Rep. Mike Rogers (R – 8th MI) delivers a devastating critique of the democrat healthcare bill.

3:49 video

The commentator at Maggie’s Farm who signs himself Bird Dog called it “powerful stuff.”

Michael D. Tanner lists some of the reasons we need to defeat the democrat Health Care Bill: staggering costs resulting in higher taxes and insurance premiums for which working Americans will get lower quality and rationed services.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Sen. Harry Reid has given us a giant turkey of a health-care bill. At 2,074 pages and more than 370,000 words, it’s officially “scored” as costing $849 billion over 10 years — $400 million per page, or $2.3 million per word.

But that doesn’t come close to measuring its true cost. The bill uses various accounting gimmicks to hide its true cost. For example the bill doesn’t include more than $200 billion needed to prevent a 21 percent cut in Medicare next year. [The CBO “score” actually assumes Reid cuts Medicare 23 percent — Ed.] That cost has been spun off into a separate bill, even though the Senate voted down that approach last month.

Moreover (as Jeffrey H. Anderson notes), much of the spending is back-loaded. The bill doesn’t start spending until 2014, and only costs $9 billion that year. But by 2019, the annual cost hits $196 billion. The minority staff of the Senate Budget Committee reports that, if you factor out all the budget gimmicks and look at the 10 years of actual implementation, the cost is closer to $2.5 trillion. …

much of the cost has simply been shifted from the federal budget onto the backs of workers, businesses and state governments. Judging by previous reforms, as much as 60 percent of the cost won’t show up in government accounting.

To pay for all the new spending, Reid would enact at least 15 new or increased taxes totaling more than $493 billion.

But the cost alone doesn’t begin to describe how intrusive this bill would be for the average American. For instance, it would require everyone to buy a government-designed insurance plan, even if it was more expensive than their current policy. Failure to comply brings a penalty of up to $6,750 for a family of four.

Another provision would mandate that employers provide insurance to their workers. If they fail to do so, and if even a single worker qualified for federal subsidies, the employer could be fined up to $750 per employee. The CBO estimates that those penalties will amount to more than $28 billion.

Unemployment is now 10.2 percent, and the Senate bill will make it more costly to hire workers. And because the penalty only applies in the case of subsidy-eligible workers, it is low-wage and unskilled workers that will suffer the most.

Of course, the plan contains the government-run “public option” that many experts believe will ultimately crowd out private insurers. And don’t be misled by Reid’s “opt-out” provision: It comes with so many restrictions that it will be nearly impossible for a state to actually opt out.

Besides, there won’t be any opting out of the taxes that will ultimately be necessary to pay for it.

Finally, the bill sets the stage for government-imposed rationing. If you think the recent controversy over mammograms is something, just wait until the dozens of new boards, commissions and agencies created by this bill get to work. The “reform” also gives the secretary of Health and Human Services broad new powers to determine “quality,” “efficiency” and “appropriate utilization.”

At first, these restrictions would only apply to government programs like Medicare, but they’d create the framework for eventual extension to private insurance.

If Reid gets the 60 votes he needs to pass this, US taxpayers, businesses and patients can expect to pay a high price for this congressional feast.

Don Troiani, Bunker Hill

From Gateway Pundit:

Senate Democrats will only deliberate 10 hours on Saturday before they vote to nationalize one-sixth of the US economy.

The bill will nationalize the nation’s health care industry, increase costs, ration care, tax cosmetic surgery, cut Medicare, charge a monthly abortion fee, and take away your freedom.

Please take time tomorrow and Saturday to call your US Senator.

HERE IS THE PHONE LIST.

Don’t let the democrats destroy our health care system.

Support for this disastrous bill is down to 40% with 52% opposing.

Megan McArdle reads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report on ObamaCare and finds that the prognosis is bad. Democrats can’t simply legislate more health care loaves and fishes miraculously into existence.

(T)he most worrying item is tucked into the CMS’s “caveats and limitations of estimates” section, which is well worth reading. They point out that they, like most other agencies, are assuming a sort of frictionless universe in which 34 million new people demanding more health services increases the supply of health services in order to meet that demand. That is not, notes the CMS, a very realistic assumption:

In estimating the financial impacts of H.R. 3962, we assumed that the increased demand for health care services could be met without market disruptions. In practice, supply constraints might interfere with providing the services desired by the additional 34 million insured persons. Price reactions–that is, providers successfully negotiating higher fees in response to the greater demand–could result in higher total expenditures or in some of this demand being unsatisfied. Alternatively, providers might tend to accept more patients who have private insurance (with relatively attractive payment rates) and fewer Medicaid patients, exacerbating existing access problems for the latter group. Either outcome (or a combination of both) should be considered plausible and even probable.

The latter possibility is especially likely in the case of the higher volume of Medicaid services. Despite a provision to increase payment rates for primary care to Medicare levels, most Medicaid payments would still be well below average. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that a significant portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would not be realized.

