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http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/

It’s Not a Health Bill [Alan Reynolds]

The “reconciliation bill” is not a health bill but an anti-health bill. It relies heavily on price controls, taxes, and fines to punish doctors, hospitals, and innovative companies that produce prescription drugs and medical devices. If we treated farmers, food companies, and grocery stores the way Congress threatens to treat the health industries, would anybody expect food to become better or cheaper?

Furthermore, the 3.8 percent tax on both labor and investment income is not a “Medicare tax”: It’s a surtax on income that goes into the slush fund, not the Medicare trust.

And the bill could not possibly cost “only” $940 billion, unless it contained a sunset provision repealing the law after 2019.

In fact, new spending is negligible for four years. At that point the government would start luring 16 million more people into Medicaid’s leaky gravy train, and start handing out subsidies to families earning up to $88,000. Spending then jumps from $54 billion in 2014 to $216 billion in 2019. That’s just the beginning.

To be unduly optimistic (more so than the CBO), assume that the new entitlement schemes increased by only 7 percent a year. At that rate spending would double every ten years — to $432 billion a year in 2029, $864 billion a year in 2039, and more than $1.72 trillion in 2049.

Can anyone imagine that the new taxes and fines could possibly grow by 7 percent a year? On the contrary, most of the claimed revenues are either a timing fraud (treating $70 billion for long-term-care premiums as newly found treasure) or self-defeating. The hypothetical tax on Cadillac plans (suspiciously postponed until 2018), for example, is designed to discourage employers from offering such plans and employees from wanting them — that is, it’s designed to yield less and less over time.

Moreover, the accumulating penalties on reporting joint incomes above $250,000 — a 39.6 percent tax, a 3.8 percent income surtax, a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax, and rapid phasing-out of deductions and exemptions — would greatly discourage any activity that would push income above $250,000. Most obviously, no sensible family whose income is normally below that pain threshold would be so foolish as to sell enough assets to let capital gains push them over the line.

If even half of the punitive tax plans are enacted, I plan to launch a “249 Club” whose members pledge never again to report more than $249,000.

—Alan Reynolds, NR’s economics editor from 1972 to 1976, is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute.

03/20 08:23 PM

http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/

March 21, 2010 | 12:04 AM ET
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the House and Health Care for SundayChad Pergram |

The Shorthand: House will have three major votes. “Deem and Pass” is out. The House Democrats cannot have more than 37 of their members vote no and still pass the bill.

We expect everything to be wrapped up by early evening.

Here are the details: Some of this is subject to change. But this is an early bird read of how I expect things to play out.

1 pm: The House meets. Also at 1 pm, the House Democratic Caucus will meet in the Cannon Caucus Room. Unclear if they will do a press availability afterwards.

Sometime during the 1 pm hour, expect a series of “bed check” votes. The House will vote on extraneous items like approving the journal, et al. This is just an effort to get everyone to the House floor so the whips can talk to members and check to make sure everyone will vote the way they think they will. This is also a chance for them to clean up any problems or see if any new issues are emerging.

Once that is complete, the House then moves on to one hour of debate on “the rule.” This will probably happen sometime around 2:30 or 3 pm.

Nearly every piece of legislation that comes before the House must get a “rule” from the Rules Committee. The “rule” governs debate on a given issue, such as determining how many amendments are in order or how much time the House will expend. This rule handles two things: the Senate bill and the reconciliation resolution.

BUT HERE IS AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION: Unlike the Democrats’ original plan, this rule will not utilize the “deem and pass” method on the Senate bill. While the rule handles BOTH packages, it provides for separate debate and votes on both measures.

Then there will be a procedural vote, called “Moving the Previous Question.” Ignore this. After that, there will be a vote on the rule. Probably not before 4 pm. If the House doesn’t approve the rule, it can’t advance to the underlying issues at hand.

The rule vote is the first of three important votes of the day.

If the House clears the rule, then it can begin debate on the two underlying bills.

The first hour is on the Senate bill. The second hour is on the reconciliation resolution.

Interesting wrinkle here: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) will manage their respective sides when the bills hit the floor. That is rare. Usually it’s committee chairs.

With slippage time, that moves us to at least 6 pm if not later.

The GOP will then be allowed to offer what’s called a “motion to recommit” or MTR. This is the minority party’s last effort to kill the bill.

A short debate will ensue, which probably takes us to at least 6:15 pm.

There will then be a vote on the motion to recommit. That takes us to at least 6:40.

Then we are ready for our final, two big votes of the day.

There will first be a vote on the Senate bill, followed by a vote on the reconciliation package.

These are the two, distinct votes that the GOP and many Democrats were seeking.

Why the Senate bill first followed by the reconciliation package? In a strange bit of Congressional arcana, doing the Senate legislation first actually makes the bill cheaper.

When they wrap up depends on how long they make both of those final votes. They could both be 15 minute votes.

The last vote of the night will be on an unrelated issue. They always schedule a “backstop” vote, usually on a non-controversial bill. This is kind of like kicking a field goal on third down in case there’s a bad snap. You never want to make a huge vote the last vote of the night. If something goes wrong with the vote or the voting equipment breaks down, the majority party could lose the vote if a re-vote is ordered and many members have already left the Capitol or gone to the airport.

If this timetable holds, I think everything be wrapped up by 7:30 or 8 pm. Expect the Democrats to do a “victory lap” presser afterwards. Unclear what the GOP might do.

~snip~