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Health care reform was rushed by Democrats

By Nathan Inks on March 26, 2010 1:20 am in Columns / 11 comments

 
Health care reform was rushed by Democrats

(Note: Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are for the Senate version of the health care bill.)

Congress finally approved the Democrats’ health care reform bill Sunday and, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama signed it into law.

One of the main arguments used by the Democratic leadership in support of the bill was that it would reduce the deficit and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will do so by $132 billion.

When most Americans hear that, they probably think it’s a good thing.

But how many people are asking, “Exactly how they are reducing the deficit?”

There are two main ways the Democrats plan to reduce the deficit while increasing spending: raise taxes and push the cost burden onto the states.

In 2014, people with high-cost employee-sponsored health care plans will see a 40 percent excise tax placed on their health care plans.

So employers who want and can afford to provide their employees with better health care plans will be punished for doing so, meaning that most will probably push for a less expensive health care plan that will not see a tax of 40 percent.

There will be a new 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services.

Individuals making more than $200,000 (or families more than $250,000) will see a 0.9 percent increase in their Medicare taxes.

Health care companies also would be subject to a variety of fees.

A 3.8 percent tax increase could be placed on capital gains, a move that could hurt an already unstable stock market.

In addition to cutting an expected $500 billion out of Medicare growth over the next 10 years, an additional $116 billion will be cut from Medicare Part C.

The bill will push an additional 16 million people onto the Medicaid program.

This is perhaps one of the worst provisions in the bill from an economic standpoint.

While the federal government does cover some of the funding for Medicaid, states cover the costs.

An increase in funding needed to pay for Medicaid could be a disaster for states already suffering financially, including Michigan.

If our state cannot pass a balanced budget on time right now, how do the Democrats expect us to be able to pass a balanced budget after they require us to pump more money into our Medicaid program?

Ensuring more people get health care is a good thing but, if the federal government bankrupts states in the process of achieving increased coverage, that does much more harm than good.

The Democrats rushed through this process instead of taking their time to craft a good bill, and the American people are going to realize this.

 

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  • Scott

    Rushed? Obama and the Democrats have been talking about it for over a year. That’s more than 25% of Obama’s term. If anything, they should’ve gone faster. And it would’ve been nice to see Obama be more forceful and supportive of the public option, as well as why healthcare reform is more pro-life than any hard-to-enforce ban on abortion would be.

    But I digress. Despite the law’s imperfections, this is a great victory for President Obama and the Democrats – and an even better victory for America!

  • http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com Tom Degan

    It was a lot of fun watching these idiotic Republicans “warning” the Democrats that the passage of health care reform will cost them dearly at the polls in November. It’s going to cost someone dearly, alright, but it won’t be the Dems. Former Bush 43 speechwriter Davin Frum put it perfectly yesterday when he said that it was the Republicans – not Barack Obama – who had met their “Waterloo”. The historical rule of politics, that an incumbent president’s party always loses ground in the midterm elections, will go out the window come November. They will be unable to win without the help of the moderates. At this moment the moderates are abandoning this sinking ship en masse. The extremism of people like Michele Bachmann and John Beohner is starting to scare the hell out of them. Gee, I wonder why!

    Then there is the sticky situation of the Tea Party. By this late point it must be obvious to even the casual observer that this is an organization comprised of morons. It was formed as a protest movement against high taxes – immediately after President Obama passed the largest middle class tax cut in American history. There’s no denying it, these are not the brightest people on the planet. Their overt racism notwithstanding, they sure are funny! One self identified Tea Partier called into C-SPAN’s Washington Journal the other day asking the moderator where she could write to her congressman. When host Greta Brawner asked this idiotic woman what her congressman’s name was, she replied (I assume with a straight face) “He’s a Democrat. I don’t know his name.” Ya gotta love ‘em! Ya just gotta!

    http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

    Tom Degan

  • Lloyd Duke

    Nathan,

    I am right behind you. Though I support health care reform in theory, this bill was definitely rushed. Scott said that the Democrats have been talking about it for over a year and should have gone faster. This is wrong. Democrats may have been talking about it for over a year but negotiation only lasted eight months. This is not enough time to craft a bill that will rework a very large portion of our nation’s economy.

    The bill contains a lot of good provisions, but also a lot of bad ones. President Obama should have done what he could to actually get a bi-partisan solution.

    So Nathan, even though my political beliefs are left-of-center, I agree with you.

  • dave

    Keep hating your neighbor, Tom, I can already tell your an angry person. Your a 50- something civics teacher? So I am going to go ahead and group you into the people who voted over the past 40 years to spend our country 14 trillion into the red, since you enjoy grouping any republican together. Conservatives aren’t violent, dont kid yourself. Just check out the G20 riots in Pittsburgh, PA for some of that good old liberal tolerance and diversity towards others… what a joke.

  • You

    dave,

    You + are = you’re.

  • thinkb4youpostdave

    “So I am going to go ahead and group you into the people who voted over the past 40 years to spend our country 14 trillion into the red, since you enjoy grouping any republican together.”

    Ummmm, Dave. News flash: the people who voted over the past 40 years to spend our country 12 trillion into the red ARE Republicans. Reagan and both Bushes added far more to our nation’s debt than Clinton (who actually reduced the deficit) or Carter.

  • dave

    To You, I am sorry I was in a hurry typing before work, so I assume you’re a grammar nazi because you have no argument. To ThinkB4youpostdave… I think you need to re-learn how our government works… and what takes place inside our own state. Do you realize how much spending was put together by CONGRESS from 2006 until 2008 under Bush. BOTH spent us into oblivion. I guess its time for Government 101 again for some people. Michigan’s economic policy has deffinitely been a model for the rest of the country. You want to talk about how Dems are perfect and didn’t contribute a penny, I have four words for you… Detroit, Lansing, Saginaw, Flint. Guess which party ran them into the ground? I don’t see the anti-war people on the left up in arms all of the sudden when Obama triples our defense budget. It takes 2 to tango. I cast my first vote for Paul. Keep living in your Black/White world of tolerance.

  • Angry Boomer is Angry

    Tom Degan; proving that you can teach class without possessing it.

  • Scott Manning

    Give me a break. The Democrats did not rush anything. Congress has been working for 98 years to address health care reform. The current process has taken more than a year to complete. There was nothing rushed about this process. If action was not taken we would have found this nation totally bankrupted by health care costs. The time was right, the votes were present, and the Democrats acted upon a party platform that they presented to the public before the last election took place. As a matter of fact, the party has had health care reform as its platform for decades and finally they had enough votes to do it.

    Republicans had six years of absolute power in Washington, dominating the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. They did nothing. Now all they can think of doing is whining and complaining and calling this an unconstitutional plan. Nevermind the fact that in the 1990s, the proposed a plan that is nearly identical to the pieces they now call unconstitutional. Hmm.

    I say thank you Democrats for having the guts to follow through on your platform. Health Care Reform is now law and we are better for it.

  • A Canuck

    Healthcare in Canada Sucks

    Healthcare in Australia is so bad their ministers are coming to America to receive treatment.

  • You

    Wallla walla bing bang