Talk about a no-brainer. Why shouldn't the United States save lots of money and help tens of millions of people?
Today the Congressional Budget Office released an updated analysis of the Senate's health care reform bill, which will be the basis for an improved version planned to be passed through reconciliation.
The bottom line is that the deficit will be reduced by $118 billion over the next ten years, which is just about the same as what the CBO projected in a previous analysis.
So why are Republicans united in their opposition to a bill that markedly reduces the deficit while giving thirty million people health insurance? Unless they like to see 44,000 deaths a year from a lack of insurance, there must be another reason.
Hating Obama and wanting to score electoral victories next November obviously is what comes to mind. Which is shameful, since public officials should be working to benefit all Americans, not just their political party.
You'd think that Tea Party types would be up in arms over Republicans wanting to sacrifice taxpayer money and lives in an effort to win a few elections. In fact, everybody should be outraged about this.
The problem, as Ezra Klein points out, is that not many people have taken the time to learn about what the health care reform bill really does, as opposed to what Republican lies purport it does.
People understand the part of the bill that costs money: We're buying health-care insurance for folks who can't afford it themselves. They don't understand the parts of the bill that save money: We're taxing high-value benefits? We've got a Medicare Commission empowered to make unnamed reforms to the system? We're moving toward bundling for hospital payments in Medicare? And since few know about these policies, much less understand them, the projections that show the bill saving money don't make much sense, and so voters don't believe them.
Well, we can't let social policy be controlled by the least informed among us. When people understand what is in the health care reform legislation, they like many aspects of it.
And polling shows that support is growing for the legislation now that Obama is getting behind it more vigorously. Makes sense: what's not to like about saving money while also saving lives?
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Instead of this gigantic overhaul why not start with tort reform? A great deal of medical costs are being driven by useless tort litigation. In Mississippi, where they acted to preclude much of it, malpractice premiums have declined by 50 percent. Why not start with this rather than such drastic measures as the president’s proposed $500 billion cut in Medicare.
When the president says he is going to cut costs by eliminating tests that aren’t necessary, he is catching doctors in a vise. On the one side, they have the government prohibiting or discouraging them from tests, and on the other, the trial-lawyer bar waiting to pounce on them for failing to administer the proper tests if their care has a bad outcome.
Why not begin with other cost-saving measures such as allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines and other measures to encourage competition? A lot simpler than revamping the entire system.
What about the need for more doctors if we are to expand the number of patients covered? You cannot have more patients without more doctors unless you want to impose rationing.Rationing will be felt primarily by the elderly and may lead to premature deaths.
There does not seem to be any discussion about phasing in coverage for those who are not now covered so that you can increase the supply of doctors and nurses at the same time. Supply must keep pace with demand so that artificial scarcity does not leave the nation short of doctors.
In Massachusetts, where Romney inflicted a version of ObamaCare on the state, the waiting time to see a doctor in Boston is now 2 months.
Why not encourage Medical Savings Accounts and expansions of current tax breaks to encourage people and small businesses to purchase insurance?
What will be the real consequences of the proposed cuts in Medicare? Does anyone really know? Cutting medicare benefits to millions in order to fund millions of uninsured seems rather unfair.
Mandating purchase of coverage is unconstitutional and is sure to be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court.
Why not allow young people to purchase catastrophic coverage to satisfy any mandate, rather than full coverage they most likely don’t need?
The proposed tax on medical devices will raise the cost of pacemakers, automated wheelchairs, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs and all manner of necessary medical equipment.
Why should the taxpayer spend 10 percent of his income — as opposed to 7.5 percent at present — on medical expenses in order to deduct them? This is a tax on the sick.
It is crazy that people could be imprisoned for failing to have health insurance or paying the fine the legislation imposes. There is a big difference between tax evasion and failing to have health insurance.
its seems so much simpler to allow healthcare to be sold across state lines to bring about some price competition. and the feds dont have any right to force us into contracts with private companies for simply being alive. and dont go to car insurance, thats a choice you can opt out of even if it seems extreme. try opting out of breathing. and thats a state law anyway. if the feds can force you to buy a product for common good, then whos to say its going to stop at health insurance. why not force us to buy fat free foods, green cars, ect, ect. fuck the federal government, it needs reduced not expanded more and more. big government is not the answer.