Tag Archives: revenue-neutral

THE DEMOCRATIC leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives is pressing for an early vote on their draconian takeover of health care.

Draconian takeover? Stay tuned.

In their attempt to provide “universal” coverage to all Americans, the liberals are proposing the biggest Ponzi scheme ever tried in this country. They say they are going to provide more health coverage to more people for less money.

Don’t believe it. They propose to wring billions of dollars of “savings” from Medicare, but Medicare already is paying far less to providers – doctors, hospitals and others – than what are their costs of giving care.

In the long run, seniors will be forced to accept less care. Money doesn’t grow on trees. The same goes for the so-called “public option” that Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to foist on people. It is purported to be an alternative for providing insurance to millions of Americans. But the same federal government that has been ratcheting down payments for medical services under Medicare will also dictate how much providers must accept to treat the ill and infirm covered by the public option.

With new rules governing what private insurance carriers must do, their ability to stay in business will wilt and die. That leaves only the government – Big Brother – paying for health care.

The legislation proposes a vast array of new taxes on medical devices ($40 billion), pharmaceuticals ($23 billion), and insurance policies ($67 billion), which means the cost of private health insurance will have to be increased. Then those same Americans will have to pay $200 billion in taxes on their health benefits.

Then consider that this week numerous Democratic officials and congressional budget experts admitted the health bill pushed by Speaker Pelosi would cost $1.2 trillion or more over a decade. That’s a huge new addition to the public debt.

A Pelosi spokesman announced with a straight face that the bill would “not add one dime to the deficit.” This must be the now-discredited “new math” that was all the rage a quarter-century ago.

Meanwhile, the liberals have resisted any attempt at tort reform to help contain the cost of medical malpractice insurance. The tort bar is one of the congressional Democrats’ biggest donor group. Doctors and hospitals have to pass on their costs, including those for medical malpractice insurance, so in the end, the patient must bear the cost.

All of this means that the bill being pressed by Speaker Pelosi is by no stretch of the imagination “revenue-neutral.” Colorado’s 3rd District congressman, John Salazar, has said he would not vote for any bill that is not “revenue neutral.” As a congressman with strong Western values and high integrity, we know that he will live up to that pledge, despite the fact it would require a great deal of courage to do so.

In the longer term, this legislation is a substantial step toward a draconian takeover of medical care in the United States. It would head us down the path of socialized medicine – a path Great Britain and Canada already have trod.

Under socialized medicine, care is rationed. There are long waits for many kinds of treatments, and a substantial number of ill patients – particularly senior citizens – never get the care they need before their illness kills them.

There’s one word for this kind of health system: Unhealthy.