Pawlenty Reveals Health Plan’s Expensive, Tax-Increasing, Care-Cutting Flaws
By Bronwyn's Harbor on October 13, 2009 at 1:10 PM in Current Affairs
Hand it to Gov. Tim Pawlenty for his op-ed, “The Baucus Prescription: Higher Taxes and Higher Premiums,” at BigGovernment.com:
Today, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on Senator Max Baucus’ health care overhaul. Like most Americans, I believe that our health care system needs to be reformed. However, this bill is a tax and spending bill masquerading as a health reform bill. It gives government bureaucrats far too much power and encroaches on freedom more than any legislation since LBJ’s Great Society experiment. It is bad for the country and bad for the economy.
Senate Democrats are pushing a vote on the 1,000-page bill now because the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the bill cost “only” $829 billion over the next 10 years. In truth, the bill raises taxes immediately, but the benefits do not kick in for another four years, so the 10-year numbers are distorted. This is an expensive experiment that cuts Medicare, and exacerbates state government budget problems by dramatically expanding Medicaid without providing additional funding.
On Monday’s Special Report with Bret Baier, the great columnist Charles Krauthammer revealed that the government will (1) begin collecting taxes immediately, for the first three years coming (Pawlenty claims it’s four years), but (2) NO BENEFITS or health plans will become available to any American for the first three years. As the ascerbic Krauthammer noted, it’s no wonder that, on paper, this plan appears to have a surplus at the end of 10 years, but that only comes by denying Americans, for three years, the coverage they’re already being charged for through taxes (and, if the insurance industry does as threatened, higher premiums and co-pays).
Here’s more Pawlenty:
How do the Democrats propose to pay for the rest of the new spending? There are a massive amount of tax increases in the bill, including over $200 billion in tax increases on insurance premiums, new taxes on individuals and employers, and over $120 billion in new taxes on medical device makers and other health care businesses. All of these tax increases concern me, but the latter category does so especially: My state is the home of Medtronic, Boston Scientific, 3M, St. Jude Medical and other medical technology makers that employ 60,000 Minnesotans and save and improve countless lives. Increasing taxes on these businesses would not only be an unwise burden on these employers, but would siphon money otherwise spent on research and development. It would also risk the cost of increased taxes being passed on, directly or indirectly, to those who rely on such devices or who cover their cost.
[...]
There are many bipartisan ideas that would actually cut health care costs, like medical liability reform, allowing employees to keep their insurance when they switch jobs, standardizing health information technology, and allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines. In Minnesota, we’ve passed reforms that made price and quality more transparent for patients, moving the health care system towards paying for and achieving better health care outcomes, and empowering patients themselves to help drive down costs.
Congress should look at what we are doing in Minnesota, among the healthiest states in the nation, where we have the highest concentration of health savings accounts in the country and other market-based reforms that are containing costs. A vote for the Baucus bill today is a move in the opposite direction – towards higher premiums, higher taxes, and more government.
We’ll allow him to toot his own horn in the last paragraph. After all, he has his eye on the presidency. And he might become a serious contender.
P.S. Are you a regular watcher of Special Report on Fox News? For me, it’s must-see TV. It’s a truly serious news show with objective investigative reporting and a fine panel of opinion makers for the last 20 minutes (I’d love it to go on for another 30 minutes).
This is heretical to many of you NoQuarter readers, but I’d rather skip Glenn Beck, and have Special Report go for two hours. I am starved for the kind of hard news that is missing from almost all other news venues. And I love the panel. Already said that, didn’t I.
If CNN can give, snore, Wolf Blitzer three hours every day, let’s give Bret Baier two hours.
(Release: November 13)
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Well, Olympia Snowe is voting yes, so …
Thankyou for the post. Apparently not much of anyone on the committee gives a hoot about any of that. I have never in my life been so disgusted by the selfish, self serving, jackasses in Washington.
Right there with ya!
it passed snowe the only repub vote,
Thank you for the post.
Good to hear some honest and precise info from a politician on the peoples behalf.
I called my critters first thing this morning. As if that will matter. Tom Udall is already using WH talking points 3.0 sending out an email about “health insurance reform”. I told them there is no “health insurance reform” on any of their proposals, which is part of the problem. Bingaman’s on the committee voting and I didn’t want to hear “he will be supporting the bill” so I didn’t ask, I just gave MY 2 pennies worth.
Our taxes will go up.
Insurance companies will raise prices.
Doctors will retire early in protest.
Medicine will be rationed.
And we won’t even get the benefits for three years.
Wow, these folks in Washington are BRILLIANT.
Just like their articulate, brilliant leader.
We are SOOOO screwed.
If tort “reform”, electronic medical records, continued reliance on employer-provided insurance, and allowing insurance companies to sell products across state lines is the best the Republicans can come up with to “improve” health care for Americans, they deserve to disappear as a political party. This is all just another way of saying that private insurance should continue feeding at the trough. I do agree with Pawlenty that Medicaid should not be the dumping ground for those struggling to afford health insurance. Otherwise, Pawlenty is continuing to sing the praises of a for-profit health care system that the majority of Americans want to get rid of.
