During the healthcare summit there was a charged moment where President Obama accused Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of misrepresenting how the cost of private healthcare insurance premiums would change if the current Senate bill were adopted. The President chided Senator Alexander, speaking down to him as you would an unruly child, “This is one of those times when it is important to get the facts straight” insisting that premiums for private healthcare insurance would go down under his plan.
As it turns out, the President’s figures are, as usual, a product of careful crafted semantics. According to the CBO analysis, the cost for private healthcare insurance will rise between ten and thirteen percent but the president doesn’t want to discuss that. What he referred to are plans that will be constructed with the new mandates for increased coverage; plans that the insurers will have to provide if they wish to sell their insurance as one of the “approved” plans through the proposed exchange. If private insurance currently offered plans that cover pre-existing conditions and if they offered plans that provided portability and only if these plans were available to anyone regardless of which state they live in; these expanded plans offered through the government exchange would be lower in cost than you could have purchased them without the exchange.
Well, that assessment may be theoretically correct but it’s hardly honest. Those plans do not exist because the mandates that will force insurers to provide the key components have not been passed into law, at least not yet. Senator Alexander was absolutely correct in stating that the plan that you have now will see a price increase of ten to thirteen percent as a direct result of the passage of this bill. How the President claims that premium costs for a plan that doesn’t exist yet will drop is nothing more than D.C. trickery and can only be achieved if you are willing to imagine what those plans would have cost if they did exist in the absence of a national exchange, premium caps and government subsidies.
If just the first five minutes of the summit exposed such a blatant lie, then what else is there? Let’s start with their favorite phrase…budget neutral. The President said he would not sign a bill that added one dime to the deficit. Really? This week, everyone is aware of Senator Bunning’s resistance to the passage of a bill that will provide an emergency extension of unemployment benefits and will extend Medicare payments that were facing an automatic 21% cut. The emergency bill has a price tag of ten billion dollars and Bunning wants to know how it is being paid for before he votes for it. The Senate just passed “Pay-go”, a Senate law that requires them to offset new spending with either tax increases or corresponding cuts in other areas of the budget. It is Bunning’s opinion that if the can’t find ten billion for this, then what is the possibility that they will obey the Pay-go mandate on larger bills that require even harder choices; like healthcare.
As it turns out, the Healthcare bill would have added to the deficit even with the planned $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $500 billion in new taxes so they resorted to nothing less than voodoo economics to show the neutrality the President said he would require. The taxes and spending cuts begin in year one while the expenditures are pushed off until 2014. The CBO analysis shows ten years worth of income but only six years of expenses but since Congress didn’t request an analysis of the ten years from 2014 to 2024, the report doesn’t show the real deficits in the legislation. The 2014-2024 analysis was performed through a series of independent audits and estimates the real deficit to be anywhere from $2.7 trillion dollars to a whopping $5 trillion dollars. Why don’t I believe the CBO? Well, they can only score what is given to them and this bill was written by the masters of deception to intentionally take advantage of the scoring system. Congress used the same tactics to pass Johnson’s “Great Society” and the result was the CBO said Medicare and Medicaid would only cost $9 billion dollars a year by now and it is currently a mind numbing $408 billion dollars or 13.34% of the Federal budget. With all this in mind, do you trust the CBO?
Worse yet is the $500 billion in Medicare cuts are being counted twice; once to reduce the cost of the Medicare program and then again to expand Medicare coverage to the poor. Well, everyone knows you can’t spend the same dollar twice; everyone that is, except Congress. That logic reminds me of the old cartoons where the character had a string tied to his nickel so he could pluck it back out of the pay phone after making his call. Yeah, it was an old cartoon. The point is that was theft and so is this. In fact, if anyone else tried this budget maneuver, especially public companies, it would be a criminal act but somehow, Congress has exempted itself from any real examination so I guess it’s only a criminal act if someone is watching. That this is the lesson we have learned from the actions of Congress is shameful.
Republicans have been asking for the retirement of a Federal regulation that prohibits health insurers from competing across State lines. The President says this is already in the Senate bill; but is it? What the Republicans are talking about is an actual free market reform where the insurance companies themselves would advertise their product and compete with each other. What the President is talking about is the exchange. The exchange would feature plans from a whole host of providers that meet the government seal of approval. These plans would be available only through the exchange so there would be no competition between plans across State lines unless the Federal government has its fingers in the middle of it. What is the difference? Free competition across State lines doesn’t cost the American taxpayer anything. The exchange is a part of this multi-trillion dollar healthcare bill.
