Opinion > Editorials
COMMENTARY: Health care reform rebuttal
By Shryl Miles
Health Care Reform. We all know we need some kind of health care reform and if you read the Robert and Walter Wicks article, in the Nov. 11 issue of the News-Sun in support of the Congressional health care reform bills, you would come to the conclusion that we have finally reached a workable solution in the bills now making their way through congress. Unfortunately that isn't the case.
In the first place there is no completed Health care Bill. What the Wicks are suggesting we support is a collection of bills that have to be reconciled to form one bill. Who in their right mind would agree to a binding contract without any idea of what it was going to cost or what it was going to provide in the way of service? Would you sign a contract to buy a house if you didn't know what it was going to cost you, what the interest rate was, how many bedrooms it had or what kind of hidden cost were involved in the deal? That is essentially what we are being asked to do.
Their explanation of how this final reconciled bill will be paid for is simplistic in the extreme and nothing short of a joke when you look at the real proposed cost and where the money will be coming from. The House bill cost alone is projected at $1.2 trillion of which the major cost contributors will be Medicare, small businesses, middle-income families and middle-income individuals. Medicare will be hit with a $500 billion reduction in funding over the next 10 years. That's the equivalent of one full years cost of Medicare at today's rate. Does anyone really believe senior citizens will not be subjected to health care rationing? Small businesses will be forced to provide health care to its employees whether they can afford it or not or pay a penalty tax.
In some cases that additional cost will force those businesses to close leaving untold numbers of Americans unemployed at a time when the unemployment rate is already over 10 percent. Middle income families and individuals, as well as young people, will be forced to purchase "qualified" medical insurance plans, at an undetermined rate, to satisfy some bureaucratic idea of what a "qualified" plan is. SEC. 224 (p.18) of the House bill provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a "qualified plan" covers and how much you'll be legally required to pay for it. SEC. 59b (pp.297-299) says that when you file your federal income taxes you must include proof that you are in a "qualified" plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars.
In their article the Wicks state, "According to the Congressional Budget Office, they [the two bills before Congress] will both slightly reduce the national deficit over the next 10 years and, with luck, pay for themselves." Well, there is so much wrong with that assumption that I hardly know where to begin. First, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is notorious for underestimating the cost of government entitlements. CBO cost projections for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were so far off the actual cost to be criminal if it weren't the government doing the "fuzzy math." Second, the CBO cannot be held totally responsible for these horrendous miscalculations. They can only score the figures given to them by Congress. The CBO does not provide the figures they base their projections on, Congress does. In other words, garbage in garbage out!
Third, can you think of a single entitlement program run by the government that does not have gargantuan cost overruns? Think Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all bankrupt!
Anyone under the misguided impression that they will be provided with free health insurance is sadly mistaken (unless you are the poorest, of the poor). These proposed bills have so many taxes, fees, penalties and fines imbedded in them that a true evaluation of the cost to individuals is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. They are also riddled with mandated provisions that leave you and your doctor very little choice in the way your health care will be managed.
The House bill contains over 53 new bureaucracies that will have to be perpetually funded without any visible provisions for those funds. Can you say higher taxes? The bill has over 3,400 uses of the word "shall" which is a mandate for how things must be done in order to comply with the provisions of the bill. If you, your doctor, your employer or hospital doesn't comply, all are subject to heavy fines. So much for choice.
Make no mistake, these bills are written in a way that will eventually drive the private insurance companies out of the health care market and we will be left with the single- payer government controlled plan that Congress and the President have wanted from the start. Its impossible for private enterprise to compete with a federal government that can absorb loses, print money on demand and set the regulations controlling any industry.
At a time when we are already paying $500 million a day in interest on our national debt, this entitlement would add untold trillions of dollars to that national debt over the next few decades. Are you willing to mortgage the future of your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren so that Congress and the President can point to a 1990 page piece of legislation and brag about how much they have provided for the people of this country?
Shryl Miles is a St. David resident.
In the first place there is no completed Health care Bill. What the Wicks are suggesting we support is a collection of bills that have to be reconciled to form one bill. Who in their right mind would agree to a binding contract without any idea of what it was going to cost or what it was going to provide in the way of service? Would you sign a contract to buy a house if you didn't know what it was going to cost you, what the interest rate was, how many bedrooms it had or what kind of hidden cost were involved in the deal? That is essentially what we are being asked to do.
Their explanation of how this final reconciled bill will be paid for is simplistic in the extreme and nothing short of a joke when you look at the real proposed cost and where the money will be coming from. The House bill cost alone is projected at $1.2 trillion of which the major cost contributors will be Medicare, small businesses, middle-income families and middle-income individuals. Medicare will be hit with a $500 billion reduction in funding over the next 10 years. That's the equivalent of one full years cost of Medicare at today's rate. Does anyone really believe senior citizens will not be subjected to health care rationing? Small businesses will be forced to provide health care to its employees whether they can afford it or not or pay a penalty tax.
In some cases that additional cost will force those businesses to close leaving untold numbers of Americans unemployed at a time when the unemployment rate is already over 10 percent. Middle income families and individuals, as well as young people, will be forced to purchase "qualified" medical insurance plans, at an undetermined rate, to satisfy some bureaucratic idea of what a "qualified" plan is. SEC. 224 (p.18) of the House bill provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a "qualified plan" covers and how much you'll be legally required to pay for it. SEC. 59b (pp.297-299) says that when you file your federal income taxes you must include proof that you are in a "qualified" plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars.
In their article the Wicks state, "According to the Congressional Budget Office, they [the two bills before Congress] will both slightly reduce the national deficit over the next 10 years and, with luck, pay for themselves." Well, there is so much wrong with that assumption that I hardly know where to begin. First, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is notorious for underestimating the cost of government entitlements. CBO cost projections for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were so far off the actual cost to be criminal if it weren't the government doing the "fuzzy math." Second, the CBO cannot be held totally responsible for these horrendous miscalculations. They can only score the figures given to them by Congress. The CBO does not provide the figures they base their projections on, Congress does. In other words, garbage in garbage out!
Third, can you think of a single entitlement program run by the government that does not have gargantuan cost overruns? Think Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all bankrupt!
Anyone under the misguided impression that they will be provided with free health insurance is sadly mistaken (unless you are the poorest, of the poor). These proposed bills have so many taxes, fees, penalties and fines imbedded in them that a true evaluation of the cost to individuals is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. They are also riddled with mandated provisions that leave you and your doctor very little choice in the way your health care will be managed.
The House bill contains over 53 new bureaucracies that will have to be perpetually funded without any visible provisions for those funds. Can you say higher taxes? The bill has over 3,400 uses of the word "shall" which is a mandate for how things must be done in order to comply with the provisions of the bill. If you, your doctor, your employer or hospital doesn't comply, all are subject to heavy fines. So much for choice.
Make no mistake, these bills are written in a way that will eventually drive the private insurance companies out of the health care market and we will be left with the single- payer government controlled plan that Congress and the President have wanted from the start. Its impossible for private enterprise to compete with a federal government that can absorb loses, print money on demand and set the regulations controlling any industry.
At a time when we are already paying $500 million a day in interest on our national debt, this entitlement would add untold trillions of dollars to that national debt over the next few decades. Are you willing to mortgage the future of your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren so that Congress and the President can point to a 1990 page piece of legislation and brag about how much they have provided for the people of this country?
Shryl Miles is a St. David resident.
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