From Fox News

Last Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi begged, cajoled, and threatened health care legislation to a successful vote in her chamber, albeit by a razor thin margin of 220-215. The administration and House leadership touted this as a landmark vote, which it is, but only if you ignore the fact that the bill achieves almost none of President Obama’s promised health reform goals. In fact, it is very likely to explode the deficit, drive up health care costs, and inflict massive new taxes on middle-class Americans.

Watching events unfold in Washington at first hand, it’s become clear that health reform has become the Democrats version of “Moby Dick,” as party leaders embrace the premise that they must pass something this year and declare victory, no matter how flawed the final product is. Unfortunately, they may sink the economy along the way.

If clearer heads prevailed, Congress would scrap these partisan bills and start over:

Both the House and Senate bills will cost well over $1 trillion over the next ten years. The CBO scores the Senate bill at $829 billion and the House bill at $1.055 trillion, but only because of the most transparent budget gimmicks. The Senate Budget Committee puts the fully-implemented price tag at roughly $2.5 trillion for the first decade – demolishing the president’s promise that reforms would not cost more than $900 billion.

The cost curve for spending gets bent…up. The CBO says spending in both bills rises at 8 percent annually as far as the eye can see and CMS actuary Richard Foster says that national health spending gets worse, not better. So much for the president’s repeated assurances that reform would slow the rate of health care inflation.

New entitlements plus cost growth equals taxes, and debt, debt, debt. The CBO only scores the bills as reducing the deficit because Democrats pretend that Medicare docs will get slashed by over 20 percent in two years. Reality says Congress will borrow about $240 billion for the “doc fix”. Democrats pretend they will cut over $400 billion out of Medicare through more vigorous price controls – cuts that will never live to see the light of day. Get ready for a bubble in health entitlement debt.

What isn’t borrowed in these plans is inflicted on drug companies, diagnostic companies, private health insurance companies, “Cadillac” health plans, and individuals and businesses that don’t buy government mandated coverage. These taxes and fees, roughly 90 percent of which fall on families making under $200,000 a year, must grow even faster (10 percent annually) to keep up with the new spending spree.

Private insurance: expensive or off-limits. Taxes, fees and ill-conceived insurance reforms raise the specter of double-digit premium inflation for the majority of Americans with insurance. Millions will find their policies don’t pass muster with the bill’s insurance czar, driving them to more costly policies. The rest? Fifteen million will be thrust into Medicaid as eligibility rises to 150 percent of poverty.

It’s not too late for moderates and conservatives in Congress to force Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to chart a safer, bipartisan course. Here are five fundamental, commonsense reforms that will cost less, improve health care quality, and expand coverage:

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Democrats, Failed Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.