Health Care Update

Despite the loud public disapproval of the notoriously bulky and controversial health care bill, the Senate voted 219 to 212 in favor of passing a bill that we are told will cost $848 billion over the next ten years, but will actually cost about $2.5 trillion over ten years without the legislative gimmicks (tax hikes, spending cuts, and most new spending beginning in 2014) that are implemented by top Democrats to hide actual costs from the public. I shall elaborate more fully later. And, thankfully, not one Republican voted for the partisan bill, and quite a few Democrats didn't as well, despite the extreme and threatening pressure exerted on them by leaders of their party. It's nice to know that at least some of the members of Congress are bearing in mind their Constitutional job descriptions when they choose to vote.

Then, on Tuesday, Obama signed the trillion-dollar health care overhaul into law, in his usual style, which included a ceremony and positive, professional images to be posted across his media. Pelosi leans over anxiously, watching happily as the President of the United States proudly signed a document opposed by the majority of the people, but fitting his personal ideologies, and those of his closest members. Grouped in this picture, we can see the happy smiles of the tiny group of people controlling this nation. And the textbook pages in civics classes are being flipped right now, as kids try to understand how the man praised by their teachers as an official sworn in to protect our Constitutional rights, can ignore our voices and make decisions for the entire country based on what he and a few other radicals feel is "right." Those poor kids, sitting at their desks and scratching their heads as they compare what we are seeing with the definition of our form of government and wondering if there has been some kind of typing error, have no idea just what this generation has gotten them into.

The major provisions of this bill will not take effect until January 1, 2014, due to the fact that we will need to raise 10 years worth of revenue in order to pay for the first 6 years of "ObamaCare." Provisions, such as increased funding to high risk pools, however, will take effect immediately.

So what can we expect from this health care bill? Why is the American public so upset? Well, despite the idealistic naivety of loyal liberals who truly do believe that this bill is going to "help poor people," a packet of paper this long, expensive and politicized cannot be summed up so simply. The intention of this bill is stated to be to "expand access to health insurance, reform the health insurance market to provide additional consumer protections, and improve the health care delivery system to reduce costs and produce better outcomes," according to the Senate's Legislative Notice Summary. What this translates to in the real world and economy is this: To pay for the expansion of insurance coverage, the bill is going to increase our taxes by $493.6 billion dollars, reduce Medicare spending by $464.6 billion, cut $134.9 billion from our hospitals, $120 billion from Medicare Advantage (MA), $14.6 billion from nursing homes, $42.1 billion from home health agencies, and $7.7 billion from hospices according to that same summary. The U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee also noted that, "Among more prominent taxes, the bill includes a new 40% excise tax on health insurance plans that exceed $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families, raising $149.1 billion over 10 years..." It explained that there will also be a new Medicare payroll tax collecting $53.8 billion from Americans working to earn a higher income, a $60.4 billion tax on health insurers, $22.2 billion tax on drug manufacturers, and a $19.3 billion tax on Medical device manufacturers.

Now, I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure that you cannot force companies to produce more and to pay higher taxes for doing so, and to then lower their prices and somehow stay above the water. Anyone with the most basic sense of economics can see that what this plan is calling for simply cannot work beyond the sheet of paper it is written on. But apparently, the handful of men and women with power in this country, are somehow missing this. No wonder the teleprompter only gives us vague descriptions of the goals of the bill. If it told us what the bill actually includes, even more Americans would be upset. I mean, a majority already is of course, but can you imagine what would happen when the rulers' remaining followers realize that the benefits they were promised are short term and only being received by a small group at the expense of everyone else? The only way to allow for such an explosive growth in government, would be to mask it as something else. No one in their right mind, if aware of the actual consequences (which harm everyone, including "the poor"), would support nearly half a trillion dollars more in taxes ($494 billion), another half a trillion in Medicare cuts ($465 billion), premiums that are on average higher than what we already have in the private sector, 24 million still uninsured, along cutting the money we spend on doctors and hospitals.

Aside from the fact that this document is unconstitutional (and not just in that it tries to remove judiciary checks on the Congress so that they can have the authority to do this), arguably illegal and so witlessly slopped together that it will succeed only in further harming all that it claims to assist.

Luckily, my fellow unrepresented citizens, we will have a chance to undo this grave mistake so that we can implement a more rational, intelligent, economically sound plan for reform. Our health care system needs fiscally responsible reform, because if we create a big Change that then drowns key elements of the medical system (i.e. insurance companies, hospitals, medical professionals), then we will only be paying ourselves and the following generations further into debt in order to complete the destruction of a fundamental societal institution. I for one am extremely annoyed that some group of politicians has just ruled that they can take the money of my parents' generation, my generation, and of my children and my grandchildren, in order to destroy our medical system through the type of pure and utter failure that it appears only large and inefficient governments have the power to so extensively commit.

I will include more updates, including updates from various news sources, but for now, I have to get to class.
Feel free to check out the Budget Committee's fact sheet on the Democrats' Change, as it was planned in Congress here, if you're curious:
http://budget.senate.gov/republican/pressarchive/2009-11-19HealthCareFactSheet.pdf
The Senate summaries can also be found online and I encourage everyone to read (or at least skim) as much as your mind can handle so that the public can be more aware of what we are up against. Thanks for reading!