Obama’s prescription for health reform more of the same
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There was absolutely nothing new in President Obama’s much-heralded speech Wednesday. No game-changing ideas. No genuine efforts at bipartisanship. No change in his determination to impose government control over our health sector for decades to come.
Worse, the president repeated the arguments he’s been using for a year, which have been proven wrong by numerous independent studies. Take just three examples from his White House speech on Wednesday:
• President Obama: “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”
The steep cuts in Medicare Advantage he supports would mean at least one-third of seniors likely could lose their comprehensive Medicare Advantage coverage as their plans are forced to withdraw from the program, cut their benefits, or raise premiums. In addition, at least 10 million people with employer-sponsored insurance could lose their current coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. Obama himself acknowledged at last week’s health reform summit that “8-9 million people…might have to change their coverage.”
• President Obama said his plan will “bring down the cost of health care for millions—families, businesses, and the federal government.”
The Congressional Budget Office has reported that health insurance premiums will continue their steady upward climb under the Senate bill. Families purchasing insurance in the individual market would see an increase of $2,100 in the year 2016, over and above increases they already will be facing. That means those families would be paying $15,200 in 2016 for health insurance if the Senate bill passes, and $13,100 if it doesn’t.
Families that get health insurance through small businesses will be paying $19,200 in six years, and those working for large firms, $20,100.
PricewaterhouseCoopers released a study, commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans, which showed the cost of a family plan in 2019 would be $4,000 a year higher if reform passes.
And Chief Medicare Actuary Rick Foster estimates that, under the Senate bill, “Federal expenditures would increase by a net total of $279 billion” between 2010 and 2019. So his plan would cost families, businesses, and the federal government more, not less.
• President Obama said his plan “brings down our deficit.”
Congressional leaders hammered the CBO into submission as they drafted their legislation, using the CBO’s scoring tactics against them to pretend the legislation reduces the deficit.
But former CBO Director Doug Holtz-Eakin concludes the bills “can claim to be deficit-neutral only because during its first decade it offers 10 years of taxes compared with six years of subsidies. “The Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee estimates that, fully implemented, Democratic legislation would cost $2.4 trillion over 10 years, nearly three times the cost projected by the Congressional Budget Office,” Holtz-Eakin said. This would significantly expand, not shrink, the deficit.
Further, CBO shows the Senate bill double-counts Medicare savings. Savings to the Medicare program “would be received by the government only once … they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs.”
Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster made the same point: A series of accounting maneuvers makes it appear that Medicare’s Part A trust fund would be in better shape under the Senate bill that is the basis of the president’s plan, but that’s not so. “In practice, the improved Part A financing cannot be simultaneously used to finance other Federal outlays (such as the coverage expansion under [the Senate bill]) and to extend the trust fund,” Foster wrote.
Further, Foster said, making the cuts to Medicare that the Senate bill requires in order to get its deficit score would “represent an exceedingly difficult challenge.”
So just on these three examples—keeping your current coverage, lowering costs, and reducing the deficit—the president is wrong. It is though he simply dusted off the same speech he has been giving for a year, using arguments that have been proven as inaccurate by independent studies and analyses, and hoping that maybe, just maybe, this time the speech will work.
The president and his aides may twist arms and torture Congress into passing ObamaCare, but the more he forces this through, the more the American people are going to reject being force-fed a health plan they strongly oppose.
Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a non-profit research organization that focuses on free-market ideas for health reform. She can be reached at galen@galen.org
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Your prescription is to preach to the choir? How about a sustainable alternative that is actually sustainable? The real story is that there is an alternative universal care system structure that has been available for years that costs $30 per person with copayments of 2% on everything but electives (and that copayment is only 7%), with no exclusions for any existing condition. This system provides a unique funding construct that pays all costs off on a current basis and provides built-in tort reform and allows no discrimination to take place.
Is anyone interested? Nope. Fixing this problem would result in a reduction of political power and that is the real story. All of you feed at the same trough so as long as the trough fills with slops (even if they are fetid, revolting or even deadly) you will continue to put bother trotters into the mix and gorge yourselves at our expense.
Thanks for nothing. Next time maybe you could use your “privilege” to promote an original thought.
