Posted on 03/26/2013 11:24:35 AM PDT by Starman417
One of the many reasons conservatives dislike government overreach is because government is so often wrong about so much. And what’s worse, regardless of the magnitude of the government’s failures, citizens are stuck with the consequences of those policies, in most cases forever.
This is not a new phenomenon. This has been going on for decades. Upon its establishment in 1965 the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the cost of Medicare would rise to $12 billion by 1990. Unfortunately for American taxpayers that prediction was off by a power of nine, coming in at $110 billion. And things haven’t gotten any better since then. By 2011 Medicare costs ballooned to over $550 billion, having grown by 8.3% in a year when inflation was 3.2%.
But of course Medicare is but one example. Medicaid had a similar experience. The same House committee estimated that Medicaid’s first-year costs would be $238 million. Instead it came in more like $1 billion. It was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990 and, surprise, it came in at $67 billion. By 2011 the federal share of the program tipped the scales at $299 billion!
Tellingly, before government set its claws into healthcare it tracked very close to overall inflation. Since 1965 however, healthcare costs have increased by 2.3 times the rate of general inflation. To put that in perspective, inflation would have made something that cost $100 dollars in 1965 cost $718 dollars in 2012. That’s a pretty big jump, but if that $100 dollar item had increased at the rate of healthcare inflation since government got involved it would cost 2.3 times as much, or $1,651. At the same time, healthcare costs went from 5.1% of GDP in 1960 to approximately 18% today.
This record of financial incompetence (nevermind operational incompetence and malfeasance) could never survive for five decades in the private sector. But in government, no problem, and it’s not just healthcare. Think of Solyndra. Think of General Motors. Ethanol mandates. School lunches. The fact of the matter is, bureaucrats sitting in the otherworldly universe of Washington have a long history of making decisions about which they are unqualified and ill-informed, and more importantly, disconnected from the consequences of those decisions.
Now however we are about to embark on a journey that will make even the economic disaster of Medicare look like child’s play. Of course we’re talking about Obamacare. Although there were many warnings that Obamacare would be a disaster of epic proportions before it became law, today, less than a year from its true implementation, we are seeing the actual consequences begin to materialize.
(excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
But that is exactly the intent — take away your freedom.
If they can declare that you must buy something,
They can declare that you must buy everything according to their wishes.
You are a slave.
Fight this evil to the death.
Yet I do not have a right to my own body in regards health care. I must have it and I must have what they say I need or not.
Hypocrisy (again)
"Often wrong, but never in doubt."
this is assuming you have oodles of freedom under your current healthcare plan. most people don’t. i always hear them bitching about what isn’t covered, or how little something is covered.
i think the focus of the article is wrong. you have more redress options to get more care, closer to what you want, if you can’t get exactly what you want, now, with private insurers, who you can also sue if necessary, than if government is your only healthcare source. neither are panaceas, but you have more options, and government isn’t playing both roles of insurer and dispute decider when you have private-sector health insurance.
It’s your attitude that’s wrong, you should want to live in a concrete cage and cooperate with the master plan.
Wonder what game plan for fraud the cons have ready for Obamacare?.
Ahhh... the great unanswered question.
Unanswered since it was never asked by the incompetent (complicit?) "loyal" opposition.
I still believe that individual citizens do not have standing to plead anything before the Supreme Court. And that Court cannot initiate grievances on its own.
That initial question defines the great difference between Citizens and subjects.
I wonder whatever happened to "...petition the government for a redress of grievances?" If it can't be done by the aggrieved citizen, it doesn't exist.
bkmk
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