Tuesday ObamaKennedyDeathCare Update

There's a lot more fun stuff to report on Obama's government takeover of health care, so let's dive in!

First of all, it's good to see that Democrats are serious about bipartisanship on this most contentious issue:

Liberal media icon Garrison Keillor says the country should kill all Republicans to pay for health care in the United States.
The Chicago Tribune published Keillor's wish, via Don Surber:

When an entire major party has excused itself from meaningful debate and a thoughtful U.S. senator like Orrin Hatch no longer finds it important to make sense and an up-and-comer like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty attacks the president for giving a speech telling schoolchildren to work hard in school and get good grades, one starts to wonder if the country wouldn't be better off without them and if Republicans should be cut out of the health-care system entirely and simply provided with aspirin and hand sanitizer. Thirty-two percent of the population identifies with the GOP, and if we cut off health care to them, we could probably pay off the deficit in short order.

In the interest of fairness, Keiller isn't an elected official; we all know that an elected Democrat would never say anything inflammatory about Republicans.

Another aspect of ObamaKennedyDeathCare that hasn't gotten much play is what it would do to state budgets. It ain't pretty:

A number of amendments will reduce state flexibility in the management of Medicaid. States lost flexibility in designing their benchmark plans. States will be required to extend “spousal impoverishment” rules which apply when one spouse is in a nursing home to community settings as well which will substantially shift costs from private pay to Medicaid. States will be faced with a new, broader definition of medical assistance, the implications of which will be determined through regulation and litigation. Finance is turning SCHIP into Medicaid. CBO has not yet calculated how much it will cost the states in administrative changes that will be required to comply with the new federal mandates.

Higher State Costs
Medicaid programs will be forced to absorb open-ended costs in the foster care system. In adopting the Stabenow Amendment on therapeutic foster care, the Committee is now on record to overturn litigation won by the state of California to limit Medicaid’s role in funding the child welfare system.

The wide-open language of the Stabenow will likely cost states billions as providers will seek to tap into the Medicaid entitlement to fund the child welfare system, which is really what the California litigation was about.

Medicaid Expansion
States cannot afford a Medicaid expansion and neither can the federal government. The Finance Committee plan includes extra federal funds to pay for most of the new costs and when the bill gets to the Senate floor, Senators will try to get 100 percent federal funding just as Majority Leader Reid has done for Nevada. But simply adding more federal funds into an unreformed Medicaid program is not the answer either.

One day perhaps, Congress will realize that expanding Medicaid comes at the expense of other state and federal priorities including education and the child welfare system. As Medicaid grows, funding for other programs shrink, which in turn, increases demand for Medicaid to become the source of funding for those other programs.

It's a never-ending spiral of irresponsible spending, and it starts with this legislation. But surely Congress wouldn't rush into anything hasty, would they? Especially not something this major, right? Guess again:

Wow, that makes you feel good, doesn't it? But it gets even better:

The first week of August, Robert Gibbs declined to say whether or not President Obama would read the entire health-care legislation in full before signing it. At today's White House press briefing, Gibbs punted again on this fairly straighforward question when asked by THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

TWS: ... before the President signs [the health-care bill] will he himself read it or rely on staff to read the text of the bill?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think he's read a decent part of the legislation that's been bandied around right now, and we should address this as with members of Congress when we have closer to a final piece of legislation.

Oh, yes, the country's in good hands, don't you think? Patterico suggests supporting an amendment to the Constitution that would require legislators to actually read the bills they vote on before they cast their votes. Fancy that!

Along those lines, here's a specific to-do for you regarding the vapor bill:

Here is how Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation describes the Vapor Bill:

President Barack Obama’s push for a sweeping health care overhaul is going to be voted upon in the Senate Finance Committee this week and nobody has read the actual bill yet. The Washington Post reported last Friday that “Senate Finance Committee Releases Its Final Text of Health-Care Bill,” yet you click on a link to the “Bill” referenced in the Post article and all you get is a 262 page description of the legislation. There still is no actual legislative language being given to Senators, Staff or the American Public. That is why many are calling it the “Vapor Bill.”

