Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on October 13, 2009

Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota

Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota has voiced much of the same concerns I’ve had about the government-run health care proposals bouncing around Washington. The final bill, which no one has yet seen since it still doesn’t exist, reportedly will remake our current system at a tremendous, unsustainable cost, but doesn’t bother to analyze nor attempt to remedy what has been driving up health care costs these many years.

Gov. Pawlenty makes many salient points. I only hope Washington listens.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), Big Government: The Baucus Prescription: Higher Taxes and Higher Premiums (Updated):

…Senate Democrats are pushing a vote on the 1,000-page bill now because the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the bill cost “only” $829 billion over the next 10 years. In truth, the bill raises taxes immediately, but the benefits do not kick in for another four years, so the 10-year numbers are distorted. This is an expensive experiment that cuts Medicare, and exacerbates state government budget problems by dramatically expanding Medicaid without providing additional funding.

How do the Democrats propose to pay for the rest of the new spending? There are a massive amount of tax increases in the bill, including over $200 billion in tax increases on insurance premiums, new taxes on individuals and employers, and over $120 billion in new taxes on medical device makers and other health care businesses. All of these tax increases concern me, but the latter category does so especially: My state is the home of Medtronic, Boston Scientific, 3M, St. Jude Medical and other medical technology makers that employ 60,000 Minnesotans and save and improve countless lives. Increasing taxes on these businesses would not only be an unwise burden on these employers, but would siphon money otherwise spent on research and development. It would also risk the cost of increased taxes being passed on, directly or indirectly, to those who rely on such devices or who cover their cost.

The Democrats are proposing these tax increases to offset the costs of mandating and subsidizing the purchase of health care by every American. Expanding health care access to all Americans is an admirable goal and one that I share – but one that also cannot be accomplished without addressing the root cause of America’s health care crisis, something the Baucus bill fails to do.

Expanding access is important, but achieving that goal, and doing so in a fiscally sound manner, requires that we focus on the forces driving up health care costs. Otherwise costs will continue to grow in an unsustainable way, and, as we’ve seen in other states, government mandates will only shift the burden of exploding costs onto the shoulders of taxpayers and ordinary Americans unable to cover them.

There are many bipartisan ideas that would actually cut health care costs, like medical liability reform, allowing employees to keep their insurance when they switch jobs, standardizing health information technology, and allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines. In Minnesota, we’ve passed reforms that made price and quality more transparent for patients, moving the health care system towards paying for and achieving better health care outcomes, and empowering patients themselves to help drive down costs.

Congress should look at what we are doing in Minnesota, among the healthiest states in the nation, where we have the highest concentration of health savings accounts in the country and other market-based reforms that are containing costs. A vote for the Baucus bill today is a move in the opposite direction – towards higher premiums, higher taxes, and more government.

Click the link here to read Pawlenty’s proposal that he presented today.

The current version of the ObamaCare bill also presents additional taxes and harsh penalties on Americans in order to have the billions of dollars necessary to do what Democrats claim it will do. Despite rhetoric that the final bill will not cover illegal aliens, the current language in the bill doesn’t enforce such a claim, according to Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa on Sean Hannity’s radio program today. Sen. Grassley is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which voted today on the Senate’s still-rough-draft version of the health care bill.

Government-run health care here and in UK, and that White House “white coats” sham from the past week:
Riehl World View: Feds Use Intimidation To Silence Critics On Health Care Reform
Philip Klein, American Spectator: Baucus’s Accounting Trick
American Glob: Pawlenty Says Baucus Bill is a Tax & Spend Bill
James C. Capretta, National Review Online: The Baucus Death Spiral
Neovatara: Olympia Snowe: RINO, Defector…And Possible Saviour?
BBC News: ‘Basic care’ lacking in hospitals and Fear over NHS compensation scale and Prison food ‘beats NHS hospitals’ and Hospital food waste is almost £1m
Telegraph: Daughter claims father wrongly placed on controversial NHS end of life scheme and ‘Cruel and neglectful’ care of one million NHS patients exposed and Sufferers pull out teeth due to lack of dentists and Dying patients and Number of NHS patients given wrong medicine doubles
Track-A-’Crat: Another Health Care Victim
Michelle Malkin: Hands off my health care. Teeth off my hands.
HillBuzz: It’s her again…on Facebook
VotingFemale Speaks!: Sarah Palin Calls Out Obama; Where’s the Tort Reform, Socialist? and Obama-Pelosi Declare WAR; Demonizing Health Industry; Warning, Socialist Demons At Work and ObamaCare will imprison you if you do not obey
The Western Experience: British health care at its best!
MensNewsDaily: The Real Cost Of Health Care In France
Irish Election: The next healthcare scandal?
The Weekly Standard: Choosy Moms Don’t Choose Socialized Medicine
Wellsy’s World: Canadian health system “not sustainable,” looking to privatize
Are you Freaking Stupid?: Healthcare Industry Adds 544,000 Jobs During Recession, Will Media Notice? | NewsBusters.org
Tiger Hawk: Canadian brain surgery

Categories: Business & Economy, Conservatism, Health, Media & Communication, Social and Political Climate
Tags: America, Americans against ObamaCare, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, government-run health care, health care issues, health care reform, Iowa, Max Baucus, Minnesota, nationalized health care, ObamaCare, Republican, Sean Hannity, Sen. Charles Grassley, Senate Finance Committee, socialized health care