Posted on 07/11/2010 4:50:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Among Donald Berwick's greatest rhetorical hits is this one: "any health-care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must—must—redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate." Count that as one more reason that President Obama made Dr. Berwick a recess appointee to run Medicare and Medicaid rather than have this philosophy debated in the Senate.
We are also learning that "spreading the wealth," as Mr. Obama famously told Joe the Plumber in 2008, is the silent intellectual and political foundation of ObamaCare. We say silent because Democrats never admitted this while the bill was moving through Congress.
But only days after the bill passed, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus exulted that it would result in "a leveling" of the "maldistribution of income in America," adding that "The wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle-income class is left behind." David Leonhardt of the New York Times, who channels White House budget director Peter Orszag, also cheered after the bill passed that ObamaCare is "the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality" in generations.
An April analysis by Patrick Fleenor and Gerald Prante of the Tax Foundation reveals how right they are. ObamaCare's new "health-care funding plan" will shift some $104 billion in 2016 to Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution from those in the top half. The wealth transfer will be even larger in future years. While every income group sees a direct or indirect tax increase, everyone below the 50th income percentile comes out a net beneficiary.
At least at the start, Americans in the 50th through 80th income percentiles—or those earning between $99,000 to $158,000—are nearly beneficiaries too, if not for the taxes on insurers, drug makers and other businesses
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities —— have attempted to estimate the full incidence of ObamaCare’s taxes and subsidies.
In part this may be because ObamaCare is such a complex rewrite of health, tax, welfare and labor laws. But it’s also embarrassing to liberals that much of ObamaCare’s redistribution will merely move income to the lower middle class from the upper middle class, and the President habitually promises that people earning under $200,000 will be exempt from his tax increases. We now know they won’t be.
With his vast new powers over what government spends, Dr. Berwick will be well situated to equalize outcomes even more, and he certainly seems inclined to do so. The most charitable reading of his redistribution remarks, delivered in a 2008 London speech, is that any health insurance system will involve some degree of redistribution to the “less fortunate,” that is, to the sick from the healthy.
Pretty damn sad when this is even considered as a title of conversation.
Primary Education is the most worthless occupation we have that is over paid considering...
Trickle up assumes a starting point of ZERO.
The Democrats’ effort to socialize medical care has never been about health care delivery.
It is a device for the Federal Government to seize jurisdiction over all health insurance premium assets that are currently held in reserve by private and mutual insurance companies.
Currently, private insurance carriers are paid to administer claims for Medicare and Medicaid. Those funds/reserves are routinely plundered by the Government.
The government will simply extend that arrangement to all citizen health dollars.
There is no way the Federal Government could duplicate the private sector health claims system and hire sufficient personnel to function. However, they will probably unionize the existing insurance workers or deem them Federal employees.
If the Republicans don’t repeal this garbage in 2013, then it’s time for the TEA Party to become an actual political party, and for the GOP to go the way of the Whigs.
Civilians are just beginning to understand this.
Since Mr. Berwick seems so keen on redistributing wealth; I wonder if he would be willing to write me a check for 10% of his net wealth.
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