Two notable events happened yesterday that you need to know about. First, the unions are actually pushing back against Obama. I know, I was shocked, too, but here it is:Leaders in the House and Senate have a secret plan to pass President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care plan without a conference and without any participation by the American people … but that plan that has been pushed to Plan B. The primary plan is to use a secretive conference committee procedure to pass Obamacare by the end of the year.
Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee passed the outline of a bill, The Vapor Bill, out of committee on a party line vote with the lone crossover Republican support of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) on a 14-9 vote. AP is reporting that Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to commence debate the last week of October on his version of health care reform.
The plan being implemented right now to pass Obamacare is the following. The Senate will start debate on October 26th on a bill being written right now. The American people will not be allowed to view the writing of this bill and the negotiations between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Senator Max Baucus (D-MT). Human Events reported that the bill was being written before the Senate Finance Committee finished work on Obamacare and that President Obama’s head of the Office of Management and Budget has been present during the drafting of the legislation. .
In these closed door meetings, the negotiators will not be constrained by the bill that passed the Senate HELP Committee and the Senate Finance Committee legislation. This process is not transparent and Senator Orrin Hatch complained that “the real bill is currently being written behind closed doors in the dark corners of the Capitol and the White House.” Bottom line is that the American people will not be allowed to read the bill, until the elite negotiators decide to allow the American people to view it.
It is expected that the Senate will still move to a House passed tax bill and offer a complete substitute Amendment being the Obamacare bill being written right now somewhere in the Capitol. There is no way to know if Senator Reid will use his powers as leader to block amendments or to block the open amendment procedure to only allow leadership approved amendments to receive a vote. It is expected to be a long debate on the Senate floor and it may last well right up to the Senate recess for Thanksgiving.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is aiming to bring the House version of Obamacare to the floor “later this month.” After the House and Senate pass a bill, if they both pass a bill, the leadership is talking about conferencing the two bills. A conference committee will be another opportunity for the White House, Senate Leadership and House Leadership to craft a bill reconciling the two versions. Also, this would give the leadership the opportunity to kick out Republicans, as they did on the stimulus plan, and craft a bill inserting controversial provisions that don’t make it into the House and Senate plans. It is possible to add a controversial Public Option for health insurance in a conference, therefore bypassing some very painful votes on the Senate and House floor.
There are serious problems with this plan. First, after the experience that Republicans had with the Obama Stimulus plan, why would Senators allow this bill to go to conference? In the Senate, it takes 3 debatable (therefore filibusterable) motions to get the Senate to appoint conferees. Usually these motions are waived by unanimous consent, but one Senator could block conferees by objecting to an agreement. Both Republicans and Democrats have objected to conferees in the past on controversial measures to prevent a conference.
If they can’t get this risky plan implemented on schedule, they are still in a position to use Congress’ Secret Plan to pass Obamacare without a conference. The Senate Leadership has put this bill in a position that the House could take up the bill intact, pass and send to the President. CNS News reported that there is evidence in the House and Senate that Plan B is still available if the current publicly disclosed strategy breaks down.
Spokesman for Senator Harry Reid told Chris Frates of Politico that there is no single bullet scenario. “Don’t waste your time thinking about that idea anymore. What we will end up doing will be much more painful and prolonged,” said Ried spokesman Jim Manley. The big question for America is what they do if conservatives block the appointment of conferees or if the bill implodes on the Senate or House floor.
...before the vote in the Finance Committee was even final, 30 unions revealed plans to take out ads in national newspapers on Wednesday opposing the bill. Labor leaders are particularly dismayed at the proposal to finance the bill by taxing high-end health plans, which will affect many union workers.
I wouldn't expect this rift to hold firm, but it is rather interesting to see it suddenly open up.
Finally, even more eye-opening is some new information out about the cost of ObamaKennedyDeathCare:
The Baucus plan passed by the Senate Finance Committee yesterday amounts to a massive middle-class tax increase, according to one columnist today, and a dishonest shell game on taxes according to another. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former CBO director, argues that the Baucus plan will hit consumers with a deluge of taxes, many of which deliberately lack transparency, and 90% of which hit the middle class:
The bill creates a new health entitlement program that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will grow over the longer term at a rate of 8% annually, which is much faster than the growth rate of the economy or tax revenues. This is the same growth rate as the House bill that Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) deep-sixed by asking the CBO to tell the truth about its impact on health-care costs.
