times that amount.
This bill doesn’t do any of the things that experts say would actually result in the healthcare cost savings that is one of the President’s highest goals. Even his primary goal of providing care for the uninsured is not met as this bill still leaves twenty five million people uninsured and they will continue to test the financial stability of our hospitals and clinics.
Over all, this is not a bad bill; it is a rotten bill and the notion that it might not be great but “we have to do something” is an idiotic statement worthy of ridicule. Throwing buckets if gasoline at a burning building is “doing something”…it just doesn’t help the goal of putting the fire out.
If this healthcare bill is so damaging to the nation, why then would Reid and Pelosi want it to pass so badly that they would risk what little of their political capital that have left to move it forward? It is still a matter of power. As it stands now, 47% of Americans pay no taxes and some of that 47% actually receive tax money in the form of earned income credits and other public assistance programs. We are dangerously close to tipping that balance and once a minor majority of Americans move from the taxpayer column to the recipient column, there will never be another fair election in this country.
Outspoken Congressional progressives have already admitted that they intend to use the public option to move healthcare from the private sector into a universal government run system much like we see in Canada and England. A victory for the healthcare bill would be a devastating blow to personal freedoms and to the health of the Republic. Universal care will, for the first time in our history, make a majority of Americans dependents of the State and insure the electability of those candidates that promise to keep public money flowing into the Federal entitlement machine.
Medicare was suppose to provide basic health services for those senior citizens that found themselves without care and without the means to pay for care after retirement. Who could argue with that? It was a reasonable plan supported by a compassionate nation. Over the years it became an entitlement program available to anyone over the age of 65, whether you actually needed it or not. Estimates at the time of passage were that Medicare would cost the taxpayers $9 billion dollars a year by 1990 when the actual figure would swell to $65 billion dollars, a 700% miscalculation. Now Medicare has become a sacred cow and any discussion of cuts or means testing the recipients is met with angry mobs of seniors and their advocacy groups.
Social Security was enacted during FDR’s early years in office and promised to offer a safety net to seniors that never had the opportunity to provide for their own retirement. When Social Security was enacted, it was a trust fund. People would contribute to the fund and be able to withdraw an annuity upon retirement. A great idea right? Well, after only three years, Medicare and Medicaid were in serous trouble and the Federal government raided that trust fund to offset the shortages in those programs. Social Security was added as a new line to the Federal budget as another liability for the American taxpayer. In the biggest “double dip” in history, we now have the privilege of continuing our mandatory “contributions” to the Social Security system as well as paying ever-increasing taxes to cover the government’s budget problems wrought by exploding entitlement disbursements.
Social Security has changed too. 40% of recipients are not of retirement age and recent disclosures have shown that even illegal immigrants are drawing from this fund through one abuse or another. The entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are rife with fraud and abuse, so much so that even organized crime has found it much easier to defraud the federal government than it is to defraud banks and credit card companies. In fact, the President claims that he can pay for a large part of the healthcare bill by eliminating fraud and abuse. Unfortunately, President Clinton said the same thing back in 1993 during his push for universal healthcare.
In the sixteen years since President Clinton made his healthcare speech identifying the fraud and abuse in the healthcare system, not one bill has passed through Congress to attempt to eliminate the billions of taxpayer dollars lost to Medicare and Medicaid fraud. That leaves two possibilities. Either the Federal government is incapable of combating the fraud in which case, the cost of this legislation is going to balloon the federal deficit and explode the National Debt or the proponents of universal care needed that fraud as a tool to pass a healthcare bill when the power in congress had shifted in which case, those that willingly turned a blind eye to allow the fraud to continue for political purposes should be charged as co-conspirators. No matter what the truth is…are these the people you want to trust with your healthcare?
Curiously enough, members of Congress have no skin in the game. They have the best healthcare plan in history of man. It is free to them and they get to keep it for as long as they live no matter how long they have served in Congress. They will not add language to any of the bills going through Congress that would force them to participate in the same plan that they will force you to take and since their care is provided for them at no charge, they will not be subject to that nasty little 40% tax on “Cadillac” plans proposed in the Baucus bill. If that doesn’t insult you, I don’t know what will.
The bill that is currently under consideration does not lower your healthcare costs. In fact, independent estimates say that premiums for private healthcare insurance will triple under this bill. The same studies say that more than five million jobs will be lost as small business attempts to cope with the new taxes and mandates. Medicare will be cut by five-hundred billion dollars and even though the CBO scored the bill at $1.2 trillion dollars, their past cost evaluations of other spending bills has been historically wrong and has cost taxpayers seven to ten times that amount.
This bill doesn’t do any of the things that experts say would actually result in the healthcare cost savings that is one of the President’s highest goals. Even his primary goal of providing care for the uninsured is not met as this bill still leaves twenty five million people uninsured and they will continue to test the financial stability of our hospitals and clinics.
Over all, this is not a bad bill; it is a rotten bill and the notion that it might not be great but “we have to do something” is an idiotic statement worthy of ridicule. Throwing buckets if gasoline at a burning building is “doing something”…it just doesn’t help the goal of putting the fire out.
Paul
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