If you have a plan that you like you can keep it also seems to have been subtly changed. If you’ve noticed, they haven’t really been saying that lately and have changed it by saying instead “you can keep your doctor”. Ok, you can keep your doctor as opposed to what? Seeing a plumber or a used car salesman for medical care? They gave up on saying that you can keep a health insurance plan you like because that is simply not true with this legislation. Certain plans that meet government approval will be “grandfathered” in, only to be phased out at a later date. Of course the grandfathering will depend on whether or not those plans will even exist once the mandates for expanded care and pre-existing conditions have been imposed. Those that already meet government approval are the higher priced “Cadillac” plans that will have an additional tax placed on them. When that tax will be imposed depends largely on which plan makes it through the reconciliation process. The President’s alternative delays that tax until 2018 while the Senate bill imposes the tax immediately.
This is just the tip of the iceberg with other, more nefarious, details carefully hidden from view until the controlling board is formed and the mandates start flowing from that body of twenty-six Presidential appointees, shaping the care you will receive. When the President says there are no death panels or rationing in this bill, he is right; to a point. The reason that the opposition cannot find them and the President can stand firm on his claims that they don’t exist is that the bulk of what this “reform” legislation is capable of doing is entirely in the hands of the new bureaucracy it will create. The health benefits board will determine what benefits will be covered and who will receive them. We saw a preview of that when the government panel that advises the nation on healthcare issues released a document downgrading the importance of breast cancer screenings; raising the age when first screenings should take place and limiting them to once every two years instead of the currently recommended annual examination.
Of course, doctors and women’s rights advocates across the county shouted out against this and the government dismissed the outcry, saying it was merely a suggestion but what happens when the government controlled health benefits board begin to make policy that affects medical insurance coverage based on those recommendations? We already have a fiscal crisis looming that will affect every man, woman and child in America as our deficit and debt spiral out of control. If I am right in my assessment and all we will have after ten years of government control of health insurance is government health insurance or “Universal” care, will that care be rationed because of the financial crisis? Of course it will. All you need to do is look at the nations that have already adopted a single payer healthcare system and every one of them has rationed care, waiting lists or both.
Paul
As it turns out, the President’s figures are, as usual, a product of careful crafted semantics. According to the CBO analysis, the cost for private healthcare insurance will rise between ten and thirteen percent but the president doesn’t want to discuss that. What he referred to are plans that will be constructed with the new mandates for increased coverage; plans that the insurers will have to provide if they wish to sell their insurance as one of the “approved” plans through the proposed exchange. If private insurance currently offered plans that cover pre-existing conditions and if they offered plans that provided portability and only if these plans were available to anyone regardless of which state they live in; these expanded plans offered through the government exchange would be lower in cost than you could have purchased them without the exchange.
Well, that assessment may be theoretically correct but it’s hardly honest. Those plans do not exist because the mandates that will force insurers to provide the key components have not been passed into law, at least not yet. Senator Alexander was absolutely correct in stating that the plan that you have now will see a price increase of ten to thirteen percent as a direct result of the passage of this bill. How the President claims that premium costs for a plan that doesn’t exist yet will drop is nothing more than D.C. trickery and can only be achieved if you are willing to imagine what those plans would have cost if they did exist in the absence of a national exchange, premium caps and government subsidies.
If just the first five minutes of the summit exposed such a blatant lie, then what else is there? Let’s start with their favorite phrase…budget neutral. The President said he would not sign a bill that added one dime to the deficit. Really? This week, everyone is aware of Senator Bunning’s resistance to the passage of a bill that will provide an emergency extension of unemployment benefits and will extend Medicare payments that were facing an automatic 21% cut. The emergency bill has a price tag of ten billion dollars and Bunning wants to know how it is being paid for before he votes for it. The Senate just passed “Pay-go”, a Senate law that requires them to offset new spending with either tax increases or corresponding cuts in other areas of the budget. It is Bunning’s opinion that if the can’t find ten billion for this, then what is the possibility that they will obey the Pay-go mandate on larger bills that require even harder choices; like healthcare.
