A bad headache doesn’t usually require brain surgery, yet that’s the approach the Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are preparing to take with their health care reform bill.
The House plan will unleash the biggest, most expensive government takeover of the health care delivery system since the creation of Medicare. Cost estimates range from just under $900 billion to $1.2 trillion over ten years.
The first question should be whether the country, which is already in danger of being swamped under a mountain of debt, can afford this plan. One of the arguments I often hear is, “We can’t afford NOT to do it.”
That’s catchy, but unconvincing. That suggests one of these congressional mega-plans is the only alternative to the legitimate problems of providing coverage for the working poor and those who can’t get insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
Republicans have put forth plans to open up the insurance market so people can shop across state lines for coverage and spend $60 billion over ten years to provide coverage for another 3 million people.
That doesn’t sound like it goes far enough, but it’s a reasonable starting point for negotiations toward an incremental and more cost-effective approach to health care reform. It’s better than the Democratic scheme of jumping ahead with a massive new entitlement with no bipartisan support.
Somehow, the Democratic leadership contends, Congress has the political will to reduce Medicare payments by one-half trillion dollars over the next ten years to help play for its plan.
The new public option insurance program will be restricted to those who can’t get insurance through their employer or work for small companies. And somehow, advocates would have us believe, this entitlement will not be expanded in future years to include more and more Americans who crave taxpayer subsidized coverage.
Somehow, the states will be able to take on billions of dollars more in Medicaid expenses when the federal government starts shifting those costs for the expanded program out of Washington and into Charleston and the rest of the state capitals.
Somehow, the wealth creators of the country will willingly accept a tax surcharge of 5.4 percent and head out each day as enthusiastic as they were before about working hard to create new jobs and opportunity.
Somehow this 2,000 page bill that contains the word “shall” over 3,000 times does not represent a significant shift in the responsibility for health decisions from the individual and their doctor to Washington.
There is very little in the history of government created entitlement programs to suggest that what is promised will be delivered at the advertised price. True, the current system needs reform, but the House Democrats should put down the scalpel and see if there is a less traumatic way to treat the patient.
(Editors note: West Virginia’s two Democratic Congressmen—Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan—are expected to vote for the bill, though both have concerns about federal dollars being used to pay for abortions. Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, is expected to vote against the bill when the House votes on Saturday).
