It's A Pressure Cooker

The news is coming hot and heavy now. First, let's look at what happened on ObamaKennedyDeathCare yesterday. The biggest news was, of course, the fact that the CBO scored the Baucus bill, and Dems are now very excited:

The bottom line: CBO estimates that bill would cost $829 billion over the next ten years, but that because of the new taxes and penalties, various Medicare cuts, and cost-control measures the bill promises, it would actually reduce the deficit projection for the next ten years by about $81 billion, from $7.14 trillion to $7.06 trillion

But...there are some gigantic holes in this whole deal:

These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments.

Anyone who has watched the frequent congressional debates surrounding Medicare provider rates can tell you how likely a 25% cut is in 2011. And Jim Capretta further explains why the savings projections in the bill (carefully designed in a way that CBO had to count) are absurd. But even if we accept the rosiest assumptions implicit in the bill and imagine that the program it envisions will basically not increase the deficit any more than President Obama’s budget is already slated to increase it, we are talking about using $800 billion to build a vast array of mandates, taxes, subsidies, regulations, and new government programs intended over time to replace the American health insurance industry with an enormous new government entitlement, while doing little to control the basic problem of health care costs, and most likely actually increasing the cost of health insurance premiums, and exacerbating the chief causes of rising health care costs more generally (the lack of competitive pressure on prices in health care, and highly inefficient entitlement spending—which this bill would massively increase). All of this, CBO says, to increase the portion of Americans with health insurance from the current 83% to 94% over ten years.

So, this CBO estimate depends on a comprehensive set of rosy assumptions that include tax cuts, Medicare cuts, and stiff new regulation. Riiiiiight...because Democrats are always going on about tax cuts, no one will complain about cuts to Medicare, and oh, by the way, the last time Obama's team estimated something with a gigantic price tag they were off by just a couple trillion dollars. What could possibly go wrong?

Legal Insurrection also reminds us of the most basic, fundamental flaw in this whole scoring:

The internet is alive with the sound of people analyzing the CBO's "scoring" of the Max Baucus aka Senate Finance Committee Health Care Bill. Before everyone gets too deeply into their thoughts, please keep in mind the following (get ready, all CAPS, bold, indented signifies a really important concept):

THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.

The CBO scored the concepts described by the Baucus Committee. There is no legislative text. None. Baucus and his Democratic colleagues refused to reduce their concepts to actual legislation prior to a vote.

All that exists is the vapor bill, hence Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's statement:

“This partisan Finance Committee proposal will never see the Senate floor since the real bill will be written by Democrat leaders in a closed-to-the-public conference room somewhere in the Capitol. The real bill will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar experiment that slashes a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, raises taxes on American families by $400 billion, increases health care premiums, and vastly expands the role of the federal government in the personal health care decisions of every American.”

Again, what could go wrong?

But, at least there is another complication that the Dems will have to overcome:

Eight moderate Democrats further complicated the floor effort Tuesday by asking Reid to post on the Internet for 72 hours the full legislative text of a final bill and complete CBO scores "prior to the first vote to proceed on health reform legislation."

The moderates want the text as amended and modified CBO scores available electronically 72 hours before a final vote on the measure. If Reid determines he must acquiesce to the moderates to get the bill passed, such efforts could delay a final vote further by a few weeks at least.

This is, of course, an outstanding development, if they hold firm. It's going to shed a whole lotta' light on the bill, though, so it's not going to make the Dem leadership happy. For example, things like this might happen...a lot:

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) scoffed at a proposal from Jim Bunning (R-KY) that would require a 72-hour period before the Senate could vote on a bill presented to the floor in order to give Senators — and their constituents — a chance to read the legislation. Durbin told the Washington Examiner that he supports reading bills before votes, but that he suspected the rule was nothing more than an eeeeeeeeevil Republican conspiracy to … do what? Promote literacy? Let Durbin explain:

Democratic leaders are even less eager embrace a Senate-wide rule change. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told me last week that he supports making sure there is enough time for lawmakers to read and understand legislation, but he questioned the motive of Bunning and other Republicans.

“They dream up new ways to slow things down every week,” Durbin said.

It’s hard to imagine the crushing burden of three extra days on a bill that takes months to get through committees, where windbags of both parties bloviate endlessly on trivialities while missing billions of dollars in new burdens on taxpayers. For example, the Senate Finance Committee — the very committee on which Bunning serves and attempted to impose the same kind of waiting period, unsuccessfully — just heard from the Joint Committee on Taxation that its new taxes on health-care providers are almost $30 billion higher than anyone thought:

The Joint Committee on Taxation says drug companies, medical device manufacturers and insurers would pay $121 billion over 10 years as a result of taxes in the Senate Finance Committee bill.

That’s compared with $92 billion originally calculated.

The tax experts said the reason for the change is that the companies won’t be able to deduct the fees from their corporate income taxes.

You know how they figured that out? They read the bill. Imagine what Americans could find in this legislation if we had time to read it before the Senate took a vote! Of course, that’s really what Durbin wants to avoid, not a minimal three-day waiting period — which, by the way, is still less than the five-day waiting period imposed on Americans who want to exercise their Second Amendment right to purchase firearms.

Hm, fancy that. Of course, it's hard to read a bill that doesn't exist, isn't it?

The bottom line is that the Democrat leadership will stop at nothing to twist ObamaKennedyDeathCare into law despite the fact that the American people clearly don't want it. The reality is that the GOP doesn't have the votes to prevent them from doing whatever they want. The key now is for the GOP to hold the line in opposition. They are perfectly in step with the American people, and if they hold firm while the Dems shove this through, there will be a severe political bloodletting in 2010. If, however, the GOP folds and goes in for a compromise, they will have voluntarily given up on the single most winning election issue they could ever dream of.