LOL. It sfunny how carefully she chosses her words just like a lawyer. Example teh CBO determined that the cost “will go up in the INDIVIDUAL markets”. Yes….maybe in the INDIVIDUAL markets it will go up…but arent they going up already by 39% in some cases? LOL. We are talking aboout teh NON-individual markets.
Im so sick and tired of this lawyery way of tricking people.
I predict this administration will have the shelf life of milk.
Yep. Parmalat milk.
On May 20, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Galen Institute president Grace-Marie Turner and American Enterprise Institute scholar Joseph Antos promoting congressional Republicans’ health care proposal as “a clear alternative to the health-reform plans being developed by the White House and Democrats in Congress.” However, the Journal did not disclose that the Galen Institute reportedly receives funding from the pharmaceutical and medical industries, which obviously have an interest in the outcome of Congress’ health care reform deliberations.
-No one takes Galen seriously anymore. They lie.-
Thanks so much, you beat me to it. I only have this to add, from an American citizen…
Dear President Obama:
I am 50 years old. I was diagnosed with carcinoma in-situ 16 years ago and following my divorce 12 years ago I became self-employed. After my Cobra ran out I was able to find costly, but affordable health insurance. As a responsible individual, I have struggled to maintain my individual coverage and have increased my deductible and out of pocket-limits in an attempt to control my cost and keep my health insurance.
Last year (2009) my insurance premium was increased over 25% even though I increased my deductible and out of pocket to the highest limits available. I paid out over $6075.24 in premiums, $2415.26 for medical care, $225 in co-pays and $1500 for prescriptions. I never reached my deductible of $2500 so the insurance company only paid out a total $935.32 to my providers.
I must repeat, in 2009 my insurance company received $6075.24 in premiums and paid out only $935.32!
I have just been notified that my premium for next year 2010 has been increased over 40% to $8496.24 ($708.02 per month) !!!! This is the same insurance company I have been with for over 11 cancer free years!!!
I need your Health reform bill to help me!!! I simply can no longer afford to pay for my health care costs!!
Thanks to this incredible premium increase demanded by my insurance company, January will be my last month of insurance.
I live in the house my mother & father built in 1958 and I am so afraid of the possibility I might loose this heirloom as a result of my being forced to drop my health care insurance. The health insurance industry has not denied me insurance directly, but indirectly they have by increasing my costs. They perceive me as becoming a higher risk factor to them despite being a loyal customer. I will never be able to obtain new health insurance due to the lack of real competition.
We are talking about Anthem who apparently has no respect for your attempts to reform the health insurance industry.
Please stay focused in your reform attempts as I and many others are in desperate need of your help.
Sincerely
Natoma Canfield
You know we all know that insurance companies are a pain in the ass to deal with. We’ve all heard horror stores of people being denied coverage
and having to fight with the insurance companies. Most of us get it. But this Health insurance bill won’t help this person for another 3 years
and in that 3 years her taxes will go up as well, as her insurance premiums so who knows what will happen to her house in that 3 years.
Michele Bachman put up on her website solutions to many of these healthcare problems with 3 very simple and quick fixes that can help
this person tomorrow.
1. Allow people to buy insurance across statelines. (people can shop around and find a plan that works for them)
2. Make individual insurance premiums Tax free ( big companies get a tax break on their insurance premiums why can’t individuals)
3. Make Medical expenses Tax deductible ( Medical care, dental care, etc…. take them off of your tax returns at the end of the year)
See, simple solutions that don’t costs the taxpayers anything AND it can save people about 30% on their medical expenses. Sure
there’s more that can be done but if the Dems were SO CONCERNED about helping people and making sure it was “deficit Neutral”
they would implement this type of plan tomorrow instead a 2700 page bill that will turn our healthcare system into the DMV.
Excuse me, with all due respect, Michelle Bachmann is bat s hit crazy. And this is what I think about her plan. NO!
Ok Fine, forget the source. What do you think of the Plan?
It can be done quickly. People ARE losing their health insurance right NOW. So why not do something quickly while they hashing this out.
That proves to me that the dems don’t really Care about the people, cause why not do something NOW instead of making this big complicated plan that doesn’t even kick in for 3 years