We have not attempted to model that impact or other plausible supply and price effects, such as supplier entry and exit or cost-shifting towards private payers. A specific estimate of these potential outcomes is impracticable at this time, given the uncertainty associated with both the magnitude of these effects and the interrelationships among these market dynamics. We may incorporate such factors in future estimates, should we determine that they can be estimated with a reasonable degree of confidence. For now, we believe that consideration should be given to the potential consequences of a significant increase in demand for health care meeting a relatively fixed supply of health care providers and services.

In other words, while we are nominally increasing the number of “the insured”, it’s not clear we’re increasing their access to health care very much. The supply of health care services is actually pretty inelastic, because it depends on relatively scarce labor. There’s already a nursing shortage, and doctors already don’t want to become GPs because the pay is mediocre, the work is routine, and the hours aren’t particularly compelling. To some extent they can be replaced by nurse practitioners–but they are neither particularly cheap, nor in endless supply. And there’s a limit to how much of our health care costs we can fix by replacing current workers with less skilled labor.

When you increase the demand for something without increasing the supply, you either get price increases, or shortages. Neither is what the authors are promising for their bills.

(Yes, yes, I know what you’re about to say . . . end the AMA cartel’s artificial restrictions on entry into the medical profession! That’s a different post, but here’s the short version: the constraint on the supply of doctors isn’t the medical school slots, but the residency slots. And we’re already importing a substantial number of doctors to fill our family practice slots, because about a third of them go unfilled during the “match”. This does not suggest that there are hordes of eager potential doctors clamoring for a crack at family practice. There’s a lot of demand for specialist slots. But creating more cardiac surgeons will not put much downward pressure on health care costs.)

But this is not an indictment of the bill’s ability to control costs, as of the ability of any bill to control costs. Controlling costs means consuming less health care. There is no magic pot of money waiting to be painlessly seized from some undeserving wretch, preferably one that voters already hate. The only way we are going to cut costs is by cutting someone’s benefits.

Bird Dog asks: If the ObamaCare proposal is so good, why do you have to imprison people who don’t want to participate?

Dick Morris identifies the relevant portions of the Bill.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the House version of the healthcare bill specifies that those who don’t buy health insurance and do not pay the fine of about 2.5 percent of their income for failing to do so can face a penalty of up to five years in prison!

The bill describes the penalties as follows:

Section 7203 — misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

Section 7201 — felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

That anyone should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible.

And how much will the stay-out-of-jail insurance cost? The Joint Committee noted that “according to a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the lowest-cost family non-group plan under HR 3862 [the Pelosi bill] would cost $15,000 by 2016.”

Rep. Paul Ryan ( R — 1 WI), in his 2 minute House speech captured in this 1:53 video, correctly observes that the democrat’s health care bill is not about reforming the system or lowering costs. It’s about ideology.

What side of history do democrats want to be on? Not the side of Washington and Jefferson.

John Cassidy, in the New Yorker, identifies whose side they are on.

In extending our health-care system, all we are doing is catching up with Otto Von Bismarck’s Germany, which recognized a hundred and twenty-five years ago that universal health and disability coverage, along with old age pensions and a system of public education, were essential elements of a modern society.

Otto von Bismarck

Der Staatssozialismus paukt sich durch. (State Socialism will forcibly move forward.)
— Otto von Bismark.

Democrats want to replace the Liberal American ideals of limited government, personal freedom, and individual responsibility with Mitteleuropean statism, socialism, and collectivism. Their “modern society” is, just like Bismark’s, centralized, bureaucratized, and dirigiste.

Socialism, statism, collectivism are all actually terribly old-fashioned ideas, representing nothing other than a variety of negative responses to the Liberal Enlightenment ideals of individual liberty and the restraint of state power in favor of voluntary and organic order. The would-be rulers of mankind simply ceased appealing to claims of Divine Right and hereditary superiority and began attempting to gain power by flattering and bribing the masses, while arousing their passions with fraudulent claims of injury and entitlement.

Human appetite for power is unlimited and the possession of power is always addictive. The Central European monarchies, Germany, Austria, Russia, which pioneered centralizing statism with unprecedentedly expansive regimes of taxation, regulation, and conscription, inevitably turned their power against one another, and destroyed themselves with the war they launched in 1914.

From its grand dynastic monarchies, the tradition of Continental European collectivism passed in 1917 to populist rule by cafe intellectuals, bringing within a generation an even greater war and murderous barbarism producing atrocities and deaths on a scale unprecedented in European civilization.

European exhaustion and the demoralization of the traditional leadership classes, after WWII, produced generally more benign socialist rule, but the European welfare state politics American liberals yearn to share produced nothing but European stagnation and decline. Britain was still rationing food as it had in wartime in 1954.

