The passage of the health care bill was so depressing that I avoided the topic for a few days, while concentrating on a much more positive subject; the long term viability of the paper industry. I am not familiar with the official ”steps of bereavement”, but I am in one of those steps, or maybe all of them. But life goes on, so I picked out a few items of special interest for you.
Unintended Consequences– Congress provides penalties and incentives in laws it passes but never properly gauges how our society will react to those inducements. One is not required to know all of the details of the health care bill to understand that a 3,000 page document will change everything – and not in the way Congress intended.
An example is provided in Big Employers Rethink Their Healthcare Plans. Congress decided, in the new health care bill, to raise money to offset health care costs by taxing companies that provide drug-benefit programs for retired workers.
Among its many effects, the new health care law eliminated a tax deduction that companies used to cut the cost of drug-benefit programs for retired workers.
The potential tax revenue is big; AT&T will record a one billion dollar first quarter charge as a result, Caterpillar $150 million for Q1, and John Deere $150 million. So the companies are just resigned to paying this new tax, right? No, anyone with a clue would know that this would not happen. For instance…
“As a result of this legislation, including the additional tax burden, AT&T will be evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree healthcare benefits offered by the company,” AT&T said Friday in a government filing.
This week, Verizon Communications Inc. sent a letter to employees suggesting that changes to their health plans could be afoot. AT&T and Verizon are the two largest phone companies in the U.S. and employ a substantial number of unionized workers.
So after the big companies bail out and no longer pay drug assistance for retired workers, who will pick up the tab? That’s right, you and me.
Several million retirees are estimated to receive drug benefits from a few thousand companies. If those retirees were shifted to the federal Medicare program, the government would pick up the expense.
The net result of this item in the health care bill will be that the government takes over costs that had been assumed by large corporations. In addition, the revenue that Congress hoped to gain by taxing corporations will be a small fraction of what it hoped to gain. This was one brainless piece of legislation! The impact of government control, however, has much greater implications.
The government health care bill will create new mandatory employer costs. As a result, in the years to come, employee health care benefits will change from an optional benefit, to an obligation. As this happens, most companies will reduce benefits to the level required by law. At times, marginally profitable large and small businesses will find it impossible to fund health benefits, and will discontinue operations, further stifling economic growth.
The Anti-Abortion Democrats – This item is not an argument for or against abortion, it is about the deception and hypocrisy that took place during the health care bill negotiations.
The health care bill would not have passed without the support of anti-abortion Democrats in the house. So, in order to gain the support of this group, President Obama agreed to sign an executive order banning the use of federal funds for abortion. But the President is committed to “free choice” so why would he agree to this and undermine his position within this element of his constituency? Well, the answer is simple. The executive order will only be symbolic. It will have no impact on anything.
Why then would the Democrats in the House agree to a symbolic gesture that would go against their consciences and everything they promised their pro-life constituents? Obviously, their opposition to abortion was symbolic as well. They have not voted their conscience nor kept their promises. This sham fooled no one and is childish. See the following passage from the Patriot Post.
One Democrat feeling the heat is Rep. Bart Stupak, the supposed “stalwart” pro-lifer from Michigan. Stupak led a small but seemingly determined band of Democrat congressmen opposed to the Senate bill’s permissiveness concerning abortion funding. As it turns out, it was all a show.
Stupak caved after Barack Obama promised an executive order banning the use of federal funds for abortions. Tellingly, even Planned Parenthood didn’t object because, first, the executive order isn’t legally binding; second, it can be revoked easily; and third, it said nothing that the bill didn’t already say. It changed nothing — federal funds will be used for abortions…
By the way, just two days before the vote, the Obama administration awarded $726,409 in grants to three airports in Stupak’s district…
And from Chuck Colson:
Up until that fateful day, it wasn’t clear whether Rep. Bart Stupak and other pro-life Democrats would support the health care bill. Then, Stupak made a stunning announcement. In exchange for Stupak’s support, the President would sign an executive order prohibiting the spending of federal funds for abortions…
But in the end, he and other pro-life Democrats have sold out the pro-life cause, and with it, the lives of the unborn.
Now, some abortion-rights advocates excoriated the President. The National Organization of Women said that it was “incensed” by the executive order. But as Bill McGurn wrote in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Planned Parenthood seems quite pleased. Why? Because as McGurn writes, “an Executive Order cannot change the law.”
That’s because the courts have made it clear that an executive order will have no effect. There are four “decades of federal appellate rulings that apply the principles of Roe v. Wade to federal health legislation.” … funding for abortions is required in federal health care programs unless “Congress clearly forbids such funding.” Absent a clear prohibition, executive orders and regulations can—and will be—overridden by the courts. The precedents are clear.
One Case Demonstrating the Expansion of Entitlements – The new health care bill allows for long term health care. The purpose of this item, keeping the elderly in their homes as opposed to nursing homes, is admirable. This could be accomplished, however, by addressing current Medicare guidelines. Instead we are building another new element of the health care bureaucracy that will be an entitlement sinkhole fraught with additional opportunities for fraud.
While the plan’s opponents don’t question the need for long-term care, they say the federal government should not be managing it, and they believe the program will eventually add to the deficit.
“This creates a whole new bureaucracy that is going to break this country,” .Nunes [Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)] said. “In the early years there will be money in it, but at the end of the day there won’t be enough money to cover the problems because there will be too many people in the program.”
Nunes says Republicans were blindsided by the provision because they were unable to see the final bill until the very end. But Democratic supporters say the provision, which was championed by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, should not be controversial…
See, Little-Known Health Care Law Provision Is a Budget Buster, Critics Say.
The Issue is Costs Not Who Pays – The Democrats have this fixed size of the pie mentality so they are all about changing who pays for everything. In the end, however, we all pay for waste in government, excessive business regulations, needless environmental laws, and wasted health care expenditures. Waste slows economic growth. In fact, the quesion for the future might be whether there will be any economic growth at all. Economic growth is not a given.
Controlling costs should have been the emphasis of the health care initiative, but it was not. The following graph estimated growth in spending costs for Medicare and Medicaid even before the health care bill was passed. The health care bill will make the situation worse, not better.
This level of spending (as a % of GDP) is not possible, of course, so rationing will begin before many years have passed. Rationing would not be necessary if we would make changes suggested here, or here, and make lower costs a priority.
