Posted on 10/17/2009 10:13:46 PM PDT by American Dream 246
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has approved its health care bill, it’s a good time to step back and take a look at the long term consequences should its provisions be enacted into law.
The bill prohibits insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and from charging sick people higher premiums. [1] It attempts to offset the costs this will impose on insurance companies by requiring everyone to purchase coverage, which in theory would expand the pool of paying policy holders.
However, the maximum fine for those who refuse to purchase health insurance is $750. [2] Even factoring in government subsidies, the cost of purchasing a plan is much more than $750. The result: many people, especially the young and healthy, will simply not buy coverage, choosing to pay the fine instead. They’ll wait until they’re sick to buy health insurance, confident in the knowledge that insurance companies can’t deny them coverage. Such a scenario is a perfect storm for increasing the cost of health care and creating an unsustainable mandate program.
Those driving this plan no doubt have good intentions, but good intentions aren’t enough. There were good intentions behind the drive to increase home ownership for lower-income Americans, but forcing financial institutions to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them had terrible unintended consequences. We all felt those consequences during the financial collapse last year. Unintended consequences always result from top-down big government plans like the current health care proposals, and we can’t afford to ignore that fact again.
Supposedly the Senate Finance bill will be paid for by cutting Medicare by nearly half a trillion dollars and by taxing the so-called “Cadillac” health care plans enjoyed by many union members. The plan will also impose heavy taxes on insurers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, and clinical labs. [3] The result of all of these taxes is clear. As Douglas Holtz-Eakin noted in the Wall Street Journal, these new taxes “will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums.” [4] Unfortunately, it will lead to lower wages too, as employees will have to sacrifice a greater percentage of their paychecks to cover these higher premiums. [5] In other words, if the Democrats succeed in overhauling health care, we’ll all bear the costs. The Senate Finance bill is effectively a middle class tax increase, and as Holtz-Eakin points out, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation those making less than $200,000 will be hit hardest. [6]
With our country’s debt and deficits growing at an alarming rate, many of us can’t help but wonder how we can afford a new trillion dollar entitlement program. The president has promised that he won’t sign a health care bill if it “adds even one dime to our deficit over the next decade.” [7] But his administration also promised that his nearly trillion dollar stimulus plan would keep the unemployment rate below 8%. [8] Last month, our employment rate was 9.8%, the highest it’s been in 26 years. [9] At first the current administration promised that the stimulus would save or create 3 to 4 million jobs. [10] Then they declared that it created 1 million jobs, but the stimulus reports released this week showed that a mere 30,083 jobs have been created, while nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus was passed. [11] Should we believe the administration’s claims about health care when their promises have proven so unreliable about the stimulus?
In January 2008, presidential candidate Obama promised not to negotiate behind closed doors with health care lobbyists. In fact, he committed to “broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are. Because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process. And overcoming the special interests and the lobbyists...” [12] However, last February, after serving only a few weeks in office, President Obama met privately at the White House with health care industry executives and lobbyists. [13] Yesterday, POLITICO reported that aides to President Obama and Democrat Senator Max Baucus met with corporate lobbyists in April to help “set in motion a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, primarily financed by industry groups, that has played a key role in bolstering public support for health care reform.” [14] Needless to say, their negotiations were not broadcast on C-SPAN for the American people to see.
Presidential candidate Obama also promised that he would not “sign any nonemergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for five days.” [15] PolitiFact reports that this promise has already been broken three times by the current administration. [16] We can only hope that it won’t be broken again with health care reform.
All of this certainly gives the appearance of politics-as-usual in Washington with no change in sight.
Americans want health care reform because we want affordable health care. We don’t need subsidies or a public option. We don’t need a nationalized health care industry. We need to reduce health care costs. But the Senate Finance plan will dramatically increase those costs, all the while ignoring common sense cost-saving measures like tort reform. Though a Congressional Budget Office report confirmed that reforming medical malpractice and liability laws could save as much as $54 billion over the next ten years, tort reform is nowhere to be found in the Senate Finance bill. [17]
Here’s a novel idea. Instead of working contrary to the free market, let’s embrace the free market. Instead of going to war with certain private sector companies, let’s embrace real private-sector competition and allow consumers to purchase plans across state lines. Instead of taxing the so-called “Cadillac” plans that people get through their employers, let’s give individuals who purchase their own health care the same tax benefits we currently give employer-provided health care recipients. Instead of crippling Medicare, let’s reform it by providing recipients with vouchers so that they can purchase their own coverage.
Now is the time to make your voices heard before it’s too late. If we don’t fight for the market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven reform plan that we deserve, we’ll be left with the disastrous unintended consequences of the plans currently being cooked up in Washington.
- Sarah Palin
[1] See http://tinyurl.com/yjs3mgf [2] See http://tinyurl.com/yfuw3k3 [3] See http://tinyurl.com/yfxq8ca [4] See http://tinyurl.com/ykefsk6 [5] See http://tinyurl.com/ygf42fj [6] See http://tinyurl.com/ykefsk6 [7] See http://tinyurl.com/lkvgsp [8] See http://tinyurl.com/nx4nh6 [9] See ibid. [10] See http://tinyurl.com/yhhr56v [11] See ibid. [12] See http://tinyurl.com/yhzhkvg and http://tinyurl.com/lhyr9o [13] See http://tinyurl.com/yksd6h3 [14] See http://tinyurl.com/yl9gg27 [15] See http://tinyurl.com/yknpxd6 [16] See http://tinyurl.com/d2k5hb [17] See http://tinyurl.com/yf8qmfh
~LOL~ She’s back!!!!!!!!!
