My Response

I was asked to respond to an editorial in the New York Times.

“The merged bill would cost $848 billion over the next decade and would cover some 31 million people who would otherwise be uninsured in 2019, bringing coverage to 94 percent of all citizens and legal residents below Medicare age. And it would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the first decade and by more than half-a-trillion dollars over the next decade, putting the lie to Republican charges that the reforms would drive up deficits.”

Lies? Let’s look at what some bipartisan experts say.

Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group of budget watchdogs says, "The Senate bill is better than the House version, but there's not much reform in this bill. As of now, it's basically a big entitlement expansion, plus tax increases." I can’t disagree with that.

Here's another expert, Maya MacGuineas, the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: "While this bill does a better job than the House version at reducing the deficit and controlling costs, it still doesn't do enough. Given the political system's aversion to tax increases and spending cuts, I worry about what the final bill will look like." Yeah, me too.

MacGuineas opinion is kind of neutral considering the "budget gimmicks" that made it possible for the CBO to estimate that the Senate’s would reduce federal deficits by $130 billion by 2019. (Have you heard that the deficits are now over $12.2 Trillion?)

Here’s an example of Bernie Madoff record keeping. Perhaps the biggest of those maneuvers was Reid's decision to postpone the start of subsidies to help the uninsured buy policies from mid-2013 to January 2014 -- long after taxes and fees levied by the bill would have begun.

Even with that change, there is plenty in the CBO report to suggest that the promised budget savings may not materialize. If you read deep enough, you will find that under the Senate bill, "federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period.” Hum? Is that in the Bill? Yes. Not decline. The gross increase would be almost $1 trillion -- $848 billion, to be exact, mainly to subsidize the uninsured (Entitlement program). The net increase would be $160 billion.

But remember everyone in Washington can play with numbers. The best thing to do is to look at Washington’s track record. Yes, pass performance doesn’t guarantee future performance, but when Medicare was first brought on board they said that by 1990 it would cost only $10 billion. Let’s try on $65,000,000,000. What do you think that number is today? Do we need more of this?

If you seriously think this bill is going to reduce the deficient you are sadly mistaken and gross under-informed about your government. Remember the $600 screw drivers?

But here is the real gamble. You think Democrats are really going to cut Medicare by $500 billion. When the Republicans tried to do so a few years back the Democrats came unglued. A big assumption in the CBO numbers is that this will pass.. Will future Congresses actually impose the assumed $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health pro have? I doubt it.

And then there is the 40% tax on high-premium insurance policies (Cadillac plans). Let’s say that goes through. Cha-ching, cha-ching in the government coffers? Do you think any employer will hang on to these plans despite union opposition? Nope. I don’t think Congress does either. So no revenue generated there, but CBO considers this in its number crunching.

Instead, in my humble opinion, the punitive tax is to encourage employers to dump the plans forcing more people onto the government approved plans. Why?

Because this isn’t about health care.

People with insurance tend to go to the doctors. What do you think will happen when 47 million uninsured become insured? All of a sudden there is a huge demand for medical care in a system that can’t provide it. Baby, we won’t be just talking about new regulation on mammograms.