Rubber Hits Road: Obama Care Failing

[Kathianne]

Insightful piece by


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072302723.html


Why Obamacare Is Sinking
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 24, 2009

What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage, less cost.

But you can't fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes....

[Joe Steel]

Insightful piece by


Why Obamacare Is Sinking
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 24, 2009?


Krauthammer?

Are you serious?

Krauthammer is a raving lunatic or maybe he's just a liar. He's still citing the long-ago debunked $1 trillion dollar number.



President Obama premised the need for reform on the claim that medical costs are destroying the economy. True. But now we learn -- surprise! -- that universal coverage increases costs. The congressional Democrats' health-care plans, says the CBO, increase costs on the order of $1 trillion plus.

That was a preliminary estimate which CBO admitted ignored significant factors.

Why is Krauthammer still citing it?

[Kathianne]

Krauthammer?

Are you serious?

Krauthammer is a raving lunatic or maybe he's just a liar. He's still citing the long-ago debunked $1 trillion dollar number.




That was a preliminary estimate which CBO admitted ignored significant factors.

Why is Krauthammer still citing it?

What? We should wait to consider what CBO is saying UNTIL AFTER they pass the bill?

[Joe Steel]

What? We should wait to consider what CBO is saying UNTIL AFTER they pass the bill?

No, but we could wait until the bill is finished. CBO's number reflected early, incomplete work on the bill.

[red states rule]

No, but we could wait until the bill is finished. CBO's number reflected early, incomplete work on the bill.

and the people do not like what they read and hear about the Obamacare bill.

I gues you like the fact taxes wikll be raised, care rationed, buying your own health ins from a private compnay will be outlawed, businesses taxed uo to 8% of their payroll if they do not provide coverage, people will be fined if they elect not to buy Obamacare, and the US givernment will determine what procedures wil be "approved"

But many people - and the number is growing - do not like what Dems are trying to ram thru with little or no debate


Rasmussen, Zogby: Majority now oppose Obama public healthcare plan
Posted by MP on July 17, 2009

Rasmussen:

Just 35% of U.S. voters now support the creation of a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurers.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 50% of voters oppose setting up a government health insurance company as President Obama and congressional Democrats are now proposing in their health care reform plan. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

In mid-June, 41% of American adults thought setting up a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurance companies was a good idea, but the identical number (41%) disagreed.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats favor the creation of a government insurance alternative. But Republicans (73%) and voters not affiliated with either party (62%) are opposed.

Zogby:

By 52 percent to 40 percent, voters say they are against the healthcare bill introduced July 14 to the House of Representatives, a new Zogby International poll reports.

…

The poll’s findings: Americans oppose raising tax rates to pay for a new healthcare system. Instead, they favor innovative approaches that would save money, which in turn could be used to fund health benefits for the poor.

Among those currently insured, Zogby reports, 84 percent are satisfied with their current health care. Also, four out of every five people surveyed agreed that rising healthcare costs are hurting American businesses.

Pollster John Zogby says the results indicate that Americans want costs reduced and wish for everyone to be insured. But they are deeply divided on how to accomplish those goals.

“The likelihood of achieving consensus is low,” Zogby says.

http://www.mofopolitics.com/2009/07/...althcare-plan/

[Kathianne]

No, but we could wait until the bill is finished. CBO's number reflected early, incomplete work on the bill.

No. The reason CBO does what it does, is so that we have informed lawmakers and informed citizenry who can let the lawmakers know our opinions to them. Representatives are elected to both keep themselves informed and given ample staff to help them with that. They are also elected to represent their constituents, though they are free to vote contrary to those opinions, they do so at the risk of not being returned with the next election. That's how the system works.

[Joe Steel]

No. The reason CBO does what it does, is so that we have informed lawmakers and informed citizenry who can let the lawmakers know our opinions to them. Representatives are elected to both keep themselves informed and given ample staff to help them with that. They are also elected to represent their constituents, though they are free to vote contrary to those opinions, they do so at the risk of not being returned with the next election. That's how the system works.

Exactly. And when the numbers change, AS THEY HAVE, promulgating early numbers is dishonest, as Krauthammer is.

[Kathianne]

Exactly. And when the numbers change, AS THEY HAVE, promulgating early numbers is dishonest, as Krauthammer is.

Lose again. When the numbers change, as they have already at least once, the CBO puts the new numbers out. Once again showing more costs, not less.

[Kathianne]

Hello, Joe:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25415.html


CBO deals new blow to health plan
By: Chris Frates
July 25, 2009 02:47 PM EST

For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to the Democrat's health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years.

A key House chairman and moderate House Democrats on Tuesday agreed to a White House-backed proposal that would give an outside panel the power to make cuts to government-financed health care programs. White House budget director Peter Orszag declared the plan "probably the most important piece that can be added" to the House's health care reform legislation.

But on Saturday, the Congressional Budget Office said the proposal to give an independent panel the power to keep Medicare spending in check would only save about $2 billion over 10 years- a drop in the bucket compared to the bill's $1 trillion price tag.

"In CBO's judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized ... but there is also a chance that substantial savings might be realized. Looking beyond the 10-year budget window, CBO expects that this proposal would generate larger but still modest savings on the same probabilistic basis," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday.

On his White House blog, Orszag – who served as CBO director in 2007 and 2008 – downplayed the office's small probable savings number in favor of the proposal's more speculative long-term benefits.

"The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. ... Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term," Orszag wrote. "In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset."

But scoreable offsets are the immediate savings that fiscally conservative Blue Dogs and other Democratic moderates have been pushing for precisely because they will help offset the bill's cost.....

[Kathianne]

See Joe, keep playing, the CBO will too.