Medicaid takes care of the "poor" (but see below), and it is bankrupting the Federal Government AND the states. Governor Arnold has "threatened" to pull health care for the poor in Kaleefornia. Medicare takes care of the elderly, and it, too, is bankrupting the Federal Government (as if the Federal Government were not bankrupt already under Bush and Obama--Obama accelerating the out of control Federal spending under Bush).
WHO is the "motivating" force behind a Federal takeover of health care, and health insurance? It is the MIDDLE CLASS (and, to an extent, business). You think it is all about covering the "uninsured"? Think again. Thisis all about convincing the middle class that TEHY will get FREE money/health care from Federal legislation. The reason health care reform MAY not pass is that the middle class is rightly dubious. This is a trojan horse/lure with a hook for the middle class, and they SUSPECT that is so. But they may be too far gone in the Age of Obama, and rush to the "1984" Big Brother state to rise up to STOP Obama (as they rose up to STOP Clinton). If they let it happen, they will confirm that most of the American middle class has become STUPID. You doubt me? Don't.
The main Democratic bill before Congress--I think the Kennedy bill--was just analyzed by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). That analysis showed both that we can't afford health care "reform" AND that Democrats are trying to sell us a bill of goods.
The CBO determined (in what is surely a vast underestimate) that the Democratic bill will "cost" one TRILLION dollars over the next ten years. Further, the bill will only "reduce" the uninsured from 47 million to 35 million (or some numbers like that). Say what? Are you telling me that this enormous cost will nott even "solve" the "problem" of the uninusred. Well, I am not telling you that, except derivatively. The CBO is telling you that.
Where is the money going? TO THE RELATIVELY WELL OFF. The present Democratic bill gives the MAJORITY of the benefit to people earning between $33,000 and $150,000.00. It further pretty much guarantees that business will let people elect the government "option", and gradually phase out private insurance (even employer provided private insurance, fiction though that is). The "uninsured" are only minimally afffected. As you should expect. The people who are uninsured often have GOOD REASON for beng uniusred. Unless you go to the (FAILED) Massachusetts model of REQUIRING health insurance, which would be an absolute disaster, the "uninsured"will not be eliminated.
Thus you have a bill which will NOT "solve" the "uninsured crisis" (quotes, because there is no crisis), but is guaranteed to cost a LOT, and MUCH more than estimated. It will also GROW, like Godzilla (see yesterday's entry). And what about people earnig less than $33,000. They're out of luck!!!! I am not kidding. They should obviously be "covered" by an expansion of Medicaid, but Medicaid is already bankrupting us all. Therefore, Democrats determined that you could not expand Medicaid preently, at any kind of reasonable cost. No, I don't expect that "gap" to fly, but the whole Democratic idea here is to get the Federal "foot in the door" by BRIBING the middle class. The middle class, of course, will end up paying for it in the end. The "rick" are just not going to be able to pay for everyone else's EVERYTHING, even if they were WILLING (which they wil not be--being "rich" meaning that they WILL be able to avoid taxes they REALLY do not want to pay).
That is what is amazing here. Medicaid and Medicare are out of control. The Federal Government has shwon NO bability to control those programs, and control costs. Thre are already sighn os RATIONING in Medicare, and probably Medicaid :(which no one really keeps up with, although I suspect it is a train wreck in the making). The two states of which I am aware who have tried a "comprehensive" health care plan have ABANDONED it--one within a month or so of enacting it. Kaleefornia failed to enact such a plan, BEFORE the recent acute budget crisis, because it would bankrupt the state. HOW can a plan be that bad for states (where money is under more control) and good for the Federal Government. It can't. But the reason people don't hink that way is that they have been conditioned to look at Federal money as FREE money. It is NOT "free". Federal money comes from California, Massachusetts, and the people in the other states. There is only so much money to spend, without disaster, whether the Federal Government is spending it or the states. In fact, the Federal Government is the WORST place to be spending all of this money, since the Federal Government is TOO BIG TO SUCCEED. There is no accountability, and no ability to reverse course (as those staes have done) without absolute disaster. It is the central planning problem, and there is no way around it. The more you put all of your eggs in a giant basket where no one even understands where the money is going, the more impossible it is to avoid disastrous mistakes.
I will provide further analysis in future entries, but this is enough for now. As I have said previously, doing NOTHING is the first, second and third options for proper Federal policy. In this economy, it is absolutely insane to be even considering a major new "entitlement" program, and the Repubicans are only slightly better than the Democrats (with their "tax credit" monetary gife--again to the MIDDLE CLASS).
Is our "middle class" (of which I am a part) really supid enough to buy into this recipe for absolute disaster? Well, they elected Obama. And the objective evidence is that more people are opren to Federal "solutions" than there were in the Clinton years, even if many are much more skieptical of same than our political and business "leaders" of both parties.
I am pessimistic, but then I am naturally a pessimist. If you combine all of the Obama programs, you have a Godzilla Federal Government out of control I am not sure that even REJECTING health care "reform" is enough to "save" us. As I have said before, the odds are that the massive growth of the Federal Government--accelerating--has ALREDY DOOMED US--doomed us in the sense that we cannot easily get back to the country we were in either the Reagan years OR the Clinton/Republican opposition years. However, health care "reform" will make this doom more certain, more painful, and quicker
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