Not Surprising… 3 Reasons ObamaCare Won’t Cut Deficit By One Thin Dime (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on March 24, 2010
H/t to Nice Deb for the following video.
ReasonTV: 3 Reasons Health Care Reform Won’t Cut the Deficit By One Thin Dime
From Debra J. Saunders, Rasmussen Reports: ObamaCare Means: Don’t Look Behind the Curtain:
There are a few provisions in the bill Congress ultimately passed that should cut costs. For example, Democrats bravely and correctly chose to yank $120 billion to subsidize Medicare Advantage programs. Because Medicare is running in the red, seniors should pay for their extras.
Other than that, ObamaCare’s alleged deficit reduction of $138 billion is pure fiction — and it is so bald I do not understand why the Democrats even bothered.
Consider the “doc fix.” In April, Medicare payments to physicians are supposed to be reduced by 21 percent, as Washington’s standard way of cutting spending has been to pass laws calling for spending reductions without cutting services.
In a press conference last week, Pelosi said Congress is committed to passing a “doc fix.” But it wasn’t in Sunday’s bill because the $208 billion tab for the fix would turn ObamaCare’s fictional $138 billion in deficit reduction into $59 billion in deficit spending by 2019.
In the Sunday New York Times, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former economic adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., criticized the inclusion of $70 billion in premiums for a new Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program in the bill to feed the illusion of deficit reduction, when “the benefits it is intended to finance are assumed not to materialize in the first 10 years, so they appear nowhere in the cost of the legislation.”
My fear is that as soon as workers see more than $100 withheld from their monthly paychecks for this plan, they will run from that scheme clutching onto their wallets — while only low-income workers who are subsidized by taxpayers would remain. It could be Adverse Selection Hell.
The largest fiction of all, however, is the contention that ObamaCare will reduce America’s health care costs. Some 32 million people eventually will be covered. Families of four earning as much as $88,000 per year will be eligible for health-care tax credits.
The Senate bill established an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health care plans — the House stalled the starting date for this tax from 2013 to 2018 — with the argument that only a tax on employer-funded plans can prompt consumers to cut costs. But how? New plans will have to cover the full freight for preventive care, including annual physicals.
Pelosi boasted the measure would “end insurance company discrimination based on pre-existing conditions.” Forcing insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions is a good thing. But do not tell me it will reduce costs.
And don’t tell me that the typical family will save $2,500. You see, you have to be elected to Washington to buy that brand of new math.
From The Foundry, Reconciliation Bill Adds Even More Taxes:
By signing the legislation, Obama already broke his campaign promise not to raise “any form” of taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year. The reconciliation bill adds even more taxes for Americans — an estimated $52.3 billion over 10 years, according to a new analysis from Americans for Tax Reform.
ATR’s Ryan Ellis spoke at The Bloggers Briefing yesterday about the reconciliation measure: ”We lost a major fight on Sunday. That fight is lost; President Obama has signed it into law. Rather than wallowing … and waiting until the election, we have a fight this week on the floor in the Senate. Do we want to have an additional tax increase on top of the tax increase that has just been signed into law?”
Related:
Heritage Foundation: Morning Bell: Congress vs. The American People
Michelle Malkin: The Demcare control freaks are partying hard and The gloater-in-chief: “Another stone laid in the foundation of the American dream;” Pelosi jokes: “No money exchanged hands (laughter);” Slaughter: “There is nothing now that we can’t tackle” and Attorneys general launch lawsuit backlash against Demcare
Andrew Marcus, Big Government: On The Streets Of Chicago: ‘People Wanted Change, This Is Change. They Need to Shut Up.’
Radio Vice Online: Media buries the real math of health care reform
Wall Street Journal: Inside the Pelosi Sausage Factory
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Limbaugh & the New 85-15 Mandate: How ObamaCare Deliberately Kills the Health Insurance Industry… Insurance Agents, Polish up Those Résumés and Backlash Thunder Rising: America Won’t Tolerate Democrat Politicians Who Betrayed Their Constituents by Voting for ObamaCare (video) and Pro-Life Judas: Bart Stupak’s Betrayal for a Few Pieces of Silver to Vote “Yes” on Abortion and ObamaCare… What Price Trust & Honor, Bart? (video)
No Sheeples Here: Flaws In ObamaCare Force New House Vote
The Heritage Foundation: Stupak Admits He Allowed Obama to Fund Abortions With Taxpayer Money
HillBuzz: Your mission is to drive every Leftist from power, to defund the DNC, and to repeal what was done yesterday.
Ed Driscoll, Pajamas Media: Happy Dependence Day!
Patterico’s Pontifications: Signed, Sealed, and Flubbed and Obama Signs Health Care Bill and “Have You Read the Bill? . . . Hell No You Haven’t!”
Legal Insurrection: The Morning After the Morning After
Gateway Pundit: NY Times Praises Marxist Redistribution of Wealth in Obamacare and Obama Opens Mouth at Health Care Bill Signing – Lies and Indiana Dem Senatorial Candidate Down 18 Points After Voting For Obamacare: and All Shook Up… Bart Stupak Partied Down With Fellow Dem Reps After Pro-Abortion Obamacare Vote
Flopping Aces: Can ObamaCare Be Stopped….And If Not, What Is Our Future? and ObamaCare Passes But All Is Not Lost and Gear Up for Repeal!
Mcnorman’s Weblog: Flashback: Obama’s Promise on Using Executive Power to Change Laws
The Conservative Pup: Did You Hear That?
Charging Elephant: RNC Chairman has Declared War on Nancy Pelosi
Paul A. Rahe, Big Government: Hope and Change: Had Enough?
Diary of a Mad Conservative: How a bill becomes law – nothing like Schoolhouse Rock
Voting Female: Obama is a LIAR: children with pre-existing conditions and ObamaCare’s ‘Caucasians Only’ Tax and FOX’s Leftist, Shepard Smith, attacks Michael Steele and Conservatives and Legislate by death threats; Democrat Party of Broken Kneecaps and CBO’s Obamacare Score? Off by over $1 trillion; double spending is the lie that won’t go away
Ztower: Wanted: Honest, hardworking citizen to fill open seat in the House of Reprehensibles.
Nice Deb: There Will Be Lots More Of This To Come… and CA Rep Introducing New Legislation to add “Robust Public Option” and Obama To Take Victory Lap To Iowa and Heritage Foundation President Calls Actions Taken By Dems Leading To Obamacare Cram-down, “Intolerable Acts”
GayPatriot: Repeal and Reform: Republicans’ Next Step on Health Care and Obamacare passed, now, AP says, Obama Must Sell it, Huh? and How many Democrats lost their jobs last night?
Temple of Mut: Today I MOURN for our Republic; tomorrow, I FIGHT for it
Motor City Times: Americas Worst Governor, Jennifer Granholm, Applauds The Government Takeover Of Health Care
Ace of Spades HQ: Stupak Did Not Cave, Because In Order To Cave You Have To Have Principles In The First Place
Another Black Conservative: ObamaCare aftermath: Let the lawsuits begin
FOX News: Media Cast First Vote for Health Care
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