Fix Health Care Policy

The Aftermath of Obamacare: What America Will Look Like If The White House Gets Its Way

America stands on the precipice of sweeping liberal health care reform that will radically reshape one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and a 153-page House bill is all that stands between us and a fundamentally changed America.

What will that change look like? Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” and President Barack Obama said, “By the time the vote has taken place, not only will I know what’s in it, you’ll know what’s in it.”

In other words, here’s a ticket to ride, get on board, we can’t tell you where it’s going, but you’ll like it once you get there. We promise.

A picture of America’s future under Obamacare can be revealed, though, after peeling away the pages and digging through the dirt. Here’s 10 things you can expect:

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Tags: higher health care costs, House reconciliation bill, investment income tax, job killer, more taxes, Senate Health Bill, taxpayer-funded abortions, unconstitutional mandates

Morning Bell: This Process is Undermining the Rule of Law

This week, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal released poll results that are disturbing but by no means surprising. The March 11th – 14th poll of 1000 American adults showed that only 17% of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing in Washington. And as bad as that number is, the reason why Congress’ approval rating is so low is even more disturbing: a full 76% of Americans simply do not trust the U.S. Congress. This was the lowest level of trust for any representative entity tested by NBC/WSJ.

It is no coincidence that these record low ratings come amid current debate over health care in Congress. Yesterday, former U.S. Attorneys General Edwin Meese III and William P. Barr released the following statement: (more…)

Tags: becomes law, Constitution, constitutional concerns, deem and pass, dodgy, former U.S. Attorneys General, Public Opinion, Senate Health Bill, unseemly

The House Health Fix: Even Higher Job Killing Investment Taxes

It takes investment to get sustainable economic growth. We can’t spend our way to growth. We have to save some of the stuff we make today and use it to create new, higher value, tomorrow. If we produce and consume it all, then our economy lives “hand-to-mouth” and we do not grow.

Investing is risky. There is no guarantee that the investment will pay off. Investors weigh many possible scenarios when determining whether or not to make an investment. If the expected return on an investment does not meet an investor’s next best opportunity for his cash, he will forgo that investment.

The expected rate of return compared is the after-tax rate of return. The higher the tax on returns, the more investments will be foregone. So why is Congress trying to discourage investment at a time when the economy desperately needs investment to start growing again?

Because in order to get a deficit neutral score from CBO the legislators needed to find more ways to squeeze revenue from taxpayers. Unfortunately increasing taxes from things that produce economic growth will cause the deficit to increase in a dynamic economy. Slower economic growth will result in fewer jobs and less tax revenue. (more…)

Tags: deficits, House reconciliation bill, Medicare investment income tax, Senate Health Bill

A First Look At The House Health Care Fix: More Bad News

In their feverish effort to enact the Senate health bill, the House leadership recently released their 153 page bill to fix the underlying 2,409 page Senate legislation through the budget reconciliation process. As a matter of health policy, there is little that is substantively different between the Senate bill and this “fix it” bill. A closer look at the fine print shows that the latest version would only make the massive and unpopular Senate health bill even worse.

Based on a preliminary review of the key provisions, taxpayers should be aware of the following features of the legislation.

More Spending

– The House reconciliation bill increases taxpayer subsidies and lowers cost sharing for individuals receiving a federal subsidy to buy health coverage. This change adds to the overall cost of the bill, while depending on unproven savings and tax hikes to pay for it.

– Instead of removing special deals, the bill extends additional federal funding to all states for Medicaid. This “fix” is supposed to replace the scandalous requirement that federal taxpayers fund the Nebraska Medicaid expansion. In both case, however, the burden is back on the backs of federal taxpayers. (more…)

Tags: Cadillac tax, federal bureaucracy, House reconciliation bill, individual mandate penalty, job killer, Medicaid Expansion, Medicare cuts, Medicare investment income tax, more spending, Senate Health Bill, taxpayer-funded abortions

Health Care Fight Is The True March Madness

The public doesn’t trust Washington politicians—and those politicians don’t trust each other. Those two truths could doom President Obama’s health care bill even if it weren’t an unaffordable behemoth.

The final health debate merges multiple story lines into one, just as March Madness does for an assortment of college basketball teams. Some of these themes are:

– The Ugliness of Today’s Washington. Trust in elected leaders is collapsing into a hole deeper than Alice ever fell into. It deepens with every disclosure of the process. “Deeming” a bill to pass; avoiding votes to avoid accountability; buying votes with taxpayers’ money, etc. “Louisiana Purchase” and “Cornhusker Kickback” are only visible symptoms of a wayward system that long ago went amok.

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Tags: Cornhusker Kickback, increased health care costs, Louisiana Purchase, public trust, reconciliation, Senate Health Bill

Praising the Senate Health Bill: Worldly Wisdom or Nunsense?

As the beneficiary of 16 years of Catholic education, eight of them under the tutelage of the Sisters of Charity in Cincinnati, I am inclined by habit to nod in swift concurrence whenever the good sisters speak. Not today.

A letter released yesterday by 60 leaders of Catholic women’s religious orders argues that the Senate-passed version of health care reform does not provide for funding of elective abortion and is thus the “REAL [capitalization in original] pro-life” option. The Catholic bishops, the non-sectarian National Right to Life Committee and, this morning, the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious strongly disagree.

The dispute has emerged with greater force after it became clear last week that any commitment by the Democratic leadership in Congress to “fix” the Senate bill’s defective abortion limitation language was unenforceable – a piecrust promise. Not only would the Senate’s traditionally stronger corps of anti-Hyde amendment votes ensure defeat of any abortion language fix, but 41 Republican senators signed a letter to oppose any policy-making on the reconciliation bill that would ferry the fix to enactment – a pledge that clearly would include the doomed abortion limitation. (more…)

Tags: catholic bishops, nuns, piecrust promise, Senate Health Bill, taxpayer-funded abortions, women's religious orders

The Senate Health Bill: Ordinary Americans Have Been Warned

As the House of Representatives prepares for a final round of debate on the health care legislation, ordinary Americans must grasp the huge impact on the future of the country. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pulling out all the stops to get the 216 votes needed to pass the Senate health bill, H.R. 3590 (PDF). The Speaker is also promising to fix the Senate bill’s many objectionable components later through the budget reconciliation process, parliamentary rules normally used to reconcile tax and spending provisions with the annual congressional budget resolution.

Meanwhile, the House leadership is also reportedly pursuing the controversial “Slaughter Rule,” in which the entire Senate bill be “deemed” to have passed the House without an “up or down” vote on the Senate language.

Regardless of whatever procedural shenanigans the House leadership tries to play, the end result would be enactment of the Senate health bill as the law of the land. That’s the end game. Period. (more…)

Tags: additional insurance costs, Congressional Budget Office, deem, Medicaid Expansion, reconciliation, Senate Health Bill, Slaugher Rule