To avoid the fate of the House bill and achieve a veneer of fiscal sensibility, the Senate did three things: It omitted inconvenient truths, it promised that future Congresses will make tough choices to slow entitlement spending, and it dropped the hammer on the middle class. …
Most astounding of all is what this Congress is willing to do to struggling middle-class families. The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees. Nearly 90% of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less.
It might not appear that way at first, because the dollars are collected via a 40% tax on sales by insurers of “Cadillac” policies, fees on health insurers, drug companies and device manufacturers, and an assortment of odds and ends.
But the economics are clear. These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums. Consumers will pay the excise tax on high-cost plans. The Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that 87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.
Most already understand that corporations don’t really pay taxes; they pass the costs to consumers in the form of higher prices or in lost jobs and economic opportunities. While populists love to see Congress stick it to corporate America, in essence this is nothing more than a form of economic masochism.
In this case, as with the coming cap-and-trade bill, those costs get borne across the board because everyone accesses medical care. Taxes on pharmaceuticals, providers, and medical devices will get paid by consumers regardless of their income levels. The federal government will provide subsidies for families up to $88,000/year income level, but those subsidies come basically from the higher taxes imposed on the industry. The result will be an escalation of premiums and service prices that will either negate a large chunk of the proposed subsidy levels, or force the government to spend money from elsewhere to make up the difference — which would turn into a huge deficit explosion in a short period of time.
How short? According to Jeffrey Anderson in the New York Post, that could be immediately, thanks to the shell game Baucus created to hide the real costs of his plan:
Baucus’ most elementary trick was to have the bill’s “first 10 years” include several years when it hadn’t really kicked in. It was scored for 2010 to 2019, yet it wouldn’t be in full swing until 2015 — when its costs would exceed those of its first five years combined.
In fact, the bill wouldn’t cost anything in 2010. In its real first decade (2011-20), it would cost more than $1 trillion.
Furthermore, the CBO projects that, by the end of 2030, the Baucus bill would have cut spending on Medicare and other existing health programs by more than $2.6 trillion.
But the real shell game, and the real danger to patients, comes in Medicare reimbursement cuts:
As the CBO notes, his bill would cut Medicare payments to doctors by 25 percent in 2011, then hold them at that level perpetually. In other words, given inflation, Baucus proposes endless cuts in what the program pays physicians and others.
Assuming 3 percent annual inflation, by 2014 doctors’ real incomes from Medicare payments would be cut by a third from 2010. By 2025, they’d be cut in half.
If Baucus’ cuts actually go through, physicians’ willingness to see Medicare patients would dwindle alongside their pay. But if the cuts don’t actually get made, Baucus’ plan would explode the federal deficit.
Without the savings from Medicare and related programs, the CBO projects that the bill would raise our deficits by $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years — and rising.
So, not only is the cost of the first 10 years -- that's what the CBO scored -- based on lies and omissions, but the cost will triple during the second decade. Just ask yourself where all those trillions of dollars are going to come from! If you thought taxes were high now, just wait until we have to pay for that. Even worse, those cuts in Medicare will happen almost immediately.
So, what we have here is a giant bait-and-switch that will cost taxpayers trillions of dollars in higher taxes, destroy Medicare through immediate cuts, and include all of the worst aspects we've been discussing for months, like death panels, home intrusions, rationed care, and all the rest.
There's my two cents.
Related Reading:
Ruination from Obama-Baucus
Health care Snowe job
It's all downhill from here
Obamacare: Snowementum!
The Baucus Middle-Class Tax-Hike Bill
Health care the day after the Baucus bill
The WSJ guide to Obamacare
The Baucus death spiral
Senate committee confirms Baucus plan will lower wages
Snowe's yes vote and Obamacare's future
No comments:
Post a Comment