The Health Care Shell Game
Mar 19, 2010 Political
The CBO numbers came out and Democrats are giddy. They believe the numbers reported mean that the health care takeover bill will save money and reduce the deficit. This is far from the truth. The CBO can only grade what they are given and they are only given items that are expected to give the desired result. It is a shell game that all politicians play when they want to hide the true cost of any legislation.
The reality of the health care takeover is that it will increase the deficit. The doc-fix is something that has been going on for a long time. In order to reimburse doctors the amount needed for Medicare patients, a separate bill is introduced each year to fix the problem. The fix is usually added to some other spending bill to reduce the cost of Medicare. Last year it was added to the Defense bill so the cost, on paper, was not borne by Medicare.
The doc-fix was supposed to be a part of the health care takeover bill and it should be. It would have been a permanent part of health care so that there would be no future need for doc-fixes. But that fix caused a deficit so the Democrats removed it from the bill and made it a separate piece of legislation. The money must still be spent but removing it from the health care takeover bill kept the CBO from scoring it against the bill. Keep in mind, this is still a cost that must be borne no matter what bill it appears in.
The CBO states, despite what Democrats claim (Obama made the claim today), that the health care takeover would increase the deficit. This is an assessment based on including the doc-fix in the health care takeover bill.
The Congressional Budget Office said Friday that rolling back a programmed cut in Medicare fees to doctors would cost $208 billion over 10 years. If added back to the health care overhaul bill, it would wipe out all the deficit reduction, leaving the legislation $59 billion in the red.
The so-called doc fix was part of the original House bill. Because of its high cost, Democrats decided to pursue it separately. Republicans say the cost should not be ignored. Congress has usually waived the cuts to doctors year by year. Yahoo News
Republicans are correct in saying that this cost should not be ignored because it is a cost associated with health care. Democrats are deliberately ignoring it to give the false impression that the health care takeover bill will reduce the deficit.
It will actually cause the takeover to be 59 BILLION dollars in the red. That is 59 Billion more dollars added to the deficit.
This is a shell game being played in order to get this takeover passed. The bill is not about health and it is not about care. It is about control. Once the government controls health care it will control the people and this is what Democrats want, control over you.
Keep in mind that VP Biden said that the government would control the health care companies (it is about control) and Nancy Pelosi said that this was the start and that more would be done after this passes. They want the public option and this is what she is talking about. When Obama was being skewered by Bret Baier this week he disclosed that this is a start and that they were working incrementally to get more. He has stated in the past that the public option was the goal and he alluded to that in the interview. He pointed out that Canada did not get where it is all at once, that they did it in steps. This health care takeover is the first of many steps to get to a public option and take complete control of our lives.
To ensure that we are controlled by the government the bill puts the IRS in charge of checking on each of us every month to make sure we are insured. If we do not have insurance they will fine us and take the money from any refund due or otherwise fine us. The government will use the IRS to enforce the dictatorial rules on us and that will cost about 10 BILLION more dollars that will have to be paid but will not be counted against the cost of the legislation even though the expense is a direct result of it.
The process is unconstitutional and it is contrary to what a free people expect. Once government controls our lives we have lost our freedom and this is what Democrats want.
We also need to understand that Obama is in favor of using the same jaded and unconstitutional processes to pass the rest of his agenda. How far will this go? How far does it have to go before Americans revolt?
I do not know the answer but I know that I will not relinquish my freedom without a fight.
And all true Americans feel the same.
We will teach these people that they work for us and that we are not their servants.
One way or another they are going to learn this lesson.
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Tags: constitution, deficit, health care, irs, lies, Obama, shell game