Health Reform: Bad Assumptions versus Good Logic

I have been watching this "so-called" debate in health reform with interest and, as most of you know, this really has been a debate amongst Democrats only. The Republicans have been essentially squeezed out of the key meetings in the Senate except for Olympia Snow of Maine, since she seems to support this monstrosity of a bill. The specifics of the actual Senate bill are now being "worked out" behind closed doors between Rahm Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff from Chicago, and Harry Reid the Majority Leader of the Senate along with a couple of aides, who basically take notes of the wondrous utterings of these gigantic intellectuals who single handedly are going to tell us what we should now do with 1/6 of our economy. Does that send shivers down your spine?

As this goes on, the President is telling you that we now have a bill that represents the best ideas of the Congress and of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike. It is a "bi-partisan bill that will not add one dime to the deficit". If you really believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you or you can continue to read on in order to make your own judgment based on facts and history.

First, as a rational human being, does the idea of adding more than 20 million uninsured to the roles subsidized by $500 B in savings from cuts in Medicare fraud and benefits in addition to a 40% tax increase to private insurance companies, make you comfortable that the quality or availability of your health care will stay the same or even improve? If you said "yes" to this question then please stop reading this post because it appears that you have imbibed too much of the Kool-Aid.

Not only is the $827 B ten year cost of this bill a fantasy, but the bill is effective for only 7 years of the ten years. How is that for doctored math? Let's now look at the government's track record of estimating the costs of these health plans:

Government Cost Overruns - $B

Program	Year	Predicted Cost	Actual Cost
Medicare	1965	12	110
Medicare Hospital	1965	9	67
Medicaid Hospitization	1987	1	17
Medicare Home Care	1988	4	10
Schip	1997	5.4	6.8
Medicare Prescription Drug	2003	49	41

These overruns were recently published by the Wall Street Journal. Ironically, George Bush's prescription drug plan has actually underun predictions. How come we hear no kudos for Bush on this? The Congressional Office said that the primary cause of the success of the prescription drug bill was that "the pricing is better than anticipated, which is likely a reflection of the competition that's occurred in the private market". Wow! Look what happens when you let the private market operate instead of having politicians regulate what they think is warranted. I don't think Obama will admit he "inherited" something good from the Bush Administration, do you?

At this point I think you should let your logic dictate over what you're hearing from Washington and then decide whether this is reform or just putting your children and grandchildren further into hock.