Doublethink Alert: How To Pay For Health Care

This one is pretty amazing because it all happens in the same article! This is a discussion of how Congress will pay for their government takeover of health care:

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, affirmed his desire to begin taxing some employer-provided health benefits, as a way to help pay for coverage of the uninsured.

After slamming the door on that idea last month, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, opened the door a crack on Tuesday.

Mr. Rangel said on May 6 that there was “no way” he would support taxing employer-provided health benefits. On Tuesday, he declined to rule out the idea.

Asked whether he would consider taxing employee health benefits, Mr. Rangel said, “There is nothing, no matter how stupid it sounds, that I am rejecting.”

Then, just a few paragraphs later, we see this:

A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats, known as the Blue Dog Coalition, and Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, have suggested that the public plan should be available only as a backup, if private insurers do not rein in costs and offer affordable coverage to everyone.

Mr. Rangel said “there won’t be any consideration” of that approach in the House.

It is as Red State says:

As the old saying goes, you can pick your poison. But now matter how you slice it, taking over health care and creating a government-run plan is going to be very expensive. Charlie Rangel and the Democrats might start by taxing Medicare for $344 billion in new taxes, then adding a new tax on soda for $112 billion, a new alcohol tax for $61 billion, and a new tax on employer-provided health care for $200 billion - but that still leaves them more than $3 trillion short.

Nevertheless, they are gamely going at it - studying all the possible ways they can think of to gouge you for the privilege of ruining your health care...

For Democrats, this is the fun part of the job - deciding whom to punish with higher taxes.

But of course they'll do it while promising lower taxes. Otherwise, it wouldn't be doublethink.

There's my two cents.