The Administration has already missed many deadlines imposed in ObamaCare. Know that Obama’s own number crunchers have said that the bill will cost more than originally estimated to implement and will not decrease the deficit, this may be a good thing. When will there be a consensus for repeal?
Posts Tagged ‘health care reform’
Administration misses ObamaCare deadlines
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010Another health care broken promise
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010We know the health care bill will not reduce the deficit as President Obama claims. Here is yet another broken promise from President Obama on the health care law: you may not be able to keep the health plan that you currently enjoy. As it becomes clear that the bill will not accomplish what its sponsors wanted, shouldn’t there be consensus for repeal?
Deficit drives public policy
Monday, May 17th, 2010Here is yet another way the deficit is driving policy in Washington. I can guarantee you that the provision driving the paperwork avalanche was put in the health care law for one reason and one reason only: the Congressional “scoring” organizations – the government bodies that compute the cost and revenue raised by proposed legislation — were willing to score it as raising money because it supposedly tightens compliance and will capture revenue that is leaking out of the system. If you want to pass something in Washington, all you have to do is get it scored as raising money in a way that Congress can say is not a tax increase. It doesn’t matter whether the measure actually will raise the money; it doesn’t matter how unfair or unenforceable it is, or what effect it has on small business or the economy. In fact, we have no idea what the effect of this provision will be, except that it will hurt the economy, demoralize small business, and add to the perception that everyone in the Congress is crazy.
This is why I say that, increasingly, the debt is running national policy. Yet the Obama Administration is, every day, digging us into a deeper and deeper hole – to the detriment of its own practical interests and objectives. Why would people who want government to grow pursue policies which bankrupt the government? What do they think is going to happen? It is the triumph of ideology, inexperience, and incompetence over reality.”
“Doc Fix” wasn’t fixed
Thursday, May 6th, 2010The doctor pay issue is one reason why it was patently obvious the health care bill was not “deficit neutral.” The sponsors of the bill figured proposed Medicare cuts as “savings” but never counted likely extra Medicare expenses — the most prominent of which was this doctor pay issue — as costs. It would be like “balancing” your family budget by assuming you would eliminate expenditures that you intended to keep and ignoring extra expenditures you surely would make.
Promises Broken
Monday, April 26th, 2010When the controversial heath care bill was crammed through Congress and signed into law, the President made bold and sweeping promises about the benefits of the legislation. He declared the bill would lower health care costs for families and businesses. Now just weeks later, Congress is considering price controls on the industry because they realize all the new mandates placed on insurers will have the exact opposite impact.
Even Obama’s own number crunchers admit that this bill will increase health care costs.
Missourians Remain Opposed to Health Care Reform Legislation
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010American Freedom and Enterprise Foundation Online Town Hall Draws Hundreds Opposed to Government Takeover
For Immediate Release: March 24, 2010
(St. Louis) – Hundreds of Missourians joined Former Sen. Jim Talent and Heritage Foundation’s, Dr. Robert Moffit to register their questions and concerns with the health bill signed into law yesterday by the President.
American Freedom and Enterprise Foundation partnered with the Heritage Foundation to host an online town hall on health care to answer questions about both the legislative process and the short and long term impacts of the bill.
“The government is already borrowing at a rate that is unsustainable, to fund the obligations it has already undertaken let alone nearly $1 trillion in new spending included in this legislation. Anyone who believes that this bill will actually reduce the debt is not facing reality,” Talent said. “The true price tag of this legislation will be far greater than the current estimate and passing a big new program is not the ‘substantial fiscal adjustment’ we should be considering during this economic crisis.”
“The President has signed, and now we must grapple with a highly unpopular health bill. It includes new taxes and government spending, bunches of federal boards and bureaucracies, mandates and penalties and an entitlement expansion,” Moffit said. “We overwhelmingly heard today that the American people don’t support this bill and will look for opportunities to overturn the government intrusion into their health care.”
“More money and increased government regulation will not address the challenges facing our current health care system,” said Dr. Charles Willey, St. Louis physician. “As a doctor, I diagnose patients and understand our national health care system. This bill does not begin to address the distortions in health care markets and perverse economic incentives that drive costs up. Those solutions can only be found in the free market.”
Talent, Moffit and Willey as well as the hundreds of participants in the forum agree that Congress should repeal this unpopular legislation and start working on real reform that will actually achieve the goal of bending the cost curve down and making health insurance available to the millions of Americans who currently do not have access.
The American Freedom and Enterprise Foundation is a unique clearing house for ideas and discussion based on free market principles as solutions to public policy. U.S. Senator Jim Talent and Ambassador Ann Wagner serve as Honorary Co-Chairs of the American Freedom and Enterprise Foundation.
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Small business owner makes a case for AHP’s
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010Today we will get our first glimpse of the President’s latest health care proposal. President Obama would be wise to talk with the small business owner from Philadelphia who wrote the following Op-Ed: Health care, jobs are linked. He effectively builds the case for a health care proposal that Sen. Talent championed in the House and Senate: Association Health Plans (AHP’s). AHP’s would allow small businesses to pool together through national trade associations to offer insurance to their employees. This is a small fix that would go a long way toward covering the millions of uninsured and it would create certainty in the business community that could give business owners the confidence they need to hire again. AHP’s were filibustered in the Senate despite strong bipartisan support in both chambers by many of the same politicians still in office today.
Health Care Forum Footage – Remarks from Dr. Moffit
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010Dr. Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation refutes claims made by President Obama regarding health care legislation.
Union health care plans to be excluded from excise tax
Friday, January 15th, 2010The White House, Democratic Leaders and Union Leaders have officially reached a “compromise” on the health care legislation. The “Labor Loophole” will make high cost insurance plans negotiated through collective bargaining agreements exempt from the tax until 2018. This means union health care plans that cross the $24,000 threshold won’t subject to the excise tax, but everyone else’s will. Democrats in Congress branded it the “Cadillac tax,” but that distorts the reality of who it will impact. This isn’t a tax on the rich; it’s a tax on people with expensive health insurance plans including the middle class, the old, and the sick. A New York Post columnist called it “a middle class time-bomb.”
Remember, this excise tax was also a revenue generator for the bill. The 40 percent tax on health care premiums would offset the costs of other portions of the legislation. With this significant change, the score (or cost) of the bill will increase. We should see their analysis next week.