17 linked and sourced footnotes.
That is awesome.
Sarah keeps those reports just roling along.
The one from the other day was pub. on National Review Online
Nice...
I know and yet Joy Behar called her stupid again this week on her HLN show.. uhhhhh who’s really the stupid one.....
Great post from Sarah. She’s getting heavy on policy stuff way sooner than I thought she would and it’s brilliant.
Sarah nails it again. She even mentioned what I have been thinking; why pay $5k or more for insurance when the fine will be $750 and the insurance companies will have to take you by law? People who don’t pay taxes won’t even have to pay the fine.
Look at my tagline...
Sarah missed the point on one of her points.
“The president has promised that he won’t sign a health care bill if it “adds even one dime to our deficit over the next decade.””
She then goes on to describe how Obama’s promises amd predictions have been wrong, so how can we trust him in this?
In points 7 through 11 Sarah seems to miss the point that Obama’s solemn promise here means that he plans to raise federal taxes enough to cover whatever his ideas cost. It’s almost as if Sarah has bought into the verbal sleight of hand that Obama was going for used when he used the word “deficit” while trying to imply the meaning of the word “budget” in his promise.
I believe we CAN trust Obama to raise taxes.
She hit all the most important points and backs them up with footnotes!
Also, she has something Obama does not have: the ability and the desire to show the LOGIC and COMMON SENSE (or lack thereof) of a policy.
She, by her writing, considers the American people intelligent and she speaks plainly about the issue. I found myself saying “Yes!” with each point. There are very few politicians who ever speak with respect to the American people. Ronald Reagan was one. It’s one thing to SAY that you believe in us, but it’s evident when you really actually do.
Time to let “The Doofuses of DC” know what you think of this HC debacle ,they are trying to shove down our throats.
I’ve always loved Sarahcuda....and she is showing us that she never was and never will be a “lightweight”.
I fear that the darkside will pull out all the stops when and if she declares.
Remember, America was stupid enough to elect Obamination, it’s certainly capable of destroying Palin.
This comment is not meant to hijack thread.
I was discussing Reagan with long time friend this week. He made a comment that I had forgotten about.
Reagan in run up to election , said America is greatest Nation on earth. My friend says that statement made his choice be Reagan in general.
Not tearing down as libs and 0 are doing now. Or as Carter did back in 80
When I listen or read about Sarah Palin she comes across as truly loving America.
She is doing what she can to preserve this great nation, at great cost to herself and family.
As to being a light weight, remember what was said about Reagan.
He is an actor, he is a light weight. The America haters lways try to denigrate those that they fear, and I believe they fear Sarah Palin.
The more they spew their hateful comments, the more sure I am that Sarah is saying or writing something that is getting America haters panties in a bind.
I believe this is why Sarah Palin draws so much critisism.
She scares the bejesus out of the America haters, those on the left,middle and right.
She resonates with people who love this great nation, people who would like to preserve the land of the free.
Land of the free!!!!! what a great statement , Land of the free.
I say go Sarah, PO the leftist American haters.
FULLY RIGHT !
That’s OBAMANOID libtards at their best always spouting wordy nice intentions hiding very bad ideas and goals....which can be summed up by the expression “LIBERAL FASCISM”(ie a kind of “new” socialist multiculturalist environmentalist big government linked to UN).
Sarah’s voice should be heard LOUDER
An almost perfect article by an almost perfect future President of the United States of America. The only detail I think could have been worded better is the above. For political reasons, I wish she had said: "Instead of crippling Medicare, let’s reform it by providing recipients with the option of accepting vouchers so that they can purchase their own coverage or staying with Medicare as it is today."
My suggestion is not much of a change, unless you remember that liberals claim election after election that republicans want to kill Social Security and Medicare. They spun individual retirement accounts as killing SS, and school vouchers as killing public schools, so they have an established frame into which they might force future president Palin's words. Since we're about to go into the first election where the Dem platform is based on killing Granny to free up money and reward younger Dem donors, we want to be careful about providing any ammunition to Obama/Pelosi's minions in the media.
Here’s what the White House will use....
“The bill prohibits insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and from charging sick people higher premiums.” - Sarah Palin
While most jaded politicians and elites embrace hubris, pomposity and presumptuousness, and unfavorable data, they look askance on happy warriors who boast a self-confidence that refuses to acknowledge the irrationality that America is in decline but instead proposes specific solutions to America’s problems that rationally makes common sense and puts America back on the road to unparalleled prosperity but also threatens the establishment and entrenched interests that never met an increase in spending that they did not like and never refused an opportunity to extend their power.
I loved that she gave the example of an unintended consequence in the financial mess that started with the well meaning but wrong headed desire to increase home ownership.
GO SARAH GO!!
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