Obamacare…The “left” doesn’t want it passed. “The fundamental failing of the newest Senate proposal (on healthcare) is that it requires individuals to purchase health insurance, but does nothing to rein in what insurance companies can charge. There is nothing to stop spiraling health care costs from eating up an ever increasing percentage of our national productivity.” Huffington Post 12/15/09. Wow! That’s the left wing stating that this bill doesn’t help, but hurts the cost issue! The Huffington Post goes on to say “ What the Senate is currently discussing will make health care more expensive for individuals, families and businesses, with no check on the insurance companies…they’re on track to make the problems worse rather than better.” That’s the left wing, Washington insider, Obama supporting Huffington Post.
The “right” doesn’t want it passed. “All Republican Senators now oppose the bill…” WSJ. (So much for the “post partisan era”).
The Independents don’t want the bill passed. Senator Lieberman has been widely quoted as saying that he won’t support the bill with a public option or a Medicare buy down to age 55. (So Majority Leader Reid reportedly took those critical parts of the left agenda out of the bill to win a vote for something). The Independent, Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders said that his vote was “not certain” because the bill needed “a lot of work”. Brattleboro.com.
The past head of the Democratic National Committee (and a doctor) doesn’t want the bill passed. Howard Dean said “This is essentially the collapse of healthcare reform in the Senate and, honestly, the best thing to do right now is to kill the Senate bill.” ABC Morning News 12/15/09.
The American people don’t want the bill passed. The latest (Obama supporting) CNN poll (12/10/09) shows that 61% of Americans oppose the bill. 61%!!
The bill doesn’t meet any of the stated objectives. The latest CBO estimates for the Senate bill say that a family of four with a household income of $54,000/year should expect to pay 17% of their gross income on healthcare…that’s about $9,000/year. Wait a minute…that’s more than the average cost today (about $7,700/year)! So much for the “affordable healthcare for all”, and the portion of the uninsured because they can’t afford healthcare on moderate incomes.
The CMS (Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services) analysis reported (Dec.14th) that the Senate bill would cause total health expenditures to increase by $234 billion between 2010 and 2019. So much for “bending the cost curve down”.
The CBO estimates that the 15% of the population without health insurance will drop to (at best) 6% if the Senate bill were implemented. So much for “covering all Americans”.
But it will pass and become law for two reasons. The Democrats have a filibuster proof Congress that will pass something, anything, out of loyalty to the party and political payoffs that trump any loyalty to the citizens who voted for them or their own values. Senator Mary Landrieu is an excellent example. She bragged about her payoff, correcting a reporter when he suggested that it was worth $200 million for her to take home to Louisiana, she said “it’s closer to $300 million”. Anyone think she won’t vote “yes” in the final hour, no matter what’s in the bill?
The last few Senators will have their crafted objections overcome in the last hours (we have to have some drama) with broken armed analysts re-assessing the costs more favorably (or just saying it will cost less “cause Obama say so”); or Clintonian parsing of definitions, so that only dollars with even serial numbers can be used to fund abortion. Then there will be tears and a big celebration of the historic moment when the government started to take over another part of our lives.
The Old Man
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