As it turns out, the Healthcare bill would have added to the deficit even with the planned $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $500 billion in new taxes so they resorted to nothing less than voodoo economics to show the neutrality the President said he would require. The taxes and spending cuts begin in year one while the expenditures are pushed off until 2014. The CBO analysis shows ten years worth of income but only six years of expenses but since Congress didn’t request an analysis of the ten years from 2014 to 2024, the report doesn’t show the real deficits in the legislation. The 2014-2024 analysis was performed through a series of independent audits and estimates the real deficit to be anywhere from $2.7 trillion dollars to a whopping $5 trillion dollars. Why don’t I believe the CBO? Well, they can only score what is given to them and this bill was written by the masters of deception to intentionally take advantage of the scoring system. Congress used the same tactics to pass Johnson’s “Great Society” and the result was the CBO said Medicare and Medicaid would only cost $9 billion dollars a year by now and it is currently a mind numbing $408 billion dollars or 13.34% of the Federal budget. With all this in mind, do you trust the CBO?
Worse yet is the $500 billion in Medicare cuts are being counted twice; once to reduce the cost of the Medicare program and then again to expand Medicare coverage to the poor. Well, everyone knows you can’t spend the same dollar twice; everyone that is, except Congress. That logic reminds me of the old cartoons where the character had a string tied to his nickel so he could pluck it back out of the pay phone after making his call. Yeah, it was an old cartoon. The point is that was theft and so is this. In fact, if anyone else tried this budget maneuver, especially public companies, it would be a criminal act but somehow, Congress has exempted itself from any real examination so I guess it’s only a criminal act if someone is watching. That this is the lesson we have learned from the actions of Congress is shameful.
Republicans have been asking for the retirement of a Federal regulation that prohibits health insurers from competing across State lines. The President says this is already in the Senate bill; but is it? What the Republicans are talking about is an actual free market reform where the insurance companies themselves would advertise their product and compete with each other. What the President is talking about is the exchange. The exchange would feature plans from a whole host of providers that meet the government seal of approval. These plans would be available only through the exchange so there would be no competition between plans across State lines unless the Federal government has its fingers in the middle of it. What is the difference? Free competition across State lines doesn’t cost the American taxpayer anything. The exchange is a part of this multi-trillion dollar healthcare bill.
If you have a plan that you like you can keep it also seems to have been subtly changed. If you’ve noticed, they haven’t really been saying that lately and have changed it by saying instead “you can keep your doctor”. Ok, you can keep your doctor as opposed to what? Seeing a plumber or a used car salesman for medical care? They gave up on saying that you can keep a health insurance plan you like because that is simply not true with this legislation. Certain plans that meet government approval will be “grandfathered” in, only to be phased out at a later date. Of course the grandfathering will depend on whether or not those plans will even exist once the mandates for expanded care and pre-existing conditions have been imposed. Those that already meet government approval are the higher priced “Cadillac” plans that will have an additional tax placed on them. When that tax will be imposed depends largely on which plan makes it through the reconciliation process. The President’s alternative delays that tax until 2018 while the Senate bill imposes the tax immediately.
This is just the tip of the iceberg with other, more nefarious, details carefully hidden from view until the controlling board is formed and the mandates start flowing from that body of twenty-six Presidential appointees, shaping the care you will receive. When the President says there are no death panels or rationing in this bill, he is right; to a point. The reason that the opposition cannot find them and the President can stand firm on his claims that they don’t exist is that the bulk of what this “reform” legislation is capable of doing is entirely in the hands of the new bureaucracy it will create. The health benefits board will determine what benefits will be covered and who will receive them. We saw a preview of that when the government panel that advises the nation on healthcare issues released a document downgrading the importance of breast cancer screenings; raising the age when first screenings should take place and limiting them to once every two years instead of the currently recommended annual examination.
Of course, doctors and women’s rights advocates across the county shouted out against this and the government dismissed the outcry, saying it was merely a suggestion but what happens when the government controlled health benefits board begin to make policy that affects medical insurance coverage based on those recommendations? We already have a fiscal crisis looming that will affect every man, woman and child in America as our deficit and debt spiral out of control. If I am right in my assessment and all we will have after ten years of government control of health insurance is government health insurance or “Universal” care, will that care be rationed because of the financial crisis? Of course it will. All you need to do is look at the nations that have already adopted a single payer healthcare system and every one of them has rationed care, waiting lists or both.
Paul
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