For starters you haven’t looked closely at what tort reform would do for us. Wow, yet another misrepresentation of an opposing view that blankets the argument in Republican vs. Democrat. How sad.
Why not post something on tort reform so we can read it and see what exactly it does and how much it will save?
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/12/tort-reform-could-save-health-care-54-billion-says-cbo/
“As Congress wrangles over the skyrocketing cost of health care reform, the Congressional Budget Office has determined that reforming the medical malpractice insurance system, a.k.a. “med-mal reform” or tort reform, could save $54 billion over 10 years.
In a letter to Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf said changes to current federal liability laws would significantly reduce costs to health care providers and thus to federal government programs like Medicare and Medicaid that reimburse them for their services. The changes CBO looked at included a cap on non-economic damages at $250,000, a cap on punitive damages at $500,000 and shortening the statute of limitations for filing lawsuits.
Elmendorf told Hatch that liability costs, including insurance premiums and settlements, currently make up 2 percent, or $35 billion, of health care providers’ annual spending. By cutting those costs and thus the amount the government reimburses them for their services, the federal government would save $41 billion over 10 years.”
Excellent piece about tort reform.
Here’s one about how this Obamacare bill is going to make our health care system WORSE.
http://www.americanissuesproject.org/blogs/columns/archive/2009/10/13/if-you-think-it-s-hard-to-see-your-doctor-today-wait-until-government-is-in-charge.aspx#
Olympia Snowe needs to be voted out.
Ditto Buzzisback…
She has a lock on her seat. Maine loves her. So she can do anything she wants. Sigh.
Just like Nancy Pewlosi
The price of silver is up to $17.78 per oz, I wonder what Snowe will do with her twenty pieces of it.
Vote them all out and start all over again. Well, we can all work to get Obama and his henchmen out of office by 2012, and repeal the whole thing. Start looking for honest Independents to put in office. People who have no strings attached to political parties. My guess is that the people of this Country will be more than happy to vote them in, no strings attached to the crap we have had for the last few years.
Here! Here! We should have term limits.
Obamacrates are going to vote for this fraud. But I expected better from Snowe. I should be challenged and voted out.
I wonder what Snowjob got in return. What is Maine’s big prize for her voting yes?
She is letting the legislation move along… she will not vote for it in the end…. 2 weeks out!.. its still october!… The Nobel was not the only surprise!…
Drudge says it passed with Snowjob the only Rep. vote. Sickening.
I see. So, the Baucus bill (which the CBO calls “revenue neutral” over 10 years) is a nightmare, but the Clintons’ proposed national plan in 1993 — which was much more aggressively socialist (it was a national plan, which the Obamites haven’t even dreamed of proposing) and contained huge tax increases on the wealthy and corporations — was one we all should have supported?
This site cracks me up sometimes. There is no rhyme or reason to the political opinions here.
Hey Prime Dingbot:
Glad to see ya! How much does a writer pay for health insurance?
In a few years, whatever the botfly pays now will seem like an incredible bargain.
Wrong. If a public option winds up passing, prices are expected to decline over time. Finally.
If raindrops were hundred dollar bills….
Onofre isn’t any more wrong than you a right; Nothing has passed beyond committee yet. We have yet to know what will be offered.
That is correct. A rational voice! Thank you! We do not have anything like a final bill yet, so all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about betrayals and taxes and everything is ridiculous. My only point is that IF the final bill contains a public option, which I believe it will, we can expect per capita health care spending to decline over time.
You are SOOOOO full of shit if you believe that.
No arguing katmoon is a rational voice.
But you aren’t “correct”. Besides, it will be many a karmic life time before you even approach the orbit Katmoon travels in.
“per capita” my string.
Who the F is “we”? Speak for your own ass.
Do you have any “notion” what you are talking about? So you disagree with the owner of this site, when he made the simple point;
???
In the name of kites every where;
Stop the per-capita-fest!!!
My grandaughter is not some statistical average. Her insurance comes in at 400+ per month. and that’s with a co pay the size of a “major” pumkin patch.
Maybe botfly needs a major pumpkin patch to get over his major pumpkin addiction.
This is major fun!
Ever since I heard Nixon talking with Haldeman about Kaisers “plan” and see what the landscape looks like now…
“Having fun is half the the fun!”
Botfly, you’ve placed a lot of faith and trust in this maggot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UErR7i2onW0&feature=player_embedded#
Please don’t cry out for us to toss you a rope when you follow this f*cking liar off a cliff.
To answer that Donna, one needs to know the weight of the “Major” pumkin.
I wonder if botfly passed the Colonel Bat Guano caves, the Corporal Punishment penitentiary, and the General Mills cereal fields, on his way to the Major Pumpkin patch. Maybe he had to go a “major” pumpkin patch because he couldn’t get into a “private” pumpkin patch.