Yeah, I'm worried about it, too.

While we watch this play out, let's look at a few more details. Did you know there is also a mommy tax in this thing?

When Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus proposed taxing medical devices to raise $40 billion over the next 10 years for his health care plan, opponents started digging in and looking at what would be taxed. It turned out feminine products, like tampons, were classified as class I medical devices and thus, the “tampon tax” was born.

The backlash was quick and severe enough against the idea that the committee quickly drafted new language that would exempt those necessities from the tax, along with all other class I devices, like tongue depressors, and decided to only tax class II medical devices and higher that cost [more] than $100.

But, just wait for the revolt to start again because women will still pay a price under the new structure. Particularly new moms who want to use a powered breast pump to bottle milk for their babies. Those devices, labeled class II, typically retails for more than $100.

Hot Air lists a number of these devices, and points out this:

Some of these items are explicitly counterproductive. For instance, all dialysis gets funded by Medicare under its ESRD program. Imposing taxes on dialysis catheters will only increase the cost to the government for dialysis patients, which already exceeds $9300 per month per patient. Also, the administration keeps talking about saving costs through the use of digital technology for storing patient records, but this tax will make it more expensive than otherwise for providers to comply.

Sounds like a typical liberal proposal, doesn't it?

And what of abortions? The news isn't good:

Already this year, Barack Obama has signed several pieces of abortion legislation including funding foreign abortions. He also signed legislation to use taxpayer money to kill embryos in research. And, democrats are pushing legislation that will force healthcare providers to perform abortions even if it violates their moral or religious convictions.

Barack Obama is the most radical pro-abortion and infanticide president in the last 35 years. Barack Obama even voted 4 times to support infanticide during his political career.

The Vatican already attacked "arrogant" Barack Obama for using taxpayer money to fund foreign abortions.

Now, Barack Obama is forcing a private Catholic institution to cover abortion in its insurance plan.

The Becket Fund for Religious Freedom sent out an alert tonight warning that the Obama Administration has started a campaign to punish private pro-life institutions.

The Obama Administration is working to erase respect for conscience from health insurance and the law in general...
Don’t believe me?

In his address at the University of Notre Dame, Obama talked a good game about respecting conscience on abortion rights. He did the same thing when he met the Pope.
But that was all it was -- talk.

The Obama Administration’s attack on Belmont Abbey College proves that.

Belmont Abbey College is a small, private, Catholic college located in North Carolina. For 130 years, it and the Benedictine monks who run it have been dedicated to handing on the Catholic faith.

But the Obama Administration is now trying to force them to abandon that faith or go out of business.

You see, the Administration at Belmont Abbey College removed contraception, abortion, and voluntary sterilization from its faculty's health care policy after discovering it had accidentally been a part of existing plans.

Employees of the school who objected to this change in policy brought a complaint against the school accusing them of “gender discrimination.”

This accusation against Belmont Abbey College couldn’t be further from the truth.

Belmont Abbey College was not discriminating against women. Unlike many “believers in name only” the college was adhering to the principles of its faith.

At first, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found no evidence of gender discrimination by Belmont Abbey College... After a few weeks, the EEOC mysteriously reversed course and announced, in effect, that the college had better toe the Administration’s line, or else.

They are now demanding the school go against the very principles it exists to serve.

Don’t be fooled.

Killing or funding the killing of unborn children has nothing to do with promoting human health. And including these atrocities in every “health care” plan -- no matter how shrewdly hidden or diplomatically stated – violates the consciences of Catholics everywhere.
No Catholic college or other religious institution should ever be required by the government to violate its moral beliefs ...

Finally, do you remember how previous discussions of reforming Social Security brought on accusations of forcing seniors to choose between medicine and dog food? Well, a similar thing appears to be shaping up now:

Food or health care? For many of the poorest working families, that may no longer be an option should Senator Max Baucus’ health care bill become law. Through an individual mandate enforced by tax punishments, all adult Americans will be required either to purchase a health care plan or pay a fine. While only a nuisance for more affluent families, this has the potential to injure low-wage workers by decreasing real wages, increasing layoffs and reducing job opportunities. Should the poorest American workers be responsible to fund health care form?

Baucus’ plan would require all Americans between 133% and 400% of the Federal Poverty Level to pay a sliding percentage of their income for health care, increasing as the worker earns more. For an individual earning $19,915 annually, they would be required to spend as much as $1,145 on health insurance premiums, the rest to be covered by their employer. Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, an individual in this salary range spends roughly $268 per month on food. That comes to over four months of food, spent instead on mandatory health insurance.

Of course, this same individual could opt out of health insurance, but they would be responsible for a tax of $750 for a service that they do not receive. These numbers are mimicked even for a family of four at 300% of the Federal Poverty Level earning almost $70,000, which could be responsible for an $8,337 mandatory health plan. With BLS data, this sum could feed this family for almost a year, but should this family opt out they could be on the hook for a $3,800 fee to remain uninsured. Never before have Americans been obligated to pay so much for nothing.

This is nothing less than a battle for the control over every man, woman, and child in America, and the most fundamental and critical decisions they face.

ObamaKennedyDeathCare will wreak literal havoc on this nation, and it must be stopped.

There's my two cents.



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Obamacare: a FAIL from sea to shining sea
The lesson of state health care reform