America surged dramatically ahead of Europe, economically and culturally, and (until the late 1960s) enjoyed decidedly less divisive and destructive politics.

Europe only began catching up to the United States in material prosperity, after many long years, when deference to market considerations on the basis of the American example significantly began to influence European economic policies.

Yet, despite the manifest superiority of the American political tradition and the American ideals of Liberty and Individualism, our domestic community of fashion continues to yearn to replace those with European-style statism. They seem to feel instinctively that, because French cheese, German cars, and Scandinavian design are such effective markers of class superiority that Europeans must also possess a more chic and desirable kind of politics. They are dead wrong.

Our liberals are like the Bourbons, and the Fall of Communism (whose anniversary, with respect to the opening of the Berlin Wall, we begin to celebrate tomorrow) is like the French Revolution, a historical watershed producing some definitive judgments on the Past. Like the Bourbons, American liberals have learned nothing about economics. And like the Bourbons, they refuse to relinquish their illusions and their ancient animosities.

Like housebreakers waiting until Saturday night when American adults would be out for the evening, Nancy Pelosi and the House democrats, joined among Republicans only by former Representative William (“office cooler full of cash”) Jefferson’s replacement Joseph Cao (“R” — 2 LA), narrowly passed the labrynthine multi-trillion dollar bill proposing to nationalize health care in America 220-215.

The New York Times called it “their defining social policy achievement.”

I think it defines them alright, as socialists, collectivists, liars, frauds, and thieves.

Stephen Green speaks bitterly for the rest of us:

How do you cure high unemployment and sluggish growth?

Proven methods include reducing regulation and lowering taxes.

So it comes as no surprise that the House has just approved one of (if not the) biggest increases in taxes and regulation after virtually zero debate and in the middle of a weekend night when almost no one is paying attention.

They’re cowards. Shrewd cowards, but cowards still. …

Which is the greater number: Pages in the bill the House just passed, or the minutes spent debating it?

Senator Orrin Hatch (R- UT) yesterday. in an interview with CNS, questioned the constitutionality of the democrat health care reform bill, and explained why Nancy Pelosi and the democrat party’s congressional leadership are willing to defy opinion polls and risk losing control of Congress by ramming through ObamaCare.

The Hill:

HATCH: That’s their goal. Move people into government that way. Do it in increments. They’ve actually said it. They’ve said it out loud.

Q: This is a step-by-step approach —

HATCH: A step-by-step approach to socialized medicine. And if they get there, of course, you’re going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody’s going to say, “All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party.”

Q: They’ll have reduced the American people to dependency on the federal government.

HATCH: Yeah, you got that right. That’s their goal. That’s what keeps Democrats in power.

Around 19:50 in the 33:57 video.

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Duncan Black speaks for the left blogosphere generally by parsing Hatch’s warning into a more flattering form.

Orrin Hatch says we can’t have health care reform because it will be awesome and everyone will love it and they’ll be so grateful that they will vote for Democrats for all eternity.

Health care delivered by government will actually, judging by the experience of other countries, be crappy, severely rationed, and lacking innovation. The rich and powerful will simply go outside US borders to obtain first class health care at luxury clinics located in convenient resort destinations. The ordinary middle class citizen will find himself standing in long queues behind welfare moms, junkies, gangbangers, and illegal aliens.

The quality will be low, the service will be slow, but lunch will come without a check.

Democrats are counting on human nature being on their side. Free goods and services at somebody else’s expense have a powerful appeal. Also, they are addictive.

Once anyone has contributed revenue into the system, he is going to feel he has a claim to get those promised benefits. Once one sixth of the American economy goes down the federal anaconda’s throat, it won’t be coming back up.

Duncan Black’s boast can be more accurately paraphrased that the heroin will be so awesome, and will be so effective that the suckers’ will love it and will be unable afterward to do without it, and they’ll be so dependent on their dealer that they will happily surrender to him all the money and power he ever asks for.

Free government services, like addictive drugs, are morally corrosive, enervating to the human character and will, and a sure path to dependency and slavery.

Hat tip to Bruce Kessler.

The Barrister explains to our liberal friends why so many Americans are reluctant to believe a Government-run health system would be better.

I do not think it’s so much because people want freedom and choice (altho they do) as it is because people have no confidence in government entitlement programs (which the Dem plans are all about, ultimately). Why?

Social Security – bankrupt
Postal Service – bankrupt
Welfare – had devastating unintended consequences for which the nation still pays and from which the nation continues to suffer (eg huge rates – up to 70% – of single motherhood among beneficiaries)
Medicare – bankrupt
Medicaid – bankrupting the states
Government-run (ie union-controlled) schools: are people thrilled with them?
Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac – bankrupt
The “stimulus” – a failure, but it did create 25,000 new government jobs!