LOL. Just to prove my bona fides here: over the weekend, we drove down from San Francisco to the annual Half Moon Bay pumpkin festival, one of the biggest in the country. This year’s champion pumpkin came from Iowa and weighed more than 1,600 pounds:
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/10/13/1658-pound-pumpkin-crushes-competition/UPI-51971255471043/
Trust me, if you are 4 years old, this is a very exciting event.
Prime DingBot:
I’m sure it was for YOU! How much for that insurance for you and your family? $200 a month? $400 a month? What are the premiums you pay? or, do you even have insurance?????
Stop the To Be or Not to Be fest!
Just like BO to bus in pumkins from Iowa.
(No offense to Iowians intended)
Onofre’s arm; it musta been one of those “public option” pumkins in which , because he can’t or won’t answer Donna Brazile’s question.
Teak:
He’ll wait a day or two when we’ve all moved on and then respond. I say whatever!
His unusually tepid defense of this Bauchus bill indicates to me that he recognizes it’s gigantic flaws (but of course he’ll only admit his displeasure of the components that aren’t radical enough), but like a good little bot, he’ll simply defend it the way he argues everything else, with rosy (but vague) predictions that will only have his wishful desires as supportive proof of them.
I’ve finally remembered what botfly’s disturbing posts remind me of, and this realization makes his posts much more ominous when it is understood that there is a growing number of dilusional Americans that think and sound as he does. When I point it out, you’ll have an “Aha!” moment, but I have to go to work now, sorry.
The CBO’s assessment of Baucus accepts assumptions which don’t withstand scrutiny.
I saw this info running at the bottom of my TV screen…and thought..OH NO..this is just something that those people at FoxNews made up…BUT, unfortunately, after doing a Google search..it seems to be true:
The Baucus bill will allow insurance companies to charge Senior Citizens up to 4X the normal rates.
Am I the only Senior Citizen here who is a
littlereally afraid and ANGRY????Barb:
None of the people in office care about you.
They just want to pass this bill to make people THINK that they care.
They keep talking about getting “something” passed.
“Anything” passed.
Huh?
This is our HEALTH CARE you’re talking about, not some road construction project.
They don’t care about us, Barb. They care about themselves and re-election. And that goes for both parties.
The Baucus bill guts Medicare to partially pay for itself. People wondered why AARP was in favor of this pile of shit that so obviously impacts the elderly. Well, AARP ALSO supplies insurance for the elderly that augments Medicare. When Medicare drastically reduces it’s coverage, more people will turn to AARP to bring their coverage back up to acceptible levels. AARP gets the windfall, and the elderly will have to provide it. That makes this aspect of the Baucus bill a round about way for the government to squeeze every last drop of blood from our elderly.
Clinton’s health plan is not at issue here. Grasping at straws to bolster up the ol’ bot ego, eh?
The only argument you have is what’s on the table now. Seriously, you bots just suck up perfectly good air and produce little, if any, viable political commentary.
I am sooo tired of Nancy Pelosi thinking the there is no consequence to borrowing and borrowing and borrowing money to pay for the bailout, the stim bill… and, now the insurance bailout w/ this shitty reform.
One way Baucus got a favorable review from CBO is by proposing significant cuts in Medicare. This is clearly a nonstarter.
Good piece, Bronwyn. But shhhhhhh. You’re not suppose to let the cat out of the bag that the current proposals are not what most people had in mind for healthcare “reform.” We all know the spin: save money, maintain quality care, add-on loads of the uninsured and everything will be hunky-dory. What’s the problem?
As usual the basic math [not to mention common sense], something the Obamatrons do not seem to care about or carefully sweep in the corner. It’s on par with their economic programs, the endless scam of Wall St. being protected by this Administration’s Keystone Cops [a generous title]: Summers, Geithner and Bernake. The three Wizards of Finance.
But shhhhhh. We’re not suppose to notice.
As for Baier’s Special Report? I agree. I try to catch it each evening. Don’t always agree but it’s good conversation, far more intelligent than is the norm these days.
Thanks Bronwyn, it’s good to know that someone is paying attention to facts!
Seniors have understood where this was heading from day one. Did anyone think they traveled to Washington for publicity?
This bill will be passed in some form…it is merely a matter of how bad it gets through the rest of the process.
Susan Collins sold out on the stimulus package, now Snowe buys in on this bill.
Of course, she is now back to playing coy on the final bill…another trip to the White House for her!
Maybe the woman just needs a good meal, some protein to help with brain function.
Ever since I heard Nixon talking with Haldeman about Kaisers “plan” and see what the landscape looks like now…
“Having fun is half the the fun!”
Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!
I really think it’s funny how all the people who got us into this financial ruin all got voted back in and given over a trillion to waste. Why on earth would anyone think they will make a better choice for any of us in the second go round. No cost of living increases for SS, loss of benefits for medicare. But they should be doing good in that new car at our expense. Or not getting that loan that we gave so much money to bail out the financial system. And now you honestly think they will put your life at the top of the totem pole now?