'Conceptual Language' Hides Health Care's Costs
By Michael Barone
October 12, 2009
Page 2 of 2
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.
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: line up enough Democratic members before they can process the public opinion polls that show most voters hostile to such measures and before they are faced with probable though not certain Democratic defeats in Virginia and New Jersey in November.
Too bad the Nobel committee doesn't have a vote.
---
Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner.
COPYRIGHT 2009 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
--------------------
Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA. >> Back -- Page 1 2
++ Discuss this topic in The Forum
Current rating:  4.9 out of 5.0 (32 total votes)
| 
