The reason this is a problem for anyone who likes liberty and doesn’t think that the federal government should control 18% of our economy is because it is politically acceptable. This will be framed as a measure that will “cut the deficit” and “decrease the number of uninsured.” It may do the latter, but anybody who knows anything about how well the federal government meets its cost projections would understand that the former is a bunch of nonsense.
Hot Air, Hit and Run, and Q & O all do a pretty good job of highlighting this, drawing attention to the fact that, among other things, Medicare was initially projected to cost $12 billion in 1990 and wound up costing $107 billion.
This is from the Washington Post:
The assessment by Congress’s nonpartisan auditors has been awaited by committee members as they prepare to vote on the bill, perhaps as soon as Thursday. And the CBO report lends a huge political boost to the Finance Committee’s work: distinguishing it as the only one of five bills drafted by various congressional committees that meets every important test established by President Obama and key Democratic leaders.
– It would cost less than $900 billion over the next decade;
– It would vastly expand coverage; and
– It would keep Obama’s pledge that health reform will not increase budget deficits by “one dime” now or in the future.
I think that there’s a very real chance that this will make it out of committee and another good chance that it will pass in front of the whole Senate. If this makes it out of committee, it will probably pass in front of the whole Senate, since most possible swing votes are on this committee.
This bill seems to have the biggest chance of going anywhere. It could prove my earlier prediction wrong that “health care reform” will wind up being an uncontroversial, small tweak. A few weeks ago, if you remember, this bill was greeted with anything but enthusiasm. Now, though, it’s the thing that everyone is talking about.
Here’s a fun fact: Even the CBO says that this measure will still leave tens of millions of people uninsured. This won’t matter to the Democrats and Obama, though. As I’ve pointed out before, this effort is not about making sure people have health insurance. It is not about making America happy and healthy. It is about control.
Let’s take a second to remind everyone that the Baucus bill mandates that people buy insurance. In fact, the CBO estimate takes into account “penalty payments” that it will receive by imposing fines on people who are uninsured. Nobody will go for this, further making the CBO’s estimate less valid. If you’ve been following this debate, you already know that millions of people who are currently uninsured can easily acquire insurance if they wanted it. They will acquire it instead of paying the penalty.