Why it Matters: A bill without legislative language cannot be accurately scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Its impact and effects cannot be judged, nor can it be accurately evaluated without the legislative language. The end of life counseling in the House bill was discovered by reading the bill — as were many other objectionable ideas and issues.

The Vapor Bill is part of a key Senate Democratic Leadership strategy to bring a blank bill before the Senate — in this particular case — the AIG Bonus bill.

How You Can Stop It: Call Your Senator’s right now and demand that the legislative language for the health reform bill be available for 72 hours before the Senate begins consideration of the bill, and that CBO Scores the bill by evaluating the legislative language — not a literary work that is not the language that will become law.

Good advice. Pick up the phone.

In another show of desperation, Barack Obama is pulling out all the stops to persuade people that a government takeover of health care will be beneficial:

President Barack Obama pitched his health care reform plan, again, today this time in front of 150 doctors in the White House Rose Garden.

They were all wearing their white doctor coats for maximum effect, of course. And he didn't cover any new ground, just going over the same tired talking points. And, there were some interesting...oh, let's be charitable and call them omissions:

Drs. Donald Palsimano, William Plested II and Daniel Johnson Jr. — all former American Medical Association presidents who weren’t invited to the press conference — in a Wall Street Journal editorial urged Obama and Congress to scrap any idea of a government-run health care plan through a public option or co-op and instead focus on incentives that would foster more of a consumer-driven health system. “One easy reform would be to enable individuals to buy policies offered in any state, not just where they live. This will enhance competition. But more government-run health insurance will only lead to disaster,” the doctors wrote.

One other thing - these whitecoats (silently) supporting The Obamessiah were members of an Obama advocacy group, "Doctors for Obama". But of course they were strictly objective.

And what if ObamaKennedyDeathCare goes into law? What happens next?

Recently in a WSJ interview, Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank estimated the present value of the unfunded liability of Medicare and Social Security to be in excess of $100 trillion; and, actuarial reports show them both close to insolvency. Thus, our true National debt is more than ten times its publicized size and there is no method to pay.

If every earned dollar were paid in taxes, it still would not cover the expenditure. For the country to survive this impending bankruptcy it has to immediately begin to shift health insurance to the free market and to the individual in order to decrease costs across the spectrum. Otherwise, the nation is in danger of losing all that it has built.

Here's an idea on how to actually solve the problem:

Over two decades ago Milton Friedman identified rising medical costs and the coming deluge of ‘baby boomers’ that would flood the national retirement and medical programs leading them to bankruptcy. Always prescient, Dr. Friedman tied a large measure of the rising health care costs to the ‘free medicine’ that was being given as a tax-free supplement to the employee.

Recipients spent more time figuring out the price of their McDonald’s lunch than their health care costs as they were freed of personal and financial responsibility through the third party payer system that evolved. These systems ultimately fail as the first and second parties become separated from their personal relationships by the third party payer’s financial interests.

Here's the key part:

Friedman’s solution was simple. Unleash the powerful forces of the American entrepreneurial class by separating health insurance from the employer and thus returning the individual to his rightful place as the first party participant. Employees would have their present salaries increased by the amount the employer has been paying and they would then be responsible for purchasing their own insurance. Those that wanted to remain with a health plan provided by the employer could do so with an imputed tax liability for its cost.

Since the prevailing cost per employee and his family is approaching $12,000, the employee would soon want control of his health insurance money as he could buy a tailored policy for about a third of that. The vast majority of Americans would opt for a catastrophic policy with large deductibles and that would return the patient/doctor relationship to its rightful place with personal choices and without government interference leading to the bureaucratic rationing of services.

The free market thrust for the health insurance dollars of our over 300 million citizens would be enormous and prices would be competitively adjusted. Reductions would begin the minute a national policy of citizen responsibility for his health insurance was announced. The entire medical field would be in competition and have no choice but to change its pricings structure, as they want and need your business. As in all free market situations, the citizen is now in control of his expenditures and that is a powerful mitigating factor against run away costs. You pay, they play!

Doesn't that sound better -- not to mention more effective -- than the government controlling what health care you get, when you get it, and how much it should cost?

So that's where things stand. The Senate proceedings are held up at the moment, waiting on the Congressional Budget Office to take a wild stab at the cost of the thing. Now would be an excellent time for your phone calls.

There's my two cents.