Ed Morrissey at Hotair indicates that the Congressional Budget Office (the non-partisan office responsible for evaluating legislations impact on the overall economy) has revised its assessment about what’s wrong with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Previous CBO Director Peter Orszag (who is now, interestingly enough, President Obama’s budget director) supported President Obama’s push for a massive nationalization of the health care industry by repeating claims that the main problem with medicare & medicaid is the rising cost of health care. That claim supports a government option, because if cost of health care is the primary problem, the cheaper care at whatever cost is the best solution. The current CBO, however (with Orszag no longer at the helm) has reversed its previous claim, stating that the problem isn’t the rising cost of health care, but rather the rising numbers of people on the rolls. What’s causing the problems isn’t primarily that it costs too much money, but that there are too many people needing the care. So, let me ask, would the best solution to this problem to be make a bunch of new people eligible for care (since the problem is that too many people are already eligible) or to make fewer people eligible (as Morrissey indicates possibly by raising retirement age or by simply denying people). The numbers would seem to indicate that the government option, opening potentially and eventually millions of new people to the government rolls, would make the problem worse, not better. What’s probably more interesting is how this helpful bit of information was discovered only after Orszag left to take a higher position in The One’s administration. Was he cooking the books at the CBO, was he simply misinformed and wrong, or is the new CBO wrong in its assessment of the problem? If he’s cooking the books, he’ll be right at home with all the other tax cheats etc in the administration. If he was misinformed & wrong, is that the kind of incompetence you want handling your budget (although there’s precedent in “Turbo Tax” Timmy Geithner). If the new CBO is wrong, it casts all of their predictions and prognostications into the realm of doubt, even the ones that would support Obama’s financial raping of the generations. The holes just keep getting bigger in this fiasco. The House of Representatives narrowly squeaked out passage of this bill (and probably cost a few new and moderate Democrats their seats in the next election cycle), to make sure it doesn’t happen in the Senate, begin calling your Senators now to tell them to vote against the Obamacare.
A government healthcare option pulls people OUT of medicare and medicaid. Thats exactly the point. Why would MORE available insurance push more people to medicare?
Second, the article you reference does not make the claim you say it does.
The government health care often will soon enough begin to fail for the same reason that medicare is currently failing. There are too many people to cover, and not enough people to pay for the covering.
If you’re talking about the CBO report, I disagree with your assessment.
From what I understand it will also force those of us (like our family) who do not have health “insurance,” per say, into the Gov’t system. There are millions of people, Christians in particular, who are counted in the numbers of those who do NOT have health insurance, who use a health care cost sharing network…I do not want to see this change.
That doesn’t make any sense. What the heck is “Too many people to cover” If there is such a thing as too many people enrolled in an insurance program then why do Geico, State Farm and Allstate work so hard to get more customers?
The whole first page of the Medical summary is an explaination of rising Health Care cost and how much they out pace inflation and are expected to continue to do so. Not much left for “interpretation”
the problem that I see is too many people now lined up to see the same doctor and not enough med staff. I guarantee you doctors will not accept this govt insurance and the rich will find a way to get optimal healthcare and not lose any sleep…
The last page says cost growth has shrunk in the last two years. The cost isn’t the problem.
Oh it does not, on page 33 it says that they use a model with zero increase in cost above growth to isolate the effect of aging alone. Even in this sentence it calls the model implausible.
Aside from that, Do you really want to put your eggs in the basket of having to argue that heath care cost arent rising beyond our economic growth?
I do say that the cost is rising, but that’s not the primary problem. I think costs are rising because the quality of care is rising. What’s making the program unsustainable is that it’s being flooded by boomers & busters (or whatever the next generation is).
Interesting side note. For those who don’t think Obama is using the government option as a “trojan horse” for a single payer program, here is a video with then Senator Obama saying that he “happens to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care system” just before he says that he isn’t a proponent of a universal health care plan. Which is it?
I read a good analogy. “Think of everything you know about public housing, the image the term conjures up in your mind. If you like public housing you will love public health care.”
or how about, “think of everything you know about the special forces, the image the term conjures up in your mind, If you like the special forces, you’ll love public health care”
or how about, “think of everything you know about the space program, the image the term conjures up in your mind, If you like the space program, you’ll love public health care”
or how about, “think of everything you know about the coast guard, the image the term conjures up in your mind, If you like the coast guard, you’ll love public health care”
or the FBI, or Hoover Dam, or the National Parks system. this is a fun game.
And to the rest of your post, all the more reason to put those people on some sort of premium paid medical plan rather than the simple “everyone pays 3%” medicare plan.
The Space Program – if we were going to have 10,000 doctors gear up to treat 3 to 5 patients a year at a cost of bazillions of dollars, that would be an appropriate analogy.
Special Forces, Coast Guard, FBI, etc – I don’t want my medical care run like a military installation. It’s a totally different mission and function. I’m not a big fan of a standing congressional “hospital closures committee” duking it out over which hospital to close.
The Hoover Dam – See space station above. If the Hoover Dam was built ahead of schedule (or even on schedule) and at or below budget, and it were built 100 times a year, it may be a closer analogy.
The National Parks System – Game management is not the same thing as managing health care for 100,000,000 people.
Why doesn’t mandatory auto and homeowners insurance wreck our future and bankrupt us and all that?
And talk about truth is elastic. Even if the post was 100% correct (which its not) it would mean that you are now coming up with reasons to be AGAINST what your man supported in the campaign.
Wrong on lots of levels for lots of reasons.
1. Obama’s claim that McCain was going to tax benefits was spin. I don’t remember all the nuances but he was also offering a $5000 tax credit for Health Insurance.
2. Me being against Obama HARDLY makes me for McCain. He wasn’t my guy, and he lost because he’s hardly a republican.
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