Regarding the health care legislation before Congress... -- RTInfinityPoli

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Date Posted: 13:04:49 01/12/10 Tue
Author: Hogarth
Subject: Regarding the health care legislation before Congress...

According to Rasmussen: Overall, 40% of voters nationwide favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Fifty-five percent (55%) are opposed.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform

Here's an editorial regarding deals made in the Senate to get the votes needed to pass the Senate's health-care proposal. Please let me know if any of the facts in this editorial are incorrect or untrue.

The Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Published: Sunday, January 3, 2010
Section: Editorial

Stacked deck

Some are big winners but many more are losers in Senate's health plan

All taxpayers are supposed to be equal, but in the Senate's proposed health-care overhaul, Nebraska taxpayers are more equal than others. That's thanks to Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, the Democrat who withheld his crucial vote on the health-care proposal until Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, a fellow Democrat, agreed to have the federal government pay for 100 percent of the increased Medicaid costs that the overhaul would impose on Nebraska.

Those extra costs are imposed on the other states, too, but only Nebraska taxpayers are spared entirely from paying for them, and to one degree or another, taxpayers in Vermont, Massachusetts and Louisiana also get a break. These perks would be covered by the taxpayers of all the other states, including those in Ohio.

This certainly is unfair and even might be unconstitutional, and it should be among the first things corrected when a conference committee begins work harmonizing the House and Senate versions of the health-care overhaul.

All legislation involves some amount of political horse-trading. This is why the perennial pledge of every politician to eradicate waste, fraud and abuse in government is so specious. Waste, fraud and abuse is built into much legislation right from the start.

But in the face of mounting public opposition and controversy, the effort to pass the health-care overhaul provoked extraordinary amounts of legislative extortion and extraordinary bribery. Nelson showed himself to be a shameless and masterful manipulator of the process.

But his deal shouldn't be allowed to stand. And while the conference committee is at it, it should strip some of the other egregious bribes paid to pass this legislation. These include:

* Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., held out for a 10-year deal to get additional Medicaid benefits for his state totaling $600 million.

* Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., demanded special Medicare benefits for residents of Libby, Mont., who have asbestos-related ailments.

* Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., got at least $100 million in Medicaid benefits for Louisiana.

* Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., got $100 million to build a university hospital in his state.

* Massachusetts is in line for a $500 million cushion.

* While the measure imposes taxes on high-value "Cadillac" health plans, longshoremen, electrical linemen, police, firefighters and workers in fishing, forestry, mining and construction who have deluxe health coverage will be exempt.

* Cosmetic surgeons succeed in dodging a 5 percent tax on procedures and, instead, tanning parlors will pay a 10 percent tax.

* In North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Utah, doctors and hospitals will be paid more than providers in other states.

* Medicare Advantage customers stand to lose these benefits, except in Florida, where Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson negotiated a deal to allow 800,000 Floridians to keep their Medicare Advantage plans.

A health-care overhaul proclaimed as a measure to eliminate unfairness and extend health-care coverage to all will be paid for by sticking it to some taxpayers more than others and carving out exemptions and lucrative deals for various special interests.

Some governors already are screaming about the additional costs, never mind the inequity.

New York's Democratic Gov. David Paterson and California's Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are demanding that the Medicaid provisions of the bill be reworked.

Paterson, whose state faces a 2010 budget shortfall approaching $7 billion, said the measure would cost New York another $1 billion. Schwarzenegger said his state, already facing a $20.7 billion budget hole, also would be clobbered by the Medicaid expansion.

Ohio officials have not yet calculated the additional costs, but the governor's office estimates that as many as 560,000 Ohioans might be added to the Medicaid roll. Currently, almost 2 million Ohioans are enrolled at a cost of about $13 billion a year.

These gross inequities should be eliminated as the two bills are reconciled by a joint House-Senate committee. If they aren't, attorneys general in a number of states are considering whether to mount a legal challenge to the inequities on constitutional grounds.

Whatever the constitutional issues involved, the idea that a nationwide program should be paid for by some taxpayers but not others, simply as a result of geographical accident, violates any sense of fairness and justice.

A likely scenario is that Congress will do away with the inequities not by requiring all states to foot the bill equally for Medicaid expansion, but by guaranteeing that the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the cost of the expansion.

While this would solve a problem for the states, it creates a bigger problem for the nation. With a $12.1 trillion national debt and projected annual deficits of $1 trillion for the next decade, the U.S. simply doesn't have the money to pay for a Medicaid expansion. Certainly this would put an end to the fiction that the health-care plan is "paid for" and that it would decrease the deficit.

The only thing the health-care overhaul is likely to accomplish is to extend health insurance to millions of people who now lack it. But the plan will drive up the deficit and will not bend the health-care cost curve appreciably. People will pay more for health care and probably receive less. And if current carve-outs and exemptions survive the House-Senate conference committee, the plan will be paid for in a grossly unfair manner.

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Copyright (c) 2010 The Dispatch Printing Co.

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