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October 12, 2009
Washington Examiner editorial: The The truth about the Baucus bill - Part 1
Topics: Political News and commentariesAmericans would do well to take the time to read "The truth about the Baucus bill - Part 1," then contact the Democratic senators - by phone and email, on Hugh Hewitt's list - who need to hear from you.
As Michael Barone notes in his "Conceptual language' hides health care's cost," there are no good public policy reasons to pass such a bill hurriedly and before it can be fully analyzed and debated. Only political reasons:
[...] as the CBO noted, there's no actual Baucus bill, just some "conceptual language." Actual language, the CBO noted, might result in "significant changes" in its estimates. No wonder Democratic congressional leaders killed requirements that the actual language be posted on the Internet for 72 hours before Congress votes.Read it all.... the number most publications did not put in their headlines and lead paragraphs: the CBO's estimate that the Baucus "conceptual language" would increase federal spending by $829 billion over ten years. So how do you increase federal spending and cut the deficit at the same time?
[...] We know from past experience that cost estimates of all government health care programs (except the 2003 Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, which has private market competition) tend to understate actual costs. So the Baucus bill -- er, conceptual language -- if enacted is likely to expand government spending by more than the estimated $829 billion.
[...] The Baucus bill seeks to force more Americans to buy health insurance policies designed according to government specifications, which means they will be very expensive and consumers will be shielded from costs. But that's likely to produce an increased demand for health care procedures and bend the cost curve not downward but upward. Market incentives like those in Part D that might shift it downward are pretty much absent from the Baucus bill. All this will still, according to CBO, leave 25 million Americans without health insurance.
CBO estimaters are constrained by budget rules from guesstimating how costs will skyrocket because of political pressures. The rest of us are not. We can regard CBO's estimate of $829 billion in additional spending not as a ceiling but as a floor.
We can reasonably conclude that the Baucus bill -- or whatever similar measure Reid and Schumer concoct -- would vastly and permanently increase public sector spending and impose a crushing burden on the private sector in a weak economy. That burden would be particularly heavy on low earners forced to buy expensive policies or else pay stiff fines, with money they would otherwise receive as wages or salaries.
Posted by Abdul at October 12, 2009 10:18 AM
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