The future tax consequences of the above are daunting to people, and the idea of adding another trillion or so frightens the heck out of people who are thinking about their own well-being, their kids’ futures – and also about the nation’s. …

Abundant, high quality, and fairly expensive medical care is one of the great blessings and privileges of a prosperous society, and thus an important economic engine. Why kill it? People want these things.

Do Americans want to be grown-ups, or children? It’s our call.

My liberal classmates, I find, are simply members of a religious cult whose object of worship is the state. Everything enlarging state income, power, and authority is good. Anything you want done, just turn it over to the federal government.

The government is to them rather the the genie in the lamp. Want poverty eliminated? Want free health care for everyone? Want a perfect world? Just rub the lamp, let those democrats pass an appropriations bill, and voilà! your friendly government genie grants your wish.

They actually believe that the same government that buys $435 hammers, $640 toilet seats, and $7600 coffee makers, the same government whose lawmakers can neither read the healthcare bill they’re voting on or arrange to have it put on-line, is going to streamline delivery and make health care cheaper and more efficient. Pure insanity.

Herbert London, at PJM, attacks the philosophy of Envy underlying the agenda of the American party of the left.

Whether it is the socialism espoused by the Nazis or the socialism of the former Soviet Union or the socialism that is emerging in the United States, there is one overarching sentiment, however different socialism in these three societies may be. Socialism everywhere expresses envy of excellence by treating the contributions and wealth of the successful as the wages of sin.

The Nazis saw the sin as a Jewish conspiracy, the Soviets saw sin as exploitation by the bourgeoisie, and what is emerging in the United States is the sin of the wealthy.

In the Obama administration greed is considered the sin that must be opposed. But greed, whatever its deficiencies, is, as Adam Smith pointed out, an incentive for the promotion of capitalism which, in the aggregate, has a salutary influence on the economy. To combat greed, the socialists emphasize envy. Since equality is the goal, even trivial differences in income are exaggerated and the progressivity in the tax system is employed as a blunt instrument to impose equality.

Lincoln said “you can’t make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.” But President Obama seems to believe that wealth is invariably related to the wages of sin and must be controlled or, to use his language, “spread around.” To make sure this happens, government must expand and, in so doing, the private sector will inevitably contract. That explains why socialism, which purports to represent the interests of the average person, ends in overwhelming government control or outright tyranny. …

President Gerald Ford put this matter in perspective when he noted “that a government that can give you everything you want will be large enough to take everything you have.”

Read the whole thing.

In the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Richard B. Rafal argues that the legal profession should get its own share of “reform.”

Since we are moving toward socialism with ObamaCare, the time has come to do the same with other professions—especially lawyers. Physician committees can decide whether lawyers are necessary in any given situation. …

Following are highlights of a proposed bill authorizing the dismantling of the current framework of law practice and instituting socialized legal care:…

Legal “DRGs.” Each potential legal situation will be assigned a relative value, and charges limited to this amount. Program participation and acceptance of this amount is mandatory, regardless of the number of hours spent on the matter. Government schedules of flat fees for each service, analogous to medicine’s Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs), will be issued. For example, any divorce will have a set fee of, say, $1,000, regardless of its simplicity or complexity. This will eliminate shady hourly billing. Niggling fees such as $2 per page photocopied or faxed would disappear. Who else nickels-and-dimes you while at the same time charging hundreds of dollars per hour? I’m surprised lawyers don’t tack shipping and handling onto their bills.

 Legal “death panels.” Over 75? You will not be entitled to legal care for any matter. Why waste money on those who are only going to die soon? We can decrease utilization, save money and unclog the courts simultaneously. Grandma, you’re on your own.

Ration legal care. One may need to wait months to consult an attorney. Despite a perceived legal need, physician review panels or government bureaucrats may deem advice unnecessary. Possibly one may not get representation before court dates or deadlines. But that’ s tough: What do you want for “free”?

Physician controlled legal review. This is potentially the most exciting reform, with doctors leading committees for determining the necessity of all legal procedures and the fairness of attorney fees. …

Electronic legal records. We should enter the digital age and computerize and centralize legal records nationwide. All files must be in a standard, preferably inconvenient, format and must be available to government agencies. A single database of judgments, court records, client files, etc. will decrease legal expenses. Anyone with Internet access will be able to search the database, eliminating unjustifiable fees charged by law firms for supposedly proprietary information, while fostering transparency. It will enable consumers to dump their clunker attorneys and transfer records easily. …

New government oversight. Government overhead to manage the legal system will include a cabinet secretary, commissioners, ombudsmen, auditors, assistants, czars and departments.

Collect data about the supply of and demand for attorneys. Create a commission to study the diversity and geographic distribution of attorneys, with power to stipulate and enforce corrective actions to right imbalances. The more bureaucracy the better. One can never have too many eyes watching these sleazy sneaks.

Read the whole thing.