DemCare Deal Not Quite A Deal

It appears that the rumors of a final deal on DemCare were a bit premature, or maybe just exaggerated. Bill Kristol flat out says that Harry Reid doesn't have the 60 votes he needs to pass it. Joe Lieberman appears to be holding firm against the newest 'deal', and unless Reid can buy off RINO Reps like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (who don't appear to be playing ball at the moment), he's sunk. Other Dems are likewise hesitant, but likely can be bought off in the end. Still, the point is that the big announcement of a deal was more likely a PR move to make DemCare seem inevitable than an actual statement of significance. Oh, and there's the little fact that Reid still hasn't released this newly announced vapor bill, so no one really knows what's in it yet.

I heard someone on the radio put this asinine idea into perspective this way:
- the Dems are going to pay for DemCare and keep it 'deficit neutral' by cutting Medicare
- Reid's new plan is going to be a massive expansion of Medicare and Medicaid

Um...okay...so how are they going to implement DemCare which will be a massive expansion of Medicare while simultaneously using the cuts of Medicare to pay for the implementation of DemCare? Figure that one out and you can also solve world peace, I bet. But, this is a great illustration of how nonsensical DemCare really is.

It is very telling, however, to note that some Dems are openly celebrating the fact that this new 'compromise' will, in fact, lead to a single-payer system. Like we've discussed before, that's the end game of the Left, and there's no point (for them) in shooting for anything less, unless it's an incremental step toward a single-payer system.

Though it's discouraging to watch the GOP simply try to amend DemCare into something more palatable, we keep hearing from the GOP leadership that they're really going to hold firm against this thing. Well fine, but are you just going to hold firm, or are you going to aggressively seek to kill it? That's exactly what dozens of high profile conservatives are demanding of the GOP leadership in the Senate, and the polling indicates that the American people would agree with them.

Now, let's get into some more of the details of this new plan from the Dems. What exactly is it? It's still a Trojan horse that will eventually give us a public option (aka government control). It will still drive up the costs of premiums. in some ways, it would actually be worse than the first plan they vomited out. Here's how.

This idea was already scored by the CBO about a year ago, and here's how that turned out:

People will retire earlier, which will reduce tax revenues as they earn less and draw pensions instead of produce. Many of them will retire too early and won’t have the resources to maintain a sustainable lifestyle, which means that they will either have to go back to work or receive government assistance. People who already have insurance or are health won’t need to get the Medicare option, which will create a selection bias that gives the pool a much higher risk factor than the general population. That will either drive up premiums, or more likely, will pressure Congress to further subsidize Medicare.

And that was based on moving the age down to 62, not 55 like they're talking about now. If they do this plan, it will be far, far worse, especially as time goes on and the system compounds on itself.

Again, abortion is one of the lightning rod issues. Just to give you an idea of the Left's methods and tactics on the subject. First, a disturbing look at how one of the poster child organizations of the Left, Planned Parenthood, operates:

This is an undercover video of a woman receiving blatantly false information from a doctor about aborting her baby. It's the culture of death, up close and personal. And oh, by the way, it doesn't matter what you believe about abortion, under DemCare you WILL be paying for them. And no, the liberal Left doesn't think there's anything wrong with that:

This is DemCare. It is coming, unless we can effectively persuade the GOP leadership to utilize all possible methods (and even make up new ones) to kill it.

There's my two cents.