Jul 16 2009
From The Duh! Files: Government Takeover Of Healthcare Will Be Expensive
Well, it has been a while since I dusted off The Duh! Files, but here is one for the record:
The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs facing the government, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said Thursday.
…
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, who has not yet released a bill, said his panel is acutely aware of the long-term cost concern. “Clearly our committee will do what it can,†he said. “We are very seriously concerned about that issue. We very much want to come up with a bill that bends the cost curve.â€
But Baucus suggested the White House is making the task difficult with opposition to one cost-cutting approach Elmendorf cited — limiting or even ending the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits.
Well imagine that! Since the federal government has been underpaying their Medicare/Medicaid bills for decades in a cynical exercise in pretending to ‘cut costs’ it is no surprise that, when they now must pay full dollar on health care, the cost is going to go up.
Welcome to reality liberal DC Dems!
Have you read this AJ?
It is on page 16 of House Health Care bill.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage.Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:
“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither.
….. What wasn’t known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
….. The public option won’t be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Oh sure, it’ll be expensive, but if we don’t keep spending money we’ll go bankrupt!
At least that’s what Joe Biden sez!!!
“Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.”
“Well, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’†Biden said. “The answer is yes, I’m telling you.â€
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51162
The man is a GENIUS, I tell you! A GENIUS!!!
You picked a good day to reopen the Duh! file. Biden today said we need to spend a lot more money to keep from going bankrupt.
I can not believe that the same people who voted for Obama/Biden think Palin is not intellectually “qualified” to be VP.
Up date to my above post.
However, all new qualified privately offered plans must meet certain guidelines to which a grandfathered plan will not be subject; for example, a new private plan may not exclude applicants on the basis of pre-existing conditions,although a grandfathered plan may be doing just that.
Hence, the impact of the provision cited by IDB will not be to make all private insurance illegal; it will be to make sure that all newly offered private insurance complies with the new guidelines. It may be the case that the new guidelines are so onerous that private plans can not see their way to a rational business strategy, but that is a different point than the one being made by IDB.
Palin was “qualified” because such double-talk out of the Executive branch would have made her head explode.
Next expect US forces to be deployed to Honduras to “keep the peace”.
Kathie,
According to the NY Post this morning, even something as simple as a co pay change or a deductible will invalidate the grandfather clause for the plan. That means all current plans will die in a very short time.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07172009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/os_broken_promises_179667.htm
What people do not seem to understand is that ALL qualified plans will be “managed care” plans. Think HMO’s. Now, add to that we have a shortage of primary care physicians and the left’s claim we have 50K uninsured, and we have just placed a 15% increase on the type of physician we don’t have enough of, and the impact will be devastating.
I claim the only way the Democrats can get this abortion of a bill passed is by lying about what it actually does. That is why, like cap and trade and the stimulus, it needs to be passed without being read.
Rick
Rick….I agree, all plans have components and reimbursement fees dictated by the Federal government. The whole package is crappy. However I didn’t want to leave the impression that after a certain date you couldn’t enroll in a “private” plan at all, you can, it will be different then the one you previous had, though it is still considered “private”.
Something that hasn’t been talked about much is the amount of money taken from Medicare and Medicaid, $500 billion. What does that do to those programs and why haven’t people been up in arms? It appears that the wealthy, poor and elderly are going to finance middle class medical care. Could that be correct?
Kathie, I understand the requirement for the update. Mine was kind of an “ad on”.
I agree with your point on Medicare. Dick Morris agrees:
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/07/09/obama-will-repeal-medicare/
But. more interesting is the discussion at the Belmont club.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/07/06/electing-god/
If you go there, be sure to scroll down to the graph. It shows exactly your point on Medicare. Obama has said that he is looking for lots of savings out of Medicare. He and Congress are hiding the fact that the way they plan to do this is to fold Medicare into the Public Option and then ration care to the older patients. If the current Medicare population had even a clue that is what is planned, legislators would be scrambling to get away from this plan.
The only way any version of this national health care plan passes is if the details are hidden in a rush to passage. hey, it